EMT Paramedic Stories

At the time of this run, my wife and I were both employed as EMTs for the same company. We worked 24 hour shifts, and my shift always followed hers. This did not allow us much time to spend together, but it did eliminate the need for a babysitter for our infant daughter.

I was home asleep, and was do to report to work at 8am. It had been a long night with the baby, and since I was so tired, I overslept. I was awakened to a familiar voice on the scanner. It was my wife yelling on the radio, and all I heard was “Air ambulance is going down!” This immediately caught my attention, and I sprang from bed to hurry off to work.

While I was getting ready to leave, I kept hearing a lot of commotion outside. Since we lived only a few hundred feet from the interstate, it never really struck me as odd, until I went outside. As I looked toward the interstate, I could see lots of our emergency vehicles. I was still somewhat groggy, and it all seemed kind of surreal, but I soon figured out that the response I heard on the radio was actually in my back yard.

I made a quick phone call to get a sitter to my house in just a couple of minutes. As soon as the sitter arrived, I headed out to see what was going on at the scene. As I was arriving, my wife briefed me on what had happened.

There had been an auto accident, and one person was seriously injured. The crews had called an air ambulance helicopter to the scene to transport the victim to a distant hospital. While taking off, the helicopter struck the power lines near the roadside, and was sent upside down and heading into a nearby woods.

Most of the crews had already taken off walking to the crash site. Upon their arrival they reported that the crew was ok, but the patient had been killed. It was the first accident in this air ambulance companies 15 year history, and a very tragic day.

It must have just been bad karma, or just plain bad luck at that scene. As one of our ambulances got ready to leave, they discovered that their truck would not start. All of the rest of the crews loaded up into the other ambulance, and after only traveling about 100 feet, they hit a piece of debris in the road, and got a flat tire.

They day ended less dramatically. Everyone finally got where they needed to go, except the patient.

You know it is going to be a bad run, when dispatch tones you off and proceeds to call out a person’s initials, stating he is down again.

Ricky was a man about 40 years old. We went on him so many times, that as we would walk up to him, he would just look at us and say “It’s about a 5.” He was referring to a 0-10 scale that we used to rate pain severity.

It started one day when we were called for a man down in the middle of the street. When we arrived, we found this man, lying face down in the street. We quickly moved him to our truck and began to work on him. He was conscious and talking to us, but seemed very sleepy. He was complaining of chest pain, and when he described it, it did not sound like cardiac pain. However, we took all necessary precautions, and transported him to the hospital.

While at the hospital, he got into an argument with the nursing staff, and signed himself out. He left the hospital, even before we were done with our paperwork. We thought is was strange to see him on the patio of a house across from the hospital, but thought he probably knew them, and went to them for a ride.

Over the next 2 to 3 years, we would come to know Ricky very well. Ricky was a solitary man that lived alone in a very small little house that was more like a shed. His only known family was his brother, who lived across from the hospital, and Ricky liked to visit him often. That is where our problem came in.

Ricky would take a notion to see his brother, but since he lived about 4 miles away and had no transportation, he needed a ride. Ricky would walk to a public place, take off his glasses, and fall to the ground. Bystanders would see this happen and call 911. When one of our trucks went to the scene, we would find Ricky, pretending to have chest pain. He was getting good at his fictitious tale. Over the many times of calling us, he had learned just how to act, and what to complain of. It made our job a little tougher; because we could not prove that he was actually lying. So, we would have to take him to the hospital, where he would sign himself out, and then walk across to his brother’s house. He just needed us for a ride.

This happened nearly every day. It was to the point that even many of the locals would know him, and instead of calling 911, they would just call the station and let us know Ricky needed a ride again.

One day we caught a break. Ricky pulled his stunt in front of the wrong person. The local judge happen to be in the area, and witness Ricky place his glasses in a mailbox, then clean the snow off the ground and lie down. It took only a couple of days, and a mound of run sheets to get the judge to issue the order. We did not have to take him anymore, sick or not. Crying wolf had finally caught up with him.

That was the last we ever seen of Ricky. We heard from him one last time, as he sent us a letter from Michigan telling us that he was seeing us, and representing himself. We had a good laugh over it, and a few of us got together and wrote a letter to the local EMS station where Ricky was living.

The letter simply said.

Dear EMS

“We are sorry, but if Ricky ever has anything higher than a 5, he is probably really dying.”

P.S. “The EMS personnel of our station thank you, and wish you the best.”