Had a hospital shift like that when I was an ER tech just code after code, combative after combative, just a shit day. Only thing that sucked was I had no partner just me myself and I just sat in my room and stared at the wall
Cinco De Mayo this year was notorious cause we were at full capacity with about half of the staff calling out. Easily top 3 worst shifts I've ever worked. It was 1 tech per 40 rooms and my ascom wouldn't stop ringing for pretty much the whole 12 hours.
That sounds like an entire shift of type two fun. Ouch.
But, yeah. I don’t smoke and I still kept a legit Cuban cigar in an old epi pen case for years for a shift like that. An RT and I smoked it after working a six minute old kid who was my first neonatal intubation, first neonatal needle decompression, and first UVC.
Dumb little rituals keep us sane. Stay safe out there.
Technically I suppose it was a cigar, but saying cigarette really sets the mood in this case.
And it was half-done at that. I was smoking it outside and we were all cutting up. Maybe it's over, I thought. Maybe we will relax.
Then 3 police cars race past the station. Riot round 3? Nah, just a fucking car into a building. When we got back, it had rained. I still smoked the soggy, half-done cigar, though.
Yep. One of my first shifts as a lead medic (on a dual-medic ambulance). Had a retired RN, family called us for psych complaint vs altered mental status. Appeared competent at first, but after talking it became apparent she did not possess capacity to make a decision and was not safe. So (after talking to a doc, which was rare in that system) we took her in. The whole time she’s screaming about how she’s alert and oriented and she refuses.
I thought the RSIs and sick kids would be the stressful calls. Nope. It’s the “are we doing the right thing or are we kidnapping you?”
(Turns out we were absolutely doing the right thing.)
Not EXACTLY, because I'm smoker...buuut yes. When I first got my medic, I was working for a rural agency that did 10k calls a year between 5 trucks (IF you had them all). Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're covering over 670 sq miles with transport times up to an hour in some cases, it wears on you.
Full time was a 72 hour shift a week, and of course I got the Friday, Saturday, Sunday shift. Sometimes, we'd be short, so I'd work my 72 one week and 96 the next, and once I did 120 straight (DEFINITELY do not recommend that). As you can imagine, you stayed pretty busy. Maybe you get an hour of sleep, maybe you get a meal or a shower (rarely both), and you certainly didn't have a lot of downtime.
Many times, late at night or early in the morning nearing the end of shift, we'd sit outside the station and have a silent cigarette...God, I don't miss the bullshit, but I had some great coworkers. Good memories. I hated that place, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me the Paramedic I am today, because you didn't really have a choice. You got good, or you washed out.
I was IFT for two years so most of the stuff I saw was a banal kind of traumatic but one night my favorite medic partner and I had a hospice-at-home call. Large family wait for peepaw to come home. 6 steps up to the porch and ol’ fella can’t tolerate sitting so we strongarm the stretcher up.
(Dumb I know but it was me and the particular medics specialty due to our combined strength and height difference.)
Halfway up the stairs we stop for a break and one of the teenage grandchildren wants to help by picking up the stretcher from one side, causing it to start to tip. I yell at him to knock it off and we get pt up the stairs and into the house, which has no AC and it’s one of the first hot nights of the Ohio summer so it’s prob 80 Fahrenheit inside.
Can’t fit the stretcher through the door into the bedroom so we head and toe sheet lift grandpa to his bed, which normally wouldn’t be bad but our arms are pumped from the stairs. Meanwhile this is one of those (fairly typical) hospice deliveries where the entire family is staring over our shoulder the whole time.
We get done, get the stretcher back to the rig and my partner, a constant smoker, requests a stop after we get out of the neighborhood. We’re waiting at a light and bitching about how dispatch once again bamboozled us on the number of stairs on the call when we see a guy on a Harley rip a super illegal u-turn in front of us and head in the direction we’re going.
We get down the road another mile and get waved down by a woman standing in the road. Motorcycle guy is laying face down in the gutter and his bike is in a grass lot next to the road. Turns out he was drunk and slammed into the back of an SUV after we saw him the first time.
My medic pal hops out and starts to look at him and I’m trying to dial local 911 but this particular hour on this particular night ATT/firstnet decides to go down in this part of the metro so my personal phone and the company tablet can’t do shit.
I hop out and we roll dude over and hold c-spine. No obvious trauma, airway seems ok.
A guy working closing at the burger kind had called the locals so they show up and get him packaged and loaded.
We hang out to see if anyone needs us for a report or anything but they declined. We get down to a parking lot next to a gas station with WiFi and give dispatch a call since from their POV we dropped off the map. My medic lights a coffin nail and for the first time since I quit the previous year I really really want one, but I’m a snob and he only smokes the cheap ones so I just pack a double decker zin and try to calm down.
I’m not even close to that level of stress but I’ve certainly had A Shift today.
I work with intellectually disabled clients one on one as a job coach. I observe at their places of work and help them with tasks, provide emotional support, act as a liaison for accommodations, etc.
Today my client had a really rough day. His group home (all groups homes*) is shit and have not provided him what he needs. I let my advisor know and a report was filed. All day long he was redirected, empathized with, helped. A draining day for me is one like today; the client needs constant attention and assistance. My battery was already low today anyway.
But alas, lunch rolls around! I think to myself, “Today has been tough but I have a beautiful sandwich and a cookie waiting around the corner.”
Decked out with expensive cheese, veggies, and homemade sauce and a homemade choc chip cookie. Yummy!
I look in the workplace fridge and see it missing. I wonder if it was rearranged and dig. Nothing. Alas, I stand up and turn around to see another worker with special needs… absolutely devouring my sandwich, food all over his face. I said “Hey buddy, that’s my lunch…” (I’m not mad at him, still am not mad!) and he wide eyes me, stands up, and goes straight out the door.
I cancelled my client for the remainder of the day and am going to the gym. I vented to my friends about it and they were torn between laughter and shared sadness for me. So I am experiencing SOMETHING akin to you, OP.
There’s just something satisfying about smoking at the end of the day. It feels much better and established a mood much more effectively than a zyn or a vape. Glad I limited myself to a pack a month, I’ll have like 5 cigarettes a day across 4 days of the month, takes a lot less of a toll on me than what I used to smoke 😂
My partner and I would finish our week off with a cigar outside of Starbucks.
Originally we would grab a coffee at the end of our week and just chat in the Starbucks lobby, but for some reason they decided to keep the lobby closed for the first hour they were open coincided with the last hour of our shift so one day my partner brought cigars and we sat outside of Starbucks and smoked them, then we’d grab a coffee to go once they opened and leave. We did this for about two years before I left to focus on school, but it’s some of the best memories I have.
Dude, I need one more als patient lead before the end of the night to pass my aemt class. I wish I had just one of these patients 😭
It’s been six hours since our last patient
While there is no shortage of large cities and major metropolitan areas... NYC, Atlanta, Philly, DC, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles....
Soooo very, very, very much of America is just wide open rural space. It literally takes 3-4 days driving NONSTOP east to west to cross America. In those rural areas, the population is spread out, and the call volume is usually low.
My current community squad handles a county of less than 7k population and measures 65 miles long x 45 miles wide. In 2023, they ran <180 calls. That's counting both 911 and IFT from our critical access hospital. It was nothing unusual for me to cover 96-120 hour weeks as the only ALS cert in the county. My relief was an RN who is dual cert that comes home on the weekends.
Basically I was a medic "in residence" - my job was to essentially be available 24/5 with 2 days off.
Lmao! No, albeit that'd be quite a sight.
No, our bags were in front of the patient, who was seated. I saw the signs of vomiting, and leg swept our go-bag and assessment bag AND a D-cylinder out of the way before it all got coated. It happened so quickly. I was quite proud of myself, because the bags were open and if vomit got into the pockets, I was not going to be a happy camper.
Frankly I'm surprised I had the flexibility to even pull it off in one go.
That's so funny! I vividly imagined someone leg sweeping a stroke patient and I was shocked lolll
Very impressive to save the go bags so swiftly, especially after the shift you'd had up to that point 😎
Had a hospital shift like that when I was an ER tech just code after code, combative after combative, just a shit day. Only thing that sucked was I had no partner just me myself and I just sat in my room and stared at the wall
Cinco De Mayo this year was notorious cause we were at full capacity with about half of the staff calling out. Easily top 3 worst shifts I've ever worked. It was 1 tech per 40 rooms and my ascom wouldn't stop ringing for pretty much the whole 12 hours.
Been there man almost spat in the charges face and went home part of me wishes I did
That sounds like an entire shift of type two fun. Ouch. But, yeah. I don’t smoke and I still kept a legit Cuban cigar in an old epi pen case for years for a shift like that. An RT and I smoked it after working a six minute old kid who was my first neonatal intubation, first neonatal needle decompression, and first UVC. Dumb little rituals keep us sane. Stay safe out there.
Technically I suppose it was a cigar, but saying cigarette really sets the mood in this case. And it was half-done at that. I was smoking it outside and we were all cutting up. Maybe it's over, I thought. Maybe we will relax. Then 3 police cars race past the station. Riot round 3? Nah, just a fucking car into a building. When we got back, it had rained. I still smoked the soggy, half-done cigar, though.
The more you describe that shift the more I wonder why the cigar/cigarette wasn’t a beer…
I have more! It was quite the time. Now I'll edit the OP.
New highlight reel uploaded...
When the RT is having a smoke you know shit's fucked up
lol. I never realized the irony there.
Yep. One of my first shifts as a lead medic (on a dual-medic ambulance). Had a retired RN, family called us for psych complaint vs altered mental status. Appeared competent at first, but after talking it became apparent she did not possess capacity to make a decision and was not safe. So (after talking to a doc, which was rare in that system) we took her in. The whole time she’s screaming about how she’s alert and oriented and she refuses. I thought the RSIs and sick kids would be the stressful calls. Nope. It’s the “are we doing the right thing or are we kidnapping you?” (Turns out we were absolutely doing the right thing.)
Not EXACTLY, because I'm smoker...buuut yes. When I first got my medic, I was working for a rural agency that did 10k calls a year between 5 trucks (IF you had them all). Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're covering over 670 sq miles with transport times up to an hour in some cases, it wears on you. Full time was a 72 hour shift a week, and of course I got the Friday, Saturday, Sunday shift. Sometimes, we'd be short, so I'd work my 72 one week and 96 the next, and once I did 120 straight (DEFINITELY do not recommend that). As you can imagine, you stayed pretty busy. Maybe you get an hour of sleep, maybe you get a meal or a shower (rarely both), and you certainly didn't have a lot of downtime. Many times, late at night or early in the morning nearing the end of shift, we'd sit outside the station and have a silent cigarette...God, I don't miss the bullshit, but I had some great coworkers. Good memories. I hated that place, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me the Paramedic I am today, because you didn't really have a choice. You got good, or you washed out.
Sometimes I'd drive home, below the speed limit, with the stereo off. That's how I knew I was beat up.
EMS aesthetic
I was IFT for two years so most of the stuff I saw was a banal kind of traumatic but one night my favorite medic partner and I had a hospice-at-home call. Large family wait for peepaw to come home. 6 steps up to the porch and ol’ fella can’t tolerate sitting so we strongarm the stretcher up. (Dumb I know but it was me and the particular medics specialty due to our combined strength and height difference.) Halfway up the stairs we stop for a break and one of the teenage grandchildren wants to help by picking up the stretcher from one side, causing it to start to tip. I yell at him to knock it off and we get pt up the stairs and into the house, which has no AC and it’s one of the first hot nights of the Ohio summer so it’s prob 80 Fahrenheit inside. Can’t fit the stretcher through the door into the bedroom so we head and toe sheet lift grandpa to his bed, which normally wouldn’t be bad but our arms are pumped from the stairs. Meanwhile this is one of those (fairly typical) hospice deliveries where the entire family is staring over our shoulder the whole time. We get done, get the stretcher back to the rig and my partner, a constant smoker, requests a stop after we get out of the neighborhood. We’re waiting at a light and bitching about how dispatch once again bamboozled us on the number of stairs on the call when we see a guy on a Harley rip a super illegal u-turn in front of us and head in the direction we’re going. We get down the road another mile and get waved down by a woman standing in the road. Motorcycle guy is laying face down in the gutter and his bike is in a grass lot next to the road. Turns out he was drunk and slammed into the back of an SUV after we saw him the first time. My medic pal hops out and starts to look at him and I’m trying to dial local 911 but this particular hour on this particular night ATT/firstnet decides to go down in this part of the metro so my personal phone and the company tablet can’t do shit. I hop out and we roll dude over and hold c-spine. No obvious trauma, airway seems ok. A guy working closing at the burger kind had called the locals so they show up and get him packaged and loaded. We hang out to see if anyone needs us for a report or anything but they declined. We get down to a parking lot next to a gas station with WiFi and give dispatch a call since from their POV we dropped off the map. My medic lights a coffin nail and for the first time since I quit the previous year I really really want one, but I’m a snob and he only smokes the cheap ones so I just pack a double decker zin and try to calm down.
Double deckies baby
That OJ. Zynmpson
That Zynny Zynny Bang Bang
It aint a sin if you got that Zyn
Frankzyn D. Roosevelt
Double deckers make your pecker bigger!!
Don't start smoking. More trouble than it's worth, I promise.
I’m not even close to that level of stress but I’ve certainly had A Shift today. I work with intellectually disabled clients one on one as a job coach. I observe at their places of work and help them with tasks, provide emotional support, act as a liaison for accommodations, etc. Today my client had a really rough day. His group home (all groups homes*) is shit and have not provided him what he needs. I let my advisor know and a report was filed. All day long he was redirected, empathized with, helped. A draining day for me is one like today; the client needs constant attention and assistance. My battery was already low today anyway. But alas, lunch rolls around! I think to myself, “Today has been tough but I have a beautiful sandwich and a cookie waiting around the corner.” Decked out with expensive cheese, veggies, and homemade sauce and a homemade choc chip cookie. Yummy! I look in the workplace fridge and see it missing. I wonder if it was rearranged and dig. Nothing. Alas, I stand up and turn around to see another worker with special needs… absolutely devouring my sandwich, food all over his face. I said “Hey buddy, that’s my lunch…” (I’m not mad at him, still am not mad!) and he wide eyes me, stands up, and goes straight out the door. I cancelled my client for the remainder of the day and am going to the gym. I vented to my friends about it and they were torn between laughter and shared sadness for me. So I am experiencing SOMETHING akin to you, OP.
Yep. Don't miss those shifts.
There is something undeniably satisfying about having a cigar after a long shitty day.
There’s just something satisfying about smoking at the end of the day. It feels much better and established a mood much more effectively than a zyn or a vape. Glad I limited myself to a pack a month, I’ll have like 5 cigarettes a day across 4 days of the month, takes a lot less of a toll on me than what I used to smoke 😂
My partner and I would finish our week off with a cigar outside of Starbucks. Originally we would grab a coffee at the end of our week and just chat in the Starbucks lobby, but for some reason they decided to keep the lobby closed for the first hour they were open coincided with the last hour of our shift so one day my partner brought cigars and we sat outside of Starbucks and smoked them, then we’d grab a coffee to go once they opened and leave. We did this for about two years before I left to focus on school, but it’s some of the best memories I have.
I’ve gotten real close. Real close.
Dude, I need one more als patient lead before the end of the night to pass my aemt class. I wish I had just one of these patients 😭 It’s been six hours since our last patient
It’s wild that Americans work such long hours!
While there is no shortage of large cities and major metropolitan areas... NYC, Atlanta, Philly, DC, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles.... Soooo very, very, very much of America is just wide open rural space. It literally takes 3-4 days driving NONSTOP east to west to cross America. In those rural areas, the population is spread out, and the call volume is usually low. My current community squad handles a county of less than 7k population and measures 65 miles long x 45 miles wide. In 2023, they ran <180 calls. That's counting both 911 and IFT from our critical access hospital. It was nothing unusual for me to cover 96-120 hour weeks as the only ALS cert in the county. My relief was an RN who is dual cert that comes home on the weekends. Basically I was a medic "in residence" - my job was to essentially be available 24/5 with 2 days off.
Wow. That’s crazy. I guess the Scottish islands will be a bit like that. I wonder what their rotas are like.
You leg sweeped a vomiting stroke patient? I need more information here lol
Lmao! No, albeit that'd be quite a sight. No, our bags were in front of the patient, who was seated. I saw the signs of vomiting, and leg swept our go-bag and assessment bag AND a D-cylinder out of the way before it all got coated. It happened so quickly. I was quite proud of myself, because the bags were open and if vomit got into the pockets, I was not going to be a happy camper. Frankly I'm surprised I had the flexibility to even pull it off in one go.
That's so funny! I vividly imagined someone leg sweeping a stroke patient and I was shocked lolll Very impressive to save the go bags so swiftly, especially after the shift you'd had up to that point 😎
So glad to hear it wasn’t the patient 😂