So far I haven't had a patient die en-route. Today, I had to change this to not having a patient die in the aircraft.
I've had, including today's patient, three people start to code in flight. So far, my med crews have been awesome and kept it from continuing to finality.
Today we did everything we could, I even got Albuquerque center to rescind a hold clearance and give me a turn inside the gate for an approach at Albuquerque to save something like 15 minutes.
But, as it would happen, halfway to the hospital on I-25, they coded. It wasn't a surprise, but still, when you've been working on someone for the better part of 6 hours, and to be just 10 minutes from the receiving facility, it's rough.
I don't feel guilty though, and my crew shouldn't either: as long as we've done our jobs and can look back and say "I did my best", then that's all we can do. We're not God, and the human body has a finite level of entropy before failure is immanent and permanent.
So, my record still stands, 68 and 0. But I can't help but wonder how much longer I'll be able to hold that 0.
Had to drive from Kayenta to Alamosa yesterday. Normally this is an easy drive, albeit six hours, but the views (see pic above, from when it isn't snowing) and the chance to get off the res generally make it worth while. But not this time.
It started out easy enough; even though it was snowing, the roads were clear and there was no traffic. And it stayed this way till just before Cortez, CO. No big deal, I had made good time and could afford the delay I was now dealing with as I waited with about thirty of my closest friends while a wreck was cleared ahead. After that, all went well. Until I hit Wolf Creek Pass.
Wolf Creek Pass is about a thirty mile stretch of road winding up through the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. It is significantly steep on both sides, and crests about midway at something like 10,900 feet (You gain about 5000 feet coming from Pagosa Springs, about 4000 feet coming from Alamosa). When it gets bad, they close the pass. But, the pass was open, so I figured it wouldn't be a problem.
That is until I hit the first hill. I was in the VW, and for whatever reason, it doesn't get crap for traction on the front wheels (the drive wheels) when they hit ice. So they started to spin. That's when the genius traction control came on and slowed the wheels down to stop them from spinning. This in turn slowed the car down. Which caused me to push the gas pedal further. It became a circular argument in short order. I turned the traction control off, but by then I was only doing about 5 miles an hour and slowing. So I pulled over, it was time to chain up.
Finally thirty-five irritating minutes later, I had the chains on (well, technically cables), and started up the hill. I waited until I hit the bottom of the other side before taking them off.
(Just past WCP, not too long after taking the chains off)
I'm hoping that in 4 days the road will clear enough so I can get home without having to use chains. Also, from now on, if it's supposed to snow, I think I'll take my Yaris, since it gets far better traction in the ice than Stacey's fancy pants VW does.
What the hell is wrong with the wildlife around here?
So far I've killed three mice, about 8 birds, and this morning I killed my second rabbit.
The rabbits here have a nasty habit or lining right up with your wheel. Personally, I'm not going to swerve to miss a small, apparently retarded mammal, so lined up with my wheel is where they stay till I basically straight up murder there asses. Twice (cause I have two wheels on each side). On the plus side, It does make for tenderized road kill, and I' sure the dogs appreciate that, till they get hit in the middle of eating it.
The birds were a real surprise, seeing that I never hit one till I moved here. Now, seven months later, I'm average a little better than a bird a month. And it's not like they can't get out of the way - they decide they are going to out run me instead of flying to the side or up. While I'm doing 70mph. In a straight line. I'd like to say it's only sparrows that I'm removing from the gene pool, but it's not - I've tagged ravens and doves as well, and the other day damn near got a turkey vulture.
Someone asked me the other day if I felt bad for my road kills. The answer is not really, I just kinda look at my self as natural selection at work - some thing has to remove the lesser examples, and it might as well be me, or more specifically my Yaris.
I contributed this to my no longer living at home with those little disease factories I call my children. Before I left home for Utah (July 4th),I would get something just about every two weeks. It was such a regular event, getting sick, that you could damn near set your clock to it. Since I left home last July, I hadn't had even so much as a sniffle.
Then the family moved up, my oldest starting attending the CDD (Center for Disease Distribution, aka school)and I started spending time at home. And now, I have a cold.
The worst part is that it's not so bad that I can justify to myself calling in sick, since I can still function just fine. But it's damned irritating all the same. I've sneezed more in the last three days then I have in probably the last year, maybe two.
But at least it's progressing: Last night was the start of the lung-butter induced coughing, so you know, there's that to look forward to.
Tonight marks the most...interesting...night I've had so far. Granted, I've had two patients start to code in flight in the last three weeks, but this was a bit different.
It started out as a simple patient transport from Chinle to PHX, nothing special, just there with a patient and empty back. Weather was good, no forecast turbulence, didn't even have to rush since the patient was originating from a facility about 40 minutes away. I was already looking ahead to drinking coffee and watching the big ass TV in the pilot lounge.
My first indication that something was amiss should have been the way the patient smelled. it's an uncomfortable fact of life, but many times our patients have various unpleasant odors about them. While some can't help it (cause they're completely unconscious), I swear some create a stank just out of indignation. (I'll let your imagination figure out how they make their own stink.) But, like I said, this isn't an abnormal thing, so I passed it off as just another part of the job, though this odor was admittedly a bit different from any other patient.
Takeoff was normal, climb out was fairly normal, till we were maybe 10 minutes in. The medical team alerted me that there were some test results they didn't like, and therefore I needed to keep the cabin altitude as low as possible, preferably as close to the altitude at Phoenix as I could. This was a bit unexpected, but not a big deal, just requested a lower altitude and reset the pressurization controller. So far, so good.
Then it gets weird: I look back to see one of the medics grabbing the patients arm, which had been heading for the emergency exit, the other prepping a push (IV medication with a saline "push" to get the med's through the IV tubing and into the patient). Seeing as it looked like the patient was getting combative, I figured they were getting ready to knock his ass out. Then I saw something I had only see once before.
Both medics (well, the medic and the flight nurse) suddenly get up and start hovering over the patient, doing God-knows-what-to-him. At one point I see the flight medic with a "convenience bag" (aka barf-bag), holding it against the patients mouth and ordering "SPIT! SPIT!" I thought "WTF is going on back there?" That's about the time my medical team starting asking where we were. When I told them "over Winslow" they directed me to divert to Flagstaff. Whatever was going on back there was getting intense, as I have never had to divert mid-flight due to patient condition.
Ten minutes later we were on the ground in Flagstaff, with an ambulance waiting and the ER briefed on what was about to hit them (thank goodness for the sat-phone, when the damn thing works). After off loading the patient, (smell and all) with a warning from the medic about possible urine exposure, I was notified that we were on standby with a possible flight to PHX, as they (Flagstaff) weren't equipped for the neurological diagnosis the patient had.
So, I grabbed the crew van and went to pick up my crew. After meeting them at the hospital, they told me were were waiting while the hospital staff re-diagnosed the patient. Off to kill time we went, all the way to IHOP (all you can eat pancakes, F yeah!). And here's where the reason for the diversion gets clear, and it gets a little gross.
Once in the hospital, they started cleaning up the patient and making sure he was stable. Apparently, while he was being combative in flight, he started seizing. Repeatedly. The medics requested the diversion to get him on the ground and into a facility to stabilize him and find the reason for the seizures.
At the hospital, they unwrapped the patient from the life blanket, and that's when they found a surprise no one had been told about: possible gangrene in one leg. So bad in fact, that when they unwrapped it, several people started gagging from the smell, my flight medic included (my flight nurse did the responsible thing, and made fun of the medic for it). As it turns out, the people at Flagstaff re-diagnosed the patient using this previously unreported malady , and determined continued transport to PHX was not required, since it wasn't a neurological issue after all.
So I missed out another thirty minutes of flight time, but hey, on the plus side, IHOP has all you can eat pancakes for like five bucks. And the patient lived, which puts me at 58 and 0. Oh, and now I know what leg-cheese smells like.
Well, some of it lives up to what I thought it would be: 8 Mormon churches in town, no liquor sold in town, three-two beer outside the town limits, most everything closed on Sundays, etc.
But what I didn't see coming was the prevalent "be and let be" attitude. Never stepping foot into Utah for more than a couple days on a layover prior to this, I was expecting the stereotype that had been built up by those around me, as well as my own misconceptions. But I wasn't shunned, wasn't hounded by missionaries; I've actually been harassed far more in Kayenta by both Baptist and Mormon missionaries than I ever have in Blanding.
Don't get me wrong, there are places where the stereotypes exist, with polygamy and conservative dress and what not, but that is by far the minority.
And while Utah does has some straight up retarded liquor laws and what basically amounts to a Mormon puppet government up in Salt Lake, they are making steps to join the 20th century (though I wouldn't hold out hope for Utah joining the 21st century for some time). Case in point: Just last year they finally made it legal to brew your own beer and wine, not that the lack of legality stopped people from doing it.
Now if we could just work on some common sense items, like putting people who aren't teetotalers in the Dept. of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
On the flight home from Phoenix tonight my mind wandered to how I've been damned lucky and how much better things are this year, even though we're only seven days in.
Last year was the worst year of my life so far. Well to be fair it was the the last half of the preceding year (2008) and first half of this year that contributed to the shit stew that was simmering into my situation.
It started when my employer (at that time I think we were Sentient) had basically started pissing away any saving graces we may have had, and we started losing several clients as well as their aircraft with no new ones coming in. By October, we went through the third name change in twice as many months, and the second round of layoffs had just happened. We all knew what was coming, and from then on every time the phone rang, I would feel like I was playing Russian roulette when I answered it.
Then, the weekend before Thanksgiving, I was notified I'd be laid off, effective December 3rd (just in time for Christmas!). My first layoff. My Chief Pilot mentioned that he was sweating too, and not looking forward to his fourth brush with govm't cheese.
Honestly, when it happened, things got better for a while: I wasn't worried about possibly being laid off at any second, I already was. It was the best I felt in months. After all, I shouldn't be unemployed for too long, right? I was above most minimums for hiring, had a pretty good resume. So I sent out some resumes. And that's about the time the economy shit the bed.
Fast forward seven months. I've sent out over two-hundred resumes. If the economy shit the bed in January, it was now going all 2-girls-1-cup with it. Unemployment is running out. While I managed to finish school and graduate (with honors some how) with my BS, my student loans that were deferred while I was in school were about to come due. Just getting up in the morning and dealing with life was a bitch, while having a drink was getting easier and easier. That's about the time I got the call.
Eagle Air Med, one of only two companies that had responded to me (the other was General Dyanmics, and that was to say no), and the only company to grant me an interview, called to ask me if I could start, and so it was on July 5th that this period in my life finally came to a close.
But it's not like things just slowed their descent into a downward spiral, or that they just stopped sucking. Things got way better. My salary has doubled for the second time in three years, the benefits are great. The people I work with were all awesome. The aircraft are great. It's like losing your life savings on a bad investment, then just before you become homeless winning the lottery.
It's been a bit surreal too, as until about six months ago I never thought I'd be working in the air ambulance industry, be damned happy flying a Kingair C90 (especially after flying a 200), enjoy living in Utah (and the Rez in general), or own as house.
TL;DR: I've been damned lucky, and I know it.
(P.S. - The ass hats that ran Spirit/Sentient/JetDirect into the ground are still ruining peoples lives, but now under the name of Wayfarer Aviation. Check out jetdirectowesmemoney.com for rants and lulz.)
Back when I was regularly on Myspace, over a year ago, one of the things I enjoyed was posting stories of random crap. Since then I haven't really had an outlet for numerous rants, raves, and stories.
And now I find myself with a bit of time on my hands, sometimes upwards of twelve hours, trying to keep myself entertained. After seeing a few friends blogs online, I thought, "what the hell, just do it. It'll help kill like ten minutes or whatever."
So here this is, a new blog, a new place for irrational thoughts, disjointed conversations, and random bad grammar. Just in case you give a damn, I'll try to post at least once a week, with no goals of continuity, just whatever I happen to feel like forcing on the masses, or at least tricking a few people into reading.
I'm cynical as hell and like to think of myself as well adjusted. And while euphemisms are all good and well, sometimes you just have to call a turd a turd, no matter how polished it is.
