We’ve Got An Emergency
I work as an EMT for a private company, so we mostly deal with nursing homes and the elderly. One day when I was about 6-8 months in, I got assigned a partner who was in my orientation class.
He was a little older than me at the time, like the mid-20s, but he seemed a little childish. “Maybe he’s just sheltered,” I think to myself.
I was proven so, so wrong.
We got a patient I’ve had a few times before. She was a sweet, little old lady living at an assisted living center. The call was for pneumonia.
She’s prone to this stuff so it wasn’t a huge deal, slap her on oxygen and keep her sitting up until we get to the hospital.
The first red flag though, was that this kid I was working with didn’t know anything.
He didn’t know how to take blood pressure. He couldn’t find the medical history or medication on the paperwork, which is clearly labeled. He didn’t even push the stretcher, he just walked next to it with a hand on it.
When I asked him about all that, he said “My partners usually do that for me.” So, I put her in an oxygen mask and sat her all the way up, mildly agitated.
I tell myself it’s just one shift with this kid. He’s in the back with her and I tell him to just switch the oxygen from the bag to the main tank because, with the amount of oxygen we’re giving her, the bag will run out before we hit the hospital.
It’s about a 25-minute drive. When we pull up to the hospital and I open the back doors, I’m shook.
She was pale, I can literally see her muscles moving as she’s struggling to breathe. And this kid was sitting behind her with a clueless half-smile on his face.
He looks at me and says, “The main tank is broken, so I left her on the bag.” This woman, who needs oxygen even without pneumonia, was barely breathing for at LEAST 15 minutes.
And this idiot didn’t even check. We take her into the hospital. I ask him to find an oxygen tank while explaining to this woman’s daughter what happened.
He says he doesn’t know where to look. I found it and told him to talk to the daughter. When it’s all said and done, I check to see what’s “broken” on the tank.
Guess what? He didn’t turn on the tank.