EMT Paramedic Stories

I don’t remember much about how the day was going, mostly because this run kind of over shadowed every thing else. My partner and I were covering an area near Interstate 70 that had a small truck stop located at the nearest interchange.

My partner was a new EMT, and had not had many experiences yet. I think after this run, he quickly learned that there was not much glory, or modesty, in emergency medicine.

We got our dispatch to the truck stop and the report said there was a sick man in the restroom. Didn’t sound to serious, and really nothing out of the ordinary. If you are not in the medical field, you may not realize just how many people die or call for an ambulance from a bathroom. It just seems to be the place everyone runs to when they are feeling bad.

This run was different. As we arrived at the truck stop, one thing became very clear. Inside was someone that was very very sick. There was a trail of fecal matter leading from the back parking lot all the way to the front door and inside. Whoever or whatever was in there was surely not having a good day.

The truck stop had a restaurant built into it, but when we entered, we noticed it was empty. The smell of human feces filled the air and nobody was hungry anymore. We proceeded to the bathroom, and I can honestly say that it was one of the most shocking sites I had ever seen.

The bathroom was an area about 15×15 and the floor was literally completely covered in fecal matter. It seemed like about half an inch deep of brown smelly water, and we had to make our way through to the stall where the man sat.

I opened the door to the stall and found a very large man sitting there unconscious. He was breathing but did not respond to even painful stimuli. We quickly got him on our cot and to the ambulance, for more than one reason, where we began to work on him.

A couple of IVs and heart monitor. His vitals were not well and this man was in hypovolemic shock. Hypovolemia is a state of the body being depleted of fluid. Either blood or water and can be cause by various reason, even without actual fluid loss.

I started pouring IV fluid into the man and trying to warm him up. We were about 15 minutes from the hospital, but I was getting a lot of fluid in him in a short amount of time. After about 2 liters of Saline, he began to show some signs of life. He started to moan a little and even opened his eyes.

We were nearly at the hospital when the man said his first and only words to me. His words were, “I had a roast beef at the (gas) station.” I am leaving out the highly known name of the gas station, but this chain of station often has franchise restaurants built into it. Ahh, it was becoming clear now. This man may be suffering from some kind of food poisoning. If it was the case, it happened awful fast. The place he was referring to was only about 40 miles away. Either he slept a little since then, or this was some of the fastest acting food poisoning I had ever seen.

As we rolled up to the emergency room, I tried to wake the man to let him know we were at the hospital. The man looked at me, and just as suddenly as he woke, the man went into cardiac arrest. Resuscitation efforts were started immediately and we quickly got him inside.

The ER staff worked on the man for more than an hour. However, nothing helped this soul, and he was pronounced dead in the ER.

I’m not sure what happened to the place that served him the food. I did get confirmation from police that the food had been found to be tainted, but I never heard what happened as a result or how many people had gotten sick.

I can tell you one thing though. Ever since this run, I just do not have the stomach for roast beef and truck stops.

Way back in the dark ages, when I was only an EMT, my Paramedic partner and I were called to a house for someone having SOB. I remember that it took us a very long time to get there, and the house was a little tiny house in the middle of nowhere.

As we approached the house, the stench told us that we were not going to be eating lunch today. It was the stench of feces, and it was so strong, that we could literally smell it from about 20 feet outside the door.

We knocked on the door and a woman’s voice from inside told us to “Come in.” As the door opened, it was as if we had fallen into a sewage pit, and it really did take a second to gather our selves, and figure out how to breathe again.

Inside, we found a man and woman sitting in recliners. They were very old, and in obvious poor health. There was trash piled nearly to the ceiling in some places, and only small narrow paths to walk in. Remnants of air nebulizers, and medical devices were lying around, and these people obviously had a history of breathing trouble. The floors were wet, and everything had a sticky feel to it. It was hot and humid inside, and we could only guess at what was producing the moisture in the place.

While my partner was treating the old man for his breathing problems, I started to look around. I know some of you are now saying “Why!” and “Don’t do it!”, but you know as well as I do, that curiosity can’t be beat. I made my way through the kitchen, and down a narrow hallway. I knew I was getting close to the source of the smell, by the increasing number of roaches that were present. Once at the bathroom doorway, I say doorway because there was no door, I looked inside, and was astonished. There was no toilet in the bathroom. It was broken off at the floor, and the hole that was left had long since filled up. They then resorted to using the bath tub. That too was full, and overflowing onto the floor. It was absolutely horrid.

What makes people live like that? I can tell you. It is a series of events that lead to it. The old couple probably had nobody to help them, and no way to pay their bills. They probably had no water in the house, and when the toilet broke, their physical and financial state probably prevented them from being able to fix it. What would you do? Probably make it outside, until it was cold, then use the tub, like they did.

It had probably been a year or so, since they had a bath. The ride into the hospital was another story, but let me tell you this. I was never so glad to be just an EMT. That meant I got to ride up front with the windows down, while my partner had to suffer the smell in the back.