The Stake Out

So my Friday afternoon at work was not too exciting for the most part. Transfered one patient from Fort Harrison to the BSCC retirement center. He was a nice old guy (90 years old) who had all the nurses fawning over him. Seriously, they loved him. Turns out he would bake pies for him as a thank you for taking care of him. After that we went back to the shop where I cooked up the steaks that one of my co-workers brought for us. After finishing said steaks we got a call from dispatch that basically runs down like this:

Friday, April 2nd

1843* - Dispatch calls us via telephone to ask us to respond to a 72 year old female schizophrenia patient who is off her meds.  They told us that they were going to try to convince the patient to come with us to St. Peter's on her own but chances were, that would wouldn't happen easily without a police escort. We were told to wait about 20 minutes before we arrived so that the local sheriff could get there first. Scene safety, it's a must!

1847 - We were called back from dispatch saying to go ahead and take off but to stage out at a different location and wait for the sheriff to call us in.

Around 1900 or so hours - Arrived at the staging area to wait for police. Shortly after the sheriff arrives and tells my partner and I to follow him.

1915 - Arrive on scene. We wait. My partner and I talk to each other for a while and randomly have conversations with the officers that are coming and going in and out of the house.

1925 - Montana Highway Patrol Arrives to help with patient.

1950 - Sheriffs inform us that they cannot find patient in her house and that previously during the day they couldn't find her because she ended up hiding in a bunch of boxes. Apparently this even has been going on all day... My partner suggests dispatching the local fire department to get their thermal imager.

2000 - Sheriff leaves to get his thermal imager and arrives roughly twenty minutes later. After searching they cannot find her.

2100 - We are cleared of the scene by the sheriff as the patient was picked up by a relative earlier that took her somewhere but was not telling officers where.

So yeah that was the last call I did for the night. It wasn't bad and we basically just sat in an ambulance and hung out but I was pretty excited/nervous because this was my first psych patient that needed a police escort. Afterwards I ended up clocking out and going home. Went to bed early because I have a big day of driving the firetruck to Butte. Hooray for driving.

Easter isn't going to be too eventful as I have to work until 0700 tomorrow and start working again at 1900. So yeah, so much for that holiday. I was really hoping for an Easter basket filled with Easter candy but I will probably just have to settle for Cadbury eggs. Ask anyone, they are like crack to me. Anyway, time to get ready for some driving, stay tuned for my adventure in driving the fire truck to Butte.

* - All times down in military time and are approximate.