Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome!

TINS, TIWFDASL at Medic 13, and we caught a run. Initial dispatch information suggested that this was a heart attack.

We arrived on the East Side of Da City, at the stated address, and discovered out patient was awaiting us, upstairs. The folks who were encouraging us to step right up and set to business, were pretty excited. As we arrived and entered the bedroom wherein our patient awaited us, well, we could see why.

Our initial patient survey was, to be charitable, not encouraging. The bedroom was nearly entirely filled by a double bed, and that bed was nearly entirely filled by an unbreathing human being. Unable to detect a carotid (big ass neck artery) pulse, we concluded that this soul was in cardiac arrest. Doug and I knew that there was NO WAY we were going to move this person, let alone move them down the stairs, into our ambulance, continue a resuscitation en route, and offload same at DBTCIDC.

While I started CPR, as best as I could on the bed, Doug called dispatch on the handi talkie, and brought them up to speed. “Dispatch, we need an engine company, or two, for manpower. We have a active cardiac arrest, on a patient estimated weight of 800-1000 pounds. That is a stat call.”

Dispatch acknowledged our call, and responded, “We will send you help”.

Doug and I both set to resuscitating this soul, until our help, a second MEDIC UNIT, arrived. This crew, Mariel and Don, while welcome, came nowhere near the lifting power we anticipated in ten firefighters. Doug relieved me, and I shared this insight with dispatch. “Dispatch, we need at least one full engine company, perhaps two, and we need them several minutes ago! This is a working cardiac arrest, and there is no way we can move, let alone lift, this 800-1000 pound patient!”

Dispatch informed us that that would be a chief level decision, and I was happy to buy into their decision making process. “Very good dispatch. We need our superintendent on this scene, stat. This is a patient safety issue, and our patient is in full cardiac arrest.”

The field supervisor, a captain in our division, jumped in. “Dispatch, this is shift captain (insert name here). I am on the way to Medic 13’s scene code one. They need an engine company. Please dispatch one immediately.”

Soon, a DCPD scout car arrived, disgorging two of the single tiniest female officers I had ever seen.

Right behind them came our captain. He (the captain) edged his way through the crowd of civilians (who were, helpfully enough, insisting that we simply “snatch him on up, and carry him on down to the hospital!” (while NOT climbing the stairs to lend a hand!)

Our captain surveyed the four rescuer CPR taking place, and retired to his vehicle to have a chat with dispatch.

Mariel had removed our cot from our ambulance, securing it in their rig, wisely determining that our patient, upon the floor, would fill the entire module. As she returned up the stairs, bringing every backboard strap that she could find, the first engine company arrived.

The officer of that company trotted up the stairs, took one look, and about-faced, running down the stairs. Shortly, he returned with 5 firefighters, and a salvage cover. Everybody heaved, and the cover was stuffed ½ way beneath our patient. Everybody “Ho!’-d, and it was pulled out from beneath him. Now we had a carrying apparatus, and the firefighters set themselves at each corner, Doug in one middle, me in another, Don at the head, and Mariel at the feet, and we slowly maneuvered our patient down the stairs, and into our ambulance. Mariel and I climbed in the back, Don took off to meet us at the ER, and Doug set out.

I had the walkie talkie in my pocket, and I could hear his conversation with dispatch while Mariel and I CPR’d our little hearts out. Doug suggested that another engine company ought to meet us there, and that the ER ought to be notified of our patient’s girth. Initially, they seemed unenthusiastic, until our captain suggested that either they dispatch an engine company to the ER, or the Chief of the Firefighting Division, since he, the fire chief, would be the one explaining everything to the news media.

Engine 5 met us at the ER. TBTCIDC had lashed two cots together outrigger style, and everybody moved our patient onto the cot. Once he was in the ER, our part of the show was over.

We effusively thanked our captain, as well as the fire crew.

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