What? Me bitter?

I've decided that after reading back on some of my posts that I could be misconstrued as a tired, crabby, burnt out medic. I just want to set the record straight. That's not the case at all. I still love my job! Some nights it gets old getting up in the middle of the night for the same old "bull shit" runs, but all in all, I still like it.

I still like mentals, you can mess with them and they don't even know it...

Nothing gets your blood pumping like a good ole trauma run...

And a few runs, where you know you've done something right, and done it well, still make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. We had a 53 y/o male the other day that called because of chest pain. Now, probably 7 out of 10 chest pain runs we go on turn out to be nothing. A couple of the rest may be cardiac related, but still nothing serious. But then, every once and a while, you get on the scene and take one look at the patient and just know that this one's going down the tubes.
This guy was one of those. Pale, sweaty, clutching his chest.
Where I work, we have a system in place with the local hospitals where a medic can call in and request a "Cardiac Alert". What that does is alert a cardiac team that's on stand-by at the hospital that a patient is coming in that needs to go directly to the cath lab. Now if I call the ER Dr and request a cardiac alert, but don't convince him that either it's needed or that I'm smart enough to know what I'm talking about, he'll just tell me to "come on in and we'll see you when you get here". That means that he isn't convinced that the patient is having an MI, (heart attack), or is a candidate for the cath lab.
This guy was a walking "Cardiac Alert". I called the ER Doc and told him about ST elevation in V1, V2 and V3, with reciprocal changes in Lead II and AVF, narrow QRS waves, blah, blah, blah... All stuff relating to a 12 lead EKG. Anyway, I must have convinced him, because he went ahead and called the alert.
Now what this alert also does is save time in what they call "door to cath" time. On an average, if a person comes into a hospital ER with chest pain, it takes 140 minutes to make it to a cath table. They have to run tests, do an EKG, gather the cardiac team, get a bed, so on and so forth. On average, if a patient comes in via medic with a cardiac alert called, it takes less than 100 minutes. The record in the city I work in is 12 minutes from door to cath.
This guy didn't make it there in 12 minutes, but was there quick. Turns out he had 3 blockages, had 3 stints placed, and now is doing ok. On the way to the hospital, he began saying "I don't want to die, don't let me die". It's a fact that 70% of people having a heart attack that start saying "I'm going to die" die. The ER Dr told us that we made a good call with this guy. Turns out he's the same Dr that taught my last 12 lead EKG class.
So, that was a good run. All warm and fuzzy... Guy was dying, we intervened, and now the guy is alive and well. He can call 911 at 3 am some other night...
"911, what's your emergency?"
"Well, you see... I'm having severe back pain.... It's been going on for the past 6 weeks, but I just can't stand it anymore."
"OK sir, the medics are on their way...."


Back to the reason for this post, I'm not bitter, I still love my job. I just started this blog because people I talked to, such as friends & family, couldn't believe some of the stupid things people called medics for. So, that's the kind of things I try to tell in here. No one wants to hear about the everyday stuff, just the dramatic, bloody, gory and ridiculous.