Ditch Doc

Allright, this one happened to the next station south, but it’s way too good a story to pass up. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine was dispatched to an MVA near Fort St. John. A pickup towing a trailer through heavy fog had missed the stop sign at a rural intersection with the Alaska Highway, sailing right through and colliding with a gravel truck. When the crew arrived, the scene was a mess, and detailed information scanty, so they quickly checked the trailer for dangerous contents. Finding it empty, they got to work. Details of the accident began to emerge, and the nature of the trailer finally filtered down to the crew: it was a tiger trailer, only recently empty. Meanwhile, a disconcerted farmer was watching the goings-on from a nearby horse pasture. Confident that he didn’t own any stripy, whiskered horses, he pulled his truck around the field to get a better view. Far from being a threat, the tiger found the countryside charmingly reminiscent of his native Siberia, and contented himself with pouncing and rolling in the grass. Curious about the possibility of a truck ride, he walked up to the farmer and waited to be let in. The tiger’s owner, who had arrived shortly after the accident, suggested putting the cat in his car, but conservation officers and RCMP voted against. Kitty eventually got his truck ride, but it was in a humane bear trap, and he must have spent it praying patiently for another gravel truck.

“So is that a puke stain or several-days-old moose blood he’s lying in?”

“Oh, you never know what happens around here.”

Even the rudest oncoming drivers become so much more polite when you flirt with the centre line. Ignore it and they become downright saintly.

In such a slow town as Fort Nelson, we’re always waiting eagerly for a chance to bring our nurse friends a really gory trauma case. Kind of like cats bringing home small animals for their owners. They always say they’d rather we wouldn’t, but we know they really like it.

First they gave me a month’s notice to move out of my room in the basement without giving a reason. Now they’re talking about banning smoking outside the station. But what really astonishes me is that they’ve been able to put up for so long with our most glaring vice of all, and are only now talking about a city bylaw banning hacky-sack in the parking lot.

Here are a couple of misheard phrases that make me think that perhaps I’ve been flying a few too many times in that noisy plane of ours. Or maybe just spent too many hours in close company with a jackhammer a couple of summers ago.

Scene 1:
Nurse: What &$ate did you have her on?
Ditch: Sorry, what weight?
Nurse: Yeah, what &$ate of oxygen?
Ditch: [To self] What’s a weight of oxygen?
Nurse: [Frustrated] Like was it 4 liters?
Ditch: Oh! Rate! Yeah. 4 liters. Seems to help her nausea. Yeah. Um.

Scene 2:
Ditch: Do you have any warmed blankets I can give this patient?
Nurse: [Points down hall] Yeah, they’re in the re*4~@s room.
Ditch [Walking with purpose straight past resusc. room]: What the hell is a recess room? In an emergency ward?

The last couple of days, that is. Starting with yesterday morning, when we got to do three medication protocols in five hours. Today we had another very interesting medical call, (can’t tell you or I’d have to kill you), the mill caught on fire for the third time in two days, sending up a plume you could see from town all afternoon, and a couple of cars smashed harmlessly into eachother in the lowering sun. In sum, two or three lives saved, relations with the fire department greatly improved, and lime vests miraculously spared from excessive smearage.

Epilogue: Guess where the elementary kids are going for their next big industrial field trip? Hint: Good chance it’ll be way more fun than they’re expecting. Though shorter.

Since we got our new high-vis (read blinding autoluminescent lime yellow) vests, all set about with reflective tape, I’ve noticed three things:
1. I feel like I must know what I’m doing.
2. No one in the vests has been hit by cars.
3. Increased catcalling. Now approaching 0.025 per shift.

This morning we went on a fire standby at one of the mills a couple of hours before shift change. At eight, dispatch called:
“858 Foxtrot, I’ll just page out the day crew to come out and relieve you.”
Us: “858 Foxtrot. Actually, Fox nights IS Fox days, so I guess you could say we’re here already.”
Dispatch: “Uh, stellar response time guys. Talk to you later.”

On the way back from an air transfer this afternoon, I fell asleep in the back of the plane. I dreamt that when we’d landed with the patient, we realized that although we’d remembered her coat and bag, we’d forgotten to bring along her lungs. Sorry, we said. We’ll courier them to you.