Oh, I'm sitting here on call and I just thought of an other gem ambo story for you guys.
Last weekend we had a really obnoxious call...a foreign-flagged cruise ship was at port and they called us cuz they had a heart attack patient on board (MI/myocardial infarction 3 days ago, currently stable). It was really early in the morning. When we tried to board the ship, the guys at the front were TOTAL DICKS. They wouldn't let us on! "Uhhh...you guys called us. We're the medics. We are here with the ambulance." We were in uniform, but I didn't grab my wallet as I ran out of the house on the way to the call. Not only that, but we're a volunteer service...they don't issue us IDs. Then the Cruise Ship Assholes started asking the uniformed police officer who was with us if he had any ID. Sheesh! He said, "I can assure you that these are not bad people. They are medics and they are here with the ambulance." FINALLY they let us on board.
By the time we got to the patient, one of the flight medics started being a real jerk, and I think he was new because I hadn't seen him before. We had to explain that our standing orders and protocols would not allow us to take the patient directly from the cruise ship to the medevac plane unless one of our providers saw the patient first. Our ambulance service operates under the medical license of our medical director, and if the dude croaked or decided to sue for some reason, it would be his medical license at stake.
A quick aside...the patient was totally stable and had a normal cardiac rhythm. He had a MI three days ago. Even if he was unstable, we only have a clinic and not a hospital (no cardiologist, no cath lab). They could have given him some thrombolyitics, but I'm not sure what else they could do for a heart attack patient other than medevac him to Anchorage (which takes at least 3 hours if the plane is already on the ground here and already fueled and if wx is good).
The flight paramedic...man, I wanted to smack him! He started kvetching about "commandeering our ambulance" and I about lost it. "Okay, STEP OFF, TWITCHY. Nobody is commandeering my ambulance. Why don't you hail a cab and take him to your plane? One of the doctors from the clinic will be here soon, and if they wanna risk their medical license then go ahead." Why you gotta be a dick, dude. Why.
Finally one of the asshole PAs from our clinic (god I hate those guys, they all think they're doctors) okayed the pt. OVER THE PHONE, and we took 'em to the airfield. Hey, if you wanna risk your rinky-dink license then go ahead, but I bet that our med.dir. is gonna have something to say to you about thaaat! Pt. still had his 12-lead stickers on, so we hooked him up and ran an EKG, totally normal sinus rhythm. He was a-ok. That's the other cool thing about our medical director, he teaches even the EMT-1s how to read EKGs. Not that I'm good at it or anything...
So yeah. I think that I need to get some caffeine derm patches to stick on while I'm on bullshit early-AM calls.
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Topic: two malingerers called for an ambulance in the same night (Read 7546 times)