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.
Trying to drive with the driving lights aimed this ridiculously low is like trying to run with a five foot rope tied from your nose to your ankles.
When we got to the scene of the MVA this morning, we saw that the pickup involved had jumped off the road just before a low bridge, flown eighty nearly horizontal feet into the frozen creek bed, and stopped in about four. He hit so hard that his transmission dip stick was launched most of the way out of its holder, with enough momentum left over to bend itself ninety degrees on the inside of the hood.
Yesterday, GP and I were waiting for a helicopter that was late coming out of the bush, lazily drinking coffee and flicking through the many possible flash patterns on our new dash strobe to pass the time.
Ditch: “Nah, I don’t like that one.” [Pushes button]
GP: “That one’s kind of lame.” [Pushes button]
Ditch: “How about this one?”
GP: [Ponders] “I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem to scream ‘GET THE F*** OUT OF MY WAY!’ does it?”
[Thoughtful pause]
Ditch: [Reaches for button]
A few hours later, we were shaken from profound slumber to head 150 km. down the main oil-patch ice road for a car accident. The ice has been thawing for three days, so the road, usually even and grippy, was a buckled disaster of potholes. Road channel radio chatter is often entertaining to listen to, but here’s the best exchange I’ve ever heard:
Trucker #1 [Driving towards me]: “Hey, emergency vehicle, you wanna kill your driving lights?”
Ditch: [Kills brights and mulls over clever rebuttal.]
Trucker #2 [Voice from above]: “Why don’t you have some respect? Just pull over and get out of their f***in’ way, and stop worrying about their driving lights! Those guys might have to save your life some day.”
It often blows me away how staggeringly rude medical professionals can be to one another in emergency situations. You’d think that in the hectic mess surrounding a dying multi-trauma patient on his way from an ambulance cot to a small town hospital bed, the people around him would have better things to do than belittle paramedics. But then I guess the medic ought to have better things to think about than the fact that he’s just been insulted.
Here’s the reaction most people have when I tell them I’ve been busy with the ambulance: “Oh, that’s good!… uh, bad?… um…”
Drunk patient: “So when do I get to fight one of you guys?”
Mounties [With calmly eager grins]: “Whenever you want.”
Ok, so the word “Ambulance” is printed backwards so you can read it in your rear-view mirror. Good idea. But then again, what was the last time you saw a red and white cube van tearing up behind you, lit up like a Christmas tree and leaning on the air horn, and thought “Golly, I wonder what that is? Oh! An ambulance! Good thing it was printed backwards!”
Then there was the one about the guy who was too drunk to catch his bus, but really needed to head north. In a nearby restaurant, a trucker was enjoying his coffee when he was dismayed to see his truck pulling out of the frontage and heading out on the highway. He sprang into action. Our travelling hero hadn’t yet made it out of town when he glanced in his borrowed rearview mirror and noticed a pickup, urgently encouraging him to pull over. He soon had a few more hard knocks to his credit. When the mounties arrived, they found him once again without means of locomotion, a few blocks from the bus depot, lying in the ditch, watched over with all the fury of a trucker from his coffee untimely ripped. Did he want to press charges? “No. I deserved it.”
“Just don’t stretch your legs out too far; those are the rudder pedals.”
“Yeah, that was ninety degrees of bank.”
“Well, the good thing is both engines will never go out at the same time.”
“Hmmm…”
“Um, looks like we don’t have wing flaps for this landing.”
“We’ll make you puke yet.” (Nope. You won’t.)
To the co-pilot, on seeing the Bible I brought on one flight: “Look Ryan, he doesn’t trust us much!”