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Strange Calls |
WARNING! This page contains things that may shock, horrify or totally disgust you. Viewer discretion is advised!
These stories were not written by me. Author credits are given where they are known.
Give a dog a Bone! Many years ago, my partner responded to a residence in Maryland where a lady was in her bedroom. The medics asked if they could come in and she said they had to promise not to laugh. My partner has been in EMS for 20 years and takes his job seriously and told the lady he would not. When he opened the door the lady was on all fours and a German shepherd was behind her. She asked my partner to remove the shepherd because he was stuck. My partner matter of factly replied that dogs have a knot that swells and it would not go down until he was finished. When the dog was done, he released himself from her and all was well. My partner told this story during a training session of new paramedics to let them know they might encounter anything in the streets. One of the young paramedics asked, "will she have puppies??" I thought that was funnier than the call.
The Joy of Drunks! My strangest call thus far was a single-vehicle MVA at 02:30, in which a lovely 19yo girl plowed through 2 palm trees standing 35ft tall in the median. One minute she was asking me if she could give me a blow-job, the next she needed an exorcism! I had her boarded,collared,taped,strapped, and gagged with a non-rebreather, and she still managed to punch me in the balls...not once..not twice...THREE times enroute to the hospital! Every time I reached into the compartments above the stretcher to get another 4x4, she'd break the tape and nail me. Once we got her to the ER...she got worse...spitting, cursing...the works! Oh, did I mention the STRONG odor of ETOH on this long-haired demon? I have no idea what she was on besides what smelled like Tequila...but the ER pumped her with enough Versed to drop a horse...and she was still ballistic! I returned to the ER the next shift, and the staff told me that when she woke up, she was the kindest, sweetest patient! !?!?!?!?!?!? and that the offer of a blow-job was still open to me...ON A NOTE SHE LEFT WITH HER PHONE NUMBER ON IT!!!! Me and the daughter of Satan? I think not! Tony S.
A Closer Look! In my area we do mutual aid with other towns. The neighboring town's ambulance was in the shop so we were dispatched to transport for an emergency transfer to a local hospital. We loaded the patient and en route decided to take a set of vitals so we didn't get in trouble from medical control. My partner is taking a B/P and pulse so I decided to check the patient's pupils. Although it was totally unrelated to the call. I checked the left pupil and it seemed relatively normal. A little sluggish if anything. At this point the patient asks me if I had checked the right pupil yet. I then explained to the patient I was just getting ready to, and then proceeded to check it. When I checked it something was not right with it. I don't know if it was the way that the light hit it but it seemed like it contracted a little, but it still did not seem right. I then asked the patient if he had an eye problem. At this point the patient proceeded to remove his eye and ask me, "I don't know, would you like to take a closer look?"
You Look Familiar! A co-worker told me once of one of his strangest calls: they were called in for a gun-shot and when they arrived, the pt. was in pretty bad shape. He ran back to the ambulance to get some more equipment and when returning to the house, the person that was just minutes ago lying on the floor with the gun-shot met him the door! After he got his heart beating again, he noticed that it was the twin-brother of the patient.
FLAMING PROJECTILE GERBIL
(Actual article from the LA Times)
"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil," Eric Tomazewski told bemused doctors in the Severe Burn Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital.
Tomaszewski and his homosexual partner Andrew "Kiki" Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong. "I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped Raggot, our gerbil, in." he explained. "As usual, Kiki shouted out 'Armageddon,' my cue that he'd had enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he wouldn't come out again, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him."
At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what happened next. "The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out of the tubing, igniting Mr. Tomaszewski's hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out like a cannonball." Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.
EDITOR'S NOTES: (written by article submittor, unknown)
Top Ten Scariest Things About This Story
10. "I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum..."
9. "So I peered in the tube..." (I'm sorry, but that's like looking through a telescope into hell. I'd rather use binoculars to stare at the sun).
8. That poor gerbil (who obviously suffers from low self esteem) being shot out of a guy's ass like Rocky the Flying Squirrel.
7. Suffering a broken nose from a gerbil being launched out of someone's anus. I'm guessing, but I seriously doubt said gerbil was springtime fresh after his journey into Kiki's "tunnel of love."
6. People walking around with these volcanic-like pockets of gas in their rectums.
5. People who do this kind of thing and then admit what they were doing when taken to the emergency room. Sorry, but I think I would have made up a story about a gang of roving, pyromanical, anal sex fiends breaking into my house and sodomizing me with charcoal lighter fluid before admitting the truth. Call me old fashioned, but I just can't imagine looking at a doctor and saying, "Well Doc, it's like this. You see, we have this gerbil named Raggot and we took a cardboard tube..."
4. "First and second degree burns to the anus..." Wouldn't this make the burning itch and discomfort of hemmorrhiods a welcome relief? How does one ever take a healthy dump after something like this? And the smell of a burning anus must be in the top five most horrible scents on the face of God's green earth.
3. People named "Kiki" which is obviously a Polynesian word for: "Idiotic white men who insert rodents up their butts."
2. What kind of hospital would hold a press converence on this?
1. This happened in Salt Lake City. What kind of people are those Mormons? I'm getting a whole new image of the Osmond family.
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This is a copy of an article that was written for the Stony Brook Press:
Snagged in the Act!
By The Lunatick
As a Critical Care EMT and volunteer firefighter, I've always enjoyed the surprises that we often encounter on emergency calls. But even in my wildest dreams (believe me, they're wild!) did I expect to come across this situation: We were called for an unknown subject with an unknown chief complaint. As we pulled up at the scene, we saw two cops lying on the front lawn laughing their asses off. So, I went up to one of the cops I knew and asked, "Andy, what's wrong?" He just sat there laughing so hard that he couldn't talk, so he pointed in the general direction of the house. We walked in and found a guy sitting on a couch with his legs spread with a girl's head right in his crotch. It seemed like she was giving him a blow job. But she had braces and managed to snag the skin of his penis so tightly that they couldn't get it out. We then had to transport this duo to the hospital by placing him supine on the stretcher with his partner curled up at his legs in the fetal position. To prevent further embarrassment, we covered them with a blanket , brought the ambulance to the front door of the house, and quickly hauled them in. "OK, wise ass, how are you going to call this in to the hospital?". asked a crew member with an evil grin. I picked up the radio and started, "Mather Memorial, we are enroute with two patients; one male with an entangled object, and one female with a possible obstructed airway." "What do you mean, possible obstructed airway?!!" ejaculated the E.R. nurse "Never mind, just have a private room ready when we get there!"
The head nurse was already standing at the door when we arrived. "So, what have you got?" she asked
"Private room," I whispered
"Naw, I gotta see what you got."
"Trust me, PRIVATE room" (We had them so well covered with sheets and blankets that you couldn't see anything.)
"Come on, I gotta see!" replied the nurse impatiently
"OK, you win!"
The nurse lifted up the sheets and immediately yanked it down and yelled, "IN THERE!"
So we dropped them off, got our paperwork signed, rushed outside, and started laughing our asses off.
Choking on your Nose One evening my EMT instructor got a call to an area of town that is a known hangout of local drug dealers. The call was for an unconscious non-breathing patient. My instructor proceeded to the location of the call with police escort as is the protocol for calls of this nature. Upon arrival he was flagged down by the victims friend. The patient was lying supine on the sidewalk and clearly had been this way for quite a while. Upon verification of LOC my instructor commenced ventilation with the BVM. However he noticed that the air was not going in. Upon retilting the head the same thing occurred. At this point he proceeded to perform an inspection of the airway with his penlight. He noticed a small grayish piece of tissue in the airway, what appeared to be a chicken bone. Upon inquiry it was determined that the patient had not eaten all day, much less any chicken. At this point the doctor came on scene and took of the situation. Days later the doctor told my instructor what had happened. this gentleman had been an avid user of cocaine and had in fact choked on his nasal septum.
Clean Sweep When I was a baby EMT I responded with the local volunteer fire dept to a gentleman who was cleaning his tractor-trailer rig after a delivery. He was sweeping out the back of the trailer with a push broom and jumped out of the back when he was finished. I don't know to this day how he managed to do this, but he landed after the broom. On the broom. It impaled him. He was a big guy so the broom didn't stop going in until he hit the ground. The kicker is, the broom started its journey at his scrotum and completed it 27 inches later just under his left clavicle. He was skewered in a slightly bent position. We could palpate what we thought was the end of the broom handle, and we couldn't figure out why he wouldn't straighten out on the scoop stretcher. We took the head of the broom off very carefully (he could feel EVERY vibration) and secured this thing best we could. He was flown out to the closest trauma receiving hospital where they put him under and pulled it out. He only sustained a hole in his diaphragm and a hole in his scrotum. He didn't even lose a testicle! He does have a problem with splinters, though. This happened almost ten years ago, I ran into him 2 or 3 years ago and he still had little orange splinters working their way out. Rod Brouhard, EMT-P
Hang On! In my EMT class, we were ready to complete our required hours riding on the ambulance when our instructor gave us this advice: "When I say hop on and hang on, I mean get into the ambulance, put your seatbelt on, and hang on!" Confused, he went into clarifying (and extremely hilarious) detail It seems he had told this to a student some years ago, and on their first run out, they headed signal 10 (light, siren) to the call. Heading down a road, another ambulance caught sight of them and called out "Medic Two, Medic One, you have a student on the the back of your ambulance." "Copy Medic One, we are aware." Came Two's reply. "Medic Two, We mean you have a student HANGING off the back of your ambulance!" It seems that the student took our instructor literally and climbed on the back of the ambulance. The student probably rode more than a mile before they noticed the problem. As a final note, look at the back of your truck and wonder, How the hell did they stay on?
Sean Harper
Twinkie Lady! A number of years ago, I was ems supervisor for a BLS squad that ran with a paramedic unit from the local hospital. I was eating lunch with one of my crews, and a page went out for "Sta. XX Ambulance & Medic YY: respiratory distress...123 XYZ Ct., cross-street ABC Ave...Medical Box 5504...time out...1254". I laughed at my crew as they left, and continued to eat my Whopper. As the crew and medic unit arrived on scene, I heard a fast exchange on our TAC freq., and then my ambulance came up on primary to request a second ambulance and the duty supervisor. I arrived on scene to find our crews and medics standing over a VERY LARGE female patient lying on the floor. The patient was in obvious distress, rales, pale skin, tachycardia, etc. Her wheel chair was custom-built out of square, steel tubing, with a seat almost as wide as a LOVESEAT! We attempted to move her, but were unable. I called dispatch to send an engine company for manpower to assist with lifting. The engine crew arrived, giving us 4 more bodies (now up to 11 people!). We again attempted to move the patient. Again, we could not move her! I then AGAIN called for additional responders. Our rescue company responded with 4 more personnel (15 people now on scene!). We then were able to log-roll the patient and place 2 10x10 salvage covers, doubled over, under her to serve as a drag sheet. Luckily her house was an old Victorian with double front doors. Her porch had a missing section of railing and we backed the ambulance up to the gap, leaving about a 4 inch drop to the floor of the truck ( 1 ton 4WD GMC Type I Modular). We removed the stretcher and floor bracket to give us an unrestricted place to put the patient. We then DRAGGED the patient, on the salvage covers, across the floor, through the doors, across the porch and into the ambulance...taking all 15 people to do the job (needless to say, we had drawn a HUGE crowd of spectators and police by now!). When the patient was fully in the back of the unit, she ALMOST FILLED THE FLOOR! The truck took an immediate list to port and almost came down onto the rear tires ( remember: 1 ton 4x4 GMX Type I!). As we rolled to the hospital, the truck scraped tires every time we hit a bump, we rolled at 10 to 15 MPH the whole way. At the ER, it took TWO hospital stretcher, tied together with rope to hold her, and that was almost not enough! As we did our paperwork, the nurses assessed the patient. She kept saying: "I'm hungry, could I have something to eat?". (!!!!) The nurse would tell her that the doctor needed to see her first. This same exchange repeated itself EXACTLY over and over again for about 15 minutes. The nurse, finally tired of the banter, told the patient: "alright, already... you can have something! (#@&$%*! under her breath) The patient said: "thank you, sweetie", and proceeded to lift want could have been a roll of fat, or a breast (I couldn't tell!), and pulled out a squashed, flattened 2-pack of Twinkies, which she promptly inhaled with gusto!!! Myself, my crews, the Paramedics, and the fire captains about had strokes on the spot! Needless to say, I haven't had a Twinkie in what is now 10 years! By the way, the hospital had to use their loading dock freight scale to weigh the patient. It has numbers up to 750 lbs., and she wrapped it around to the 40 lbs. mark again!!! (OOOHHH... may aching' back!)
The Tale of Mike and the Dead Guy's Cat On one of his training calls during paramedic school my friend Mike was called to a trailer in one of the many mobile home parks in southern California. The resident of this particular mobile home had died...several days before. And now the neighbors were just noticing the smell. After forcing entry to the trailer and making their way around all the trash on the floor the crew found the Dead Guy face down in a moldy, half eaten plate of scrambled eggs. Mike's preceptor and others on scene watched Mike run down the exam to confirm that the Dead Guy was truly and completely, once and for all, dead. He attached the cardiac monitor and printed out a copy of the rhythm showing no heart activity, he even listened for heart and lung sounds. The preceptor and his partner exchanged looks with the cop that was there with them as if to say, "Rookies, you can't be more dead than this Dead Guy." Then they noticed something on the table that made them chuckle. After the call, while stopping for a cup of coffee (that the preceptor made Mike pay for) he told Mike during the typical critique of every call, "OK, we really have to work on your 'tunnel vision', you need to pay closer attention on scene to your surroundings. You may miss something really important if you don't". "What do you mean I thought I was doing well", Mike said. "Oh, your doing OK on your medicine and your 'book smarts' but you need some 'scene smarts' too. Lets take this last call as an example", replied his preceptor, "you really screwed up by not being aware of your surroundings on that one! You are lucky it wasn't a really dangerous foul up." " "What the heck you mean?" asked Mike, "that was a simple Coroners case. The Guy had been dead for days!" "Lets see Mike", said the instructor, "describe the scene in as much detail as you can." "Hmm, we got to the mobile home and had to force entry. When we got inside I found this guy dead sitting at the kitchen table. He was rigorous and had dependent lividity and decomposition had started to set in. The whole place was totally filthy. Stains on the walls and trash everywhere, about a weeks worth of dirty dishes in the kitchen and the whole place smelled like the Dead Guy. Oh yeah, and I had to keep shoving his cat off the table so I could check his condition". "Aha, now we can cut to the chase, tell me about the Dead Guy's cat, Mike, what did it look like?" "I don't get what you mean , it was a big old black cat. Pretty big for a house cat too." "I'll give you some slack on this one being you are from the Bay Area, I don't know what the cats in the Bay Area look like, but down here in L.A. our cats have fluffy tails and not skinny pink ones. Did this cat that you kept pushing away from the Dead Guy have a fluffy tail or a long, skinny pink tail?" "He uh, well, I think he had a long, skinny pink tail...................oh shit.................that wasn't a cat..........."
"Mike and the Dead Guy's Cat" © 1996 by Jerry Fandel.
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