Great Falls Hoooooooo!

Okay so yesterday was a long day at work. I worked Sunday night 1900 to Monday morning 0700 which luckily in that time frame there were no calls. My partner and I just sat at the shop and watched Family Guy. The next morning after leaving work I had class from 0900 to 1200 then I was to be back at work at 1300. I started in on the weekly checklist for our 911 rig when one of my supervisors Bob told me to stop what I was doing and join him on the trip to Great Falls to drop off a patient who had hip surgery. I didn't know where the place was so Bob made me drive. So I would then remember where we went. There was a lot of road construction through the canyon as well. But for those of you who haven't been to Great Falls, it's a wee bit confusing to get places at first. Especially considering that one of the main roads had road construction happening and with the added benefit of detours the city was even more confusing. But the trip wasn't bad. It was windy and rainy in the canyon but after that it was sunny. The most amazing thing though was that everything is starting to turn green. Spring is here! Well, it's on its way! So that is a plus.

My partner/boss Bob and I discussed how getting emotionally attached to your patients can be both good and bad. It's good in that if you feel emotional towards the patient you will want to help them, well if you feel for the patient. The bad being that if you get too attached to the patient and it doesn't go the way you want it to the emotions could end up eating at you. The I guess proposed solution to such things is to keep at a distance. Bob told me that it comes with time and losing patients. I don't like the latter part of that but I guess it is the business we are in. Basically the way I see it, the more I study and learn the less likely that will happen, even though I know that it's just a matter of time before I experience my first real loss EMT wise.

Now that the mood is set to something bordering depressing it's time to be upbeat. Tomorrow night after my mandatory work meeting I will be going up to Station One to help fill eggs full of Easter candy for the egg hunt  we are putting on this weekend. So that will be fun. But yeah other than that, it's not been too busy with work. and school. It's weird working 40 hours a week and going to school for 19 credits. It seems like a lot and I feel busy but it doesn't feel overwhelming. So that's a plus. Anyway it's time I be off. Stay tuned!

Classes, EMT, Firefighting etc!

So it has been a really busy couple of weeks these past few weeks. It's only now that it's Spring Break that I have time to write this right now. There has been a lot going between the last time I wrote on here and now. Maybe I should start writing more frequently so that I don't have a lot to write down. Well here it goes.

Classes
So the first half of the semester has wound down which means that we had finals and a change into new classes. The semester wound down pretty smoothly with A's in Haz-mat, Wildland Firefighting, Radio Communication, and Emergency Apparatus Maintenance. I am now Haz-mat certified in both the Operations and Awareness Levels so I know enough to help out but not obligate myself into going into the scary dangerous green gases.

We started new classes last week. Fire Strategies and Tactics and Apparatus Driving classes. I'm pretty excited for both of those because we have less class time and more hands on time. Class time is needed mind you but who doesn't love skipping the bookwork and getting dirty.

So Tactics was off to a fast start with our first two quizzes handed out within the first two classes. Nothing exciting as we have to watch movies and read the chapters on it.  But we're off to a good start. Turns out this class will be more of a hands on class and we will hit on everything we did first semester but with the added bonus of learning tactics that affect the overall strategies of the incidents.

Driving class is going well too. This past weekend we did a driving competency course. We had to drive straight through cones and reverse. I managed to hit 8 out of 11 cones on my first run but I was going at 25mph rather than inching along like most folk. But the rest of the test went well. A week from Saturday we will start our driving around town.

The EMT Job


So these past few weeks have been complete chaos. Transfers aside I've had a lot of 911 calls. Usually on the nights I have to spend the night. It's nice because they had beds there and we get to sleep. The only thing is if we get a 911 call in the middle of the night we have to respond. Well conveniently every time I spend the night we seem busy as hell. So here is the break down of the past three calls I've had as they are ones I remember in detail.

Friday March 19th


Friday was a busy night. My first call was a call to Big Sky Community Center for a woman complaining of shortness of breath. It was a pretty straight forward call. We did vitals and helped her onto the cot and drove her to the hospital. About 10:30pm we received a call from the hospital to return the woman back to the retirement center. Turns out she had fluid on the lungs. Well anyway my partner Anna and I decided to hit the hay after getting the 911 rig ready to go. Everything was going along just fine until 2:30am. We got paged out to Boulder for a woman complaining of abdominal pain. Boulder has its own ambulance service but they couldn't muster up a second person to go so we were called out.

We were called by our boss to wait for her to get to the shop before we could leave. When she got there we headed off. I do enjoy driving code 3 to incidents but at 2:30am I prefer sleep. So anyway I drove 100mph the whole time. Scary but the woman was complaining of 7 out of 10 abdominal pain, plus my boss was harassing me about going slow. Well we get there and her pain went from 7 to 9 out of 10. We got her in the ambulance and her husband wanted to come so he rode in the front with me. That is where the night took a turn for the crazy. The patient ended up having kidney stones but decided to stop taking her meds about 2 months ago. She had so many piercings setting off a metal detector would be a common occurrence but she wouldn't let us put an IV in because she was afraid of needles...

My experience up front was just as exciting. The husband was trying to fidget with the lights and buttons and I had to tell him to knock it off. He explained that he just wanted me to not be a distracted driver and he wanted to get to the hospital safely. Then he proceeded to pull out a portable dvd player. After that he started talking to me about nano technology and how DNA from sharks are curing blindness. Then he started explaining to me how the videogame series, Resident Evil was a cover up by the U.S. government for a cure for AIDS gone to far. I had to shake my head at that. Then he put his iPod on and started singing. We got her to the hospital and everything was fine. We filled out paperwork and returned to the shop. We got back into bed around 5:30am so I was able to get another hour of sleep before we had to get up.

Monday March 22nd


Monday night we had two legitimate 911 calls. First was a gentleman with COPD and a broken arm. He fell trying to fix his clock. We got there and helped him with his breathing treatment then rushed him off to the hospital. We got back to the shop around 12:30am we went to sleep about 1:00am or so then we got a call at 2:30am again for a gentleman who was bleeding profusely into his catheter. When we got there it was basically all blood. His blood pressure was 86/55 so yeah he wasn't doing good. It was one of those load and go situations. I again drove because my partner Ryan has all his endorsements so his scope of practice is a little more advanced than mine. We got the gentleman to the hospital after his nurse told us that this had been going on for four days. Awesome right? Well we got called back at 6:30am to return him to the retirement center so he wasn't as bad as we thought. Which is good.

But yeah that is about it for calls. We took a class this week on our monitoring endorsement. Nothing exciting. I can now test blood glucose, use a pulse oximeter, and put on a 3-lead heart monitor. We're going to do the other endorsements all together. IV monitoring, IV placement, medications and a few others. So I'm one step closer to being an aggressive EMT-B. I think that is what they are called.

Firefighting


The volunteer gig hasn't been to exciting, we had training the other night. Wildland this time. We learned about how these firefighters in South Dakota almost died because they didn't watch out for any of the watch out situations you're supposed to. 11 out of 15 watch out situations were violated. Then we practiced with fire shelters. We tried it without wind then we got the ventilation fan and did it with wind. That was fun. I just have one more meeting I need to go to before I am voted in as a full member.



The Wrap-Up


So yeah that is about it. Even on spring break I'm taking classes and am ridiculously busy. But that is okay because I don't mind the work and helping people is an awesome feeling. I know I've been saying this but I will try to update this more. Stay tuned!

Again I haven't forgotten about the blog.

I haven't forgotten about the blog I promise I have a lot that I will fill everyone in on this Sunday. So Stay tuned!

Haz-Mat Hands On, Volunteering, EMTing, etc.

So as most can see it has been a while since I have updated my blog. Honestly due to lack of content. It's hard to make school work and class time sound exciting. Well that changed yesterday when we started doing hands on Haz-Mat training.

 For our Fire Fighter I Certification we have to demonstrate the abilities to establish a haz-mat hot zone, and create a decon area while being able to practice proper decon techniques. It was nice to get back in my turn outs and get to hands on stuff again. It's weird, I was ready at the end of last semester to get done with the evolutions but after 8 weeks of class room boringness I found I missed being in my gear. A good sign perhaps. Anyway, our first tactic was to spot the hazardous material, figure out what it was, then establish a perimeter for the hot zone. We used a gas meter to monitor the air for the mininum required 19.5% oxygen requirement. We also monitored for CO, LEL and other gases. Afterwards we went through decon techniques. Monday we learn how to take off our gear while still being on air. I promise to get pictures of that because it might be hilarious. Here are a few pictures.

Stewart, Wunderlich (Pronounced Wonderlick, yeah, that's his real name), and I practicing Decon techniques.

Me rocking the gas meter. Apparently there is a class I can do online to get certified in using that. I think I'm going to go for it. 

Getting decontaminated or practicing for Dance of the Sugar-Plum Firemen, I'm not telling.

So yeah, that's been it for classes for the most part. We finished the ambulance and we have our class finals this week. Three finals this week. Friday we start new classes. One class is Fire Tactics and Operations so we will be doing more hands on stuff so expect more writings and pictures for that. Now on to volunteering.

So Wednesday was my first meeting with the Montana City Volunteer Fire Department. It was a business meeting where I was able to introduce myself and what not. Not ten minutes into the meeting were people joking with me and carrying on so I think I am going to fit in really well. I was assigned a mentor who is basically just around to show me how MCVFD does it. The funny thing is, is that the guy assigned to me for mentoring is my roommate's boss. So we joked around about all the expensive stuff my roommate has broken and got along awesomely. I stayed after the meeting to help with the monthly checklist on Engine One.  Engine one is pretty cool but they just bought a new engine. Engine Two as it's called is dare I say it, a very sexy looking fire truck. I would love to roll to fires in that. It is the picture to our left here.  But yeah, I overheard the president of the business meetings and the fire chief talking and basically I still have to go through the hoops of  applying but they said it was a no-brainer on hiring us on. Now when I say being hired on I mean being voted into the organization but they call it hiring us on because for Wildland work we'll actually get paid if we are called by DNRC. So that is pretty cool.

 I am planning on attending the Wildland Intermediate class at the end of this month which I am pretty excited for. I will then be one step closer to my Wildland Firefighter I certification. It's backwards in Wildland fire compared to structure fire in that Wildland Firefighter I is the best where as in structure fires Firefighter II is the highest. 

My EMT job is going well for the most part. I have had a few problematic patients. One that was extremely heavy but decided he wanted to walk himself. He was starting to collapse as he was going up the stairs but I swooped in and managed to catch him. Good thing I work out because the 260lbs he weighed was a lot to shoulder. The next patient we had that same night kept trying to rip his I.V. out of his arm and touch my partner's private areas, so I had her drive and I dealt with the patient. He did not attempt to go for my privates. 

Scheduling has been kind of off as there are a bunch of us new folk. But it seems as if I will be partnered a lot with this girl named Anna. She seems nice. They like to have a guy/girl partnership because there are some patients that do better with males vs. females and vice versa. I did my first overnight shift though last night. It was good. I worked that with Mike, a paramedic. He's the one that is going to help me with my endorsements. We were on call at a local hockey game. One of the perks of the job is free hockey games, plus the folks at the concession stands give us free food and drinks. Afterwards we went back to the shop and hung out. the nice thing about an overnight shift is that we get to sleep. The bad thing about an overnight shift is that the beds are less comfortable than cots and sleeping is hard to do. The shop dog stays there too and decided that at 4am I was the best person to play ball with. He was mistaken. I work again tomorrow at 7am to 7pm. Long shifts but it pays the bills. 

Other than that not much has really gone on. I'm discovering that being busy makes time go by rather quickly as this past week really didn't exist, but the days are getting longer and the weather is warming up so things are looking up. I'll try to update about finals and such here this next weekend. Stay tuned!

Refreshers and Fire Positions

So I'm tired. This is the third weekend I have had of schooling. But that's what happens I guess. This weekend at my job I had my 24 hour EMT refresher course. We went over a lot and covered a lot. The first night was pretty rocky because my boss was distracted but we learned how to spike bags, and intubate patients. So the ALS assist class turned into an ALS class. I still don't have that endorsement. Speaking of which I'm learning my monitoring endorsement. That consists of being able to use an oximeter which measures SpO2% or hemoglobin saturation. Only problem is that it doesn't distinguish what's saturating the blood. This means Carbon monoxide could throw off the readings. We will also be proficient in blood glucose readings and 3-lead heart monitor reading. Haven't done much reading into those yet but when I do I should be able to elaborate more.

Patient run wise this past week has been kind of intense. Apparently I get all the psyche patients. I can't have my trauma shears, pocket knife, forceps or anything in with me. However my partner decided to let one guy have his metal cane with him. I thought to myself, oh good, if he wanted to he could just beat me to death with that thing. I have to do patient care because girls aren't allowed to be with guy psyche patients. I had two of them. Then I had to do a Billings/Helena rendezvous in Bozeman. That wasn't bad.  A lot of driving. Other than that there isn't much going on, I have my EMT outfit and I will post one of those pictures here soon.

School is plugging along. Quizzes and doing fire/haz-mat scenarios with matchbox cars. That is pretty fun. I miss playing with toy cars sometimes. We checked the lighting systems and electrical systems on the fire truck and added brand new oil.

So last Tuesday I submitted my application to join the Montana City Volunteer Fire Department. The president of the meetings told me that no matter how much he tried he couldn't make them say no and I am now a volunteer firefighter. Last time I joined a department I had no idea what was to be expected of me and it ended shortly. But with more training, being in better shape and what not I am more prepared for what is to come. So yeah. I am a volunteer firefighter now. They have an average amount of calls and train a lot. So with the emt job and this my resume will be a little less empty and show more experience to back up the training I've received. Speaking of training I am now a fully certified Wildland firefighter II. I mean basically I can dig on a hand crew but it's another certification!

Other than that, not much is going on fire wise. It's snowy as heck and there haven't been a lot of fires. Stay tuned for more exciting events as they unfold!

Running Around Madness

Well hello everyone, it has been a long time since I have been able to update this. I have been really busy as of late. Here's the short version. School is busy, we are on 20 days of straight class, school was falling apart, and I recently joined an ambulance service. Now here's the long:

School

School has been good so far. Hazardous Materials has been intense. We have had a lot of stuff thrown at us in a short amount of time. We've had three quizzes in about two weeks and gone through 400 pages of material in 4 weeks. Doesn't seem that fast but with some stuff that could kill you super quick like you kind of want to take your time. In Emergency Apparatus Maintenance we've been greasing u-joints and what not, We cleaned the batteries and refilled them. Once we plugged those back in we hooked up the exhaust to fan system... then... we started checking out the air tanks for moisture. It was good up until the last one leaked all over me. But that is okay.


So with the retirement of our department head there has been a lack of leadership in our program. Instructors tell us to show up for classes then don't show up themselves. It's ridiculous. Instructors tell us to wear uniforms but wear jeans because they are in charge. Yeah, they are, but in a paramilitary structure such as the fire profession is, leading by example is key. Today though one of the instructors hit each of the points we were contesting, each of the problems we had if you will, and made a point to fix each one. It was good. That is about it on the school area of my life. 


Job

So I recently got a job with Eagle Ambulance out of Montana City. Ask around Helena and you'll realize that Eagle isn't well liked. Why, because the last person that was in charge ran it into the ground and burned a lot of bridges. The new lady who is in charge is trying to get us back up to being a respected ambulance service. So far on my first real day of work I had a trauma call. Lady with a possible hip fracture. I got there after being told to take a deep breath and busted out some vitals. I held c-spine and helped backboard her. We got her to the hospital. She was talkative and as cheesy as it is to say, She probably won't remember me but I will probably think about her from time to time my whole life.

We also have had a few hospital transfers. For instance we had two between here and Missoula yesterday. We also got to standby at a hockey game. It was nice to watch the game for free. The Bozeman Icedogs played the Helena Big Horns... I was torn as I am from Bozeman. But the Big Horns won 7-3.

So yeah the EMT job is pretty good. It doesn't pay well, but having a job where I feel like I accomplish something and I help people is worth it. Once I get my endorsements I will be paid more.

Conclusion


So yeah. That is about it in a nutshell. Having a full time job and going to school full time doesn't afford me much in terms of free time. At least not for another weekend or two. After that I will be able to recharge my batteries. But until then I promise to get more on this posting deal. Stay tuned!

Not Forgotten!

I haven't forgotten about this blog, I'm on day 8 of 20 of straight class here. I will write up one of these days my experiences for the last few weeks in the fire fighting and my new EMT job. Go Saints!