Call for a Ride
I’m a nursing student who currently also works as a phone dispatcher for our local ambulance service. My brother called me last year from work to chat and sounded concerned about something.
We finally got down to it and he asked me a few questions about his wife, whom he had just spoken to on the phone. He said she was exhausted and disoriented in bed at 11:00 in the morning.
For context, she was normally up at 6:00 in the morning dealing with the kids. He also said that her tongue was apparently bleeding. Alarms were already going off in my head, but his next reveal was the most telling. He was hesitant and embarrassed to tell me that she had also wet the bed.
She was going to drive to the doctor (with the kids) or wait until the next day to visit the doctor. I told him she absolutely should not drive and should call an ambulance immediately, even if they request one without lights and sirens. I suspected a seizure.
He didn’t think it was a big deal but I insisted that seizures do not typically happen at random in adults. My brother left work immediately and headed for the hospital. En route to the hospital, she had another seizure in the back of the ambulance.
That afternoon, he called me back to say they found an inoperable brain tumor. She has since undergone radiation treatment and is doing well. So yeah. I took a 15-minute break at work, which turned into the most effective ambulance call I dispatched that day, from 1000 miles away.
A lot to handle in a day’s work! Story Credit: Reddit/always_broken