Friday, May 29, 2009

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Cart Boy.

This is the original Trailer Park Boys short film from 1995. Less facial hair, and Julian is Jason, but it's the same guys:



-AM

Monday, May 18, 2009

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Crash Course.

Things had been fairly slow over the last 2 nights until about 2:30 on Saturday morning, when our radio chirped up dispatching us to a motor vehicle accident.

"Patient's head is pinned beneath the vehicle."

Trust me, whatever you're thinking right now is exactly what I was thinking when I heard it. I was expecting another fender bender until then. We arrived on the type of scene that I had been waiting for. As students, the type of scene we dream about. It was a rural road, almost in the middle of nowhere. No street lights, so the the only illumination when we arrived were the fire truck spotlights aimed at the car and the flashing lights from every other vehicle. I could hardly hear anything over the engines and the spot lights were blinding.

The first thing I noticed is that there was no car on the road. Everyone seemed to be peering over the guardrail down a steep embankment at the edge of the forest. As I walked over I couldn't help but watch the lights flash by against the trees. All I could see was white, red, white, red, etc. moving from right to left, with my shadow jumping from side to side.

I looked over the side to see the bottom of a car facing back up at the road. The top had been almost totally flattened and the car was resting against a tree on an angle with the passenger windows flat on the ground. The passenger's head was sort of outside the car pinned under the beam between the front and read windows (the "B" post), drifting in and out of consciousness. Alive, though.

A closer ambulance had taken over there, and we let the firefighters do their thing. They began cutting, so we tracked down the driver. Amazingly, he had just a small cut on his head. He had left the vehicle himself and found help. He knew he was in big trouble, and kept asking about his friend. Those are hard questions to answer. When you know he is trapped beneath a car, struggling to breathe. Just tell him "I don't know, someone else is working on it". Not the most reassuring words, but what else can you say without scaring him even more, or lying and saying he's doing just fine? One thing about this job is that you have to choose your words very carefully.

**********************

Shortly after we cleared from that call, another accident.

Downtown, a lady had come down the hill and t-boned a car full of teens. The side of their car was punched in a good 6 inches, but it was the the lady in her SUV that was of concern. She was quite scared an anxious, crying an complaining of pain in her neck. My preceptor held her head steady while I looked her over. She'd occasionally tell me she couldn't feel her hands, arms, or whatever, and then change her mind. She was just scared but we took all precautions.

The plan was to lift her up to get the edge of the spine board underneath and then spin her onto her back. I was at the driver's side door, with a firefighter in the passenger seat. We had one of the belts from out board to slide under her thighs and buttocks to lift her up. Now, this lady was not exactly tiny. Quite the opposite. As I wrapped the belt around my wrist to get a good grip, I heard one of the firemen behind me say to his partner, "I don't think he's strong enough". I turned around and looked him in the eye (he realized I'd heard him) as we counted to three and lifted her straight off her seat as they slid the board under her. He didn't say a word to me afterward.

I had a difficult time accepting how much control I have at a scene. With an injured patient, police and firefighters will look to me for instructions. My preceptor jokingly told me that the firefighters will do anything the attending medic says: "Scratch your back, rub your shoulders, massage your scalp...", okay I get the idea. It's a crash lesson in assertiveness that's hard to learn when you're not sure if you're even doing things right. A medic I was with the other day sent me in first to a chest pain call and as he entered, sat in the largest chair he could find in the lady's living room, legs crossed, arms on the arm rests, looking like a king on his throne and just watched me. I'm glad he did. It's the best way to learn. I don't even ask questions on a call anymore because I know exactly what they'll say: "What do you think?". I know they won't let me kill anyone. I just do what I've learned.

I enjoy being the one others look to on these calls, when I know what to do. I'll have to avoid power trips and try not to abuse it. I can't see me doing that anyway. Just to cover myself though, to you firefighters out there, if we're ever working a call together and I tell you to massage my shoulders, I'm (probably) joking.

-AM

because we separate like ripples on a blank shore

Friday, May 15, 2009

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Monday, May 11, 2009

Closed Doors.

First rotation is over with. It had it's quiet moments, and a few interesting calls in between. I'm definitely making huge steps in ping pong.

On my fourth shift, overnight, we were called to a stabbing at an apartment downtown. It was pouring rain and about 2am at this time. As we were arriving, our dispatch added that it was possibly self inflicted. We got to the scene along with three police officers. They entered first and we followed. It was a big, run down, dirty place on the middle floor of a house. The hallway light didn't work, so they used their flashlights. It turns out most of the lights didn't work, and no one would answer their calls of "City Police!", so we had to go looking.

I've always told myself that I would never do anything that could get me hurt at work, or killed. I was just so caught up in how cool it all was. I felt like I was on a cop show. Knocking on doors in dark rooms and then throwing the door open if no one answered. It occurred to me after opening a couple doors that this was a stabbing call, and what if the "stabber" was still here? So then I was a bit more cautious. I looked down a dark hallway and at the end I saw another door, this one with light coming from around the edges. Maybe I've watched too many movies, but it was one of the scariest things I've ever seen. The "ones with the guns" went first, and I think we were all expecting to find a body on the floor. I hate to be anti-climactic, but there was nothing.

To me that was even more strange. The apartment was totally quiet, nobody around. No blood. The police never found anyone and we were never called back. I thought I was finally going to get to see something other than a patient being short of breath. Maybe next time, if I'm lucky... and someone else isn't.

-AM

i am the son and heir of nothing in particular

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Reverse Order.

I sort of noticed an interesting little trend recently.

A friend and I were having a discussion about how our parents are getting into newer technology, but how we are getting into older things. For example, our parents are learning how to use their Ipods, whereas we are huddled around record players. We'd laugh at our parents as they can't seem to figure out the buttons, and wonder why the music won't start when they push "play", but then at the same time I sit staring at my record player wondering why it won't spin. Working with older technology will certainly take you down a notch. Not so smart now, huh?

I love going to the theater, it's one of my favourite things to do. I just being there, I love the atmosphere and I love seeing a new movie. Lately though, My parents will ask if I've been to the theater to see the latest movies, and I haven't, because I've been staying in watching movies from the 40s and 50s. They're better than a lot of what's out now, I can tell you. Sunset Boulevard, Casablanca, Vertigo... it's the dialogue that I love. There's a reason these are considered classics. There isn't a single line in one of those movies that doesn't have to be there. Every line is essential to the feel and story. They knew how to write a movie back then.

So if you can find a cheap record player, buy it. Best Buy sells records now, there's a reason for that, too. And the next time you find yourself wandering around Blockbuster for hours trying to make up your mind, try searching out some of those movies that you've heard about, but always thought were "too old to be good". That was my problem, but I learned a lesson and discovered some new favourites. Give them a chance.

-AM

we all shine on

Why, Fox? WHY!?!





-AM

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Day One.

It's in the books.

I have to say, I had a great time. Despite anything keeping me down, I couldn't help but feel a bit happy riding around in the back of that ambulance. There has been so much pressure put on us over this school year, I was beginning to second guess myself. Did I make a mistake? Can I actually do this?

As I sat there I realized that I was not so nervous, and I felt like I was doing what I should be doing. For one thing, my preceptor and his partner are great. I don't think I could have asked for a better one. That can make or break a student. Now it's all up to me. And really, it's fun to ride around and basically just hang out, until that next call comes. The calls are obviously the highlight of the day for the medics. That's one thing that I found very refreshing to see. I guess I've worked too many jobs in the past with too many other disgruntled employees. Instead of grumbling when Medic Center calls their truck number, they perk up.

That's not to say they don't enjoy the down time. I witnessed a pretty epic ping-pong match today at one of our posts. My eyes were glued to that ball. I mean, the two medics I was riding with, they are amazing at ping-pong. Seriously. Watched some movies too. I think you'd be surprised just how much of that goes on. The Paramedic Academy should put "learn to play ping-pong and become a movie critic" in their next brochure. I just wish they taught ping-pong at our school, then I might have a chance. On the other hand, maybe it's not such a good idea to beat my preceptor at his own game. Or anything.

-AM

nothing lasts forever, and we both know hearts can change

Penniless And Tired.

Nothing terribly special about this video, though it does seem pretty fitting, and his obvious love of goats is maybe a little disturbing. The video is right out of the 70s, only this was made last year. I've just been listening to this band a lot lately, and this song especially.

He Doesn't Know Why by Fleet Foxes


-AM

would you wait for me?

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Another One Down.

Well I've passed PHTLS. It was a pretty intense and stressful couple of days, especially after 99% of the class failed the pre-test! But it's done. As far as I know most of the class made it through.

Now, I'm moving onto preceptorship. Starts Monday morning. 6am. I'm definitely a little nervous, because I don't quite know what to expect, in terms of what I'll be doing for the first week or so. I'm not quite ready to lead a call so I might have to observe and get into the swing of things first. Running a call on a sick human being is a hell of a lot different than goofing around in class with a mannequin. I've got the basics down, which was the whole point, but when you have someone in front of you who can hardly breathe... well, "stressful" would be an understatement.

I hear my preceptor is a good guy, though, so as long as he understands that I'm nervous, and doesn't mind answering endless streams of questions then I think we'll get along fine. This is a huge step... here goes.

*************************************

Oh, and here's another cool video for you.

Autumn Story by Firekites



Another stop-motion clip. We all know how hard it is to erase a chalk board and keep it clean. What I love about this video is that they used it to their advantage. After each frame they erase the previous image, leaving a faded outline of it behind the new one. Oh, and I love the teeth falling down to become a house.

Speak soon...

-AM


things fall apart