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Fixed And Dilated: Paramedic Stories, Part X (By Pat Moss, EMT) by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Rated "PG" by the Author.
It is always a scary thing when patients in your care don't do well or grow sicker right in front of your very own eyes.
I have ssen many sights I would much rather forget, but that is my job: saving people's lives, and that includes helping people who are whacked out somewhere on the T-Zone Special, or elderly people with Alzheimer's or other dementive illnesses that completely changes their personality or able to function, children who aren't breathing or are at death's door because of sudden illness, accident, or injury, and people of different faiths or nationalities. I have seen some pretty ghastly things during my run as an EMT, and yet, I feel that it is my (patriotic) duty to help those people in our community who are in most need whenever disaster strikes.
I remember one such fellow, a little guy who was then eight (but he looked younger). He was in a wheelchair because of some neurological problem or something, and he also had other medical problems. He was hard of hearing, and he also was nearly blind; and he also had seizures from time to time, and sometimes the little fellow would stop breathing when his small airway would become blocked. He was a pitiful, tragic case, and nobody seemed to want to help him because "seeing his problems depressed them", but I saw a kid who needed as much care as anyone else, and I hated hearing my colleagues referring Johnny like that. He was a kid with serious medical problems, but he also deserved a chance at life, just like anybody else on the planet, and he deserved as much care as anyone else. He was a child first, and yet nobody seemed to want to help him because of his medical problems.
One of the calls I remember most that involved Johnny Sandusky (the kid's name) was when he had an episode of status epilepticus, or prolonged seizures with no break in between; and the problem can quickly become serious if help isn't given. He was fine one moment, and the next, he was on the ground, shaking like a dog that had been hit by a car, and after a few minutes, the seizures didn't abate. His mother, understandably, got scared, very scared; so this was when she called for an ambulance for us to come help her little boy.
When we got there, to the kid's house, the mother, a short, squat, busty woman with long black hair and dark skin, led us to where Johnny lay, still shaking in his seizure, on the floor, and it looked very bad, to say the least. The kid's face was black from lack of oxygen, and bloody drool was streaming from his mouth. He looked pretty ghastly, and at the sight of him, we quickly sprang into action. We rolled him quickly onto his side, so he wouldn't choke, and we checked his breathing and his pulse. He had a pulse, a weak one, but still, he had a pulse; and he was not breathing well at all. His breathing was noisy and gasping, and it scared the hell out of all of us. Kendall gave him a shot of Phenobarbitol, to calm and slow the seizure; and in about a minute, he thankfully stopped shaking, and he became limp and flaccid. We then did a quick, head to toe exam of the kid, and he wasn't doing well at all. When I looked at his eyes, they were fixed and dilated, and his color was still poor. He felt coolish to the touch, and sweat covered his small body. His reflexes were off, too, which probably meant some brain damage or diminished tone to his muscles. The signs were bad, very bad, and we tried our best not to act scared, but we were scared for this kid. We knew we had to boogie and get him to the hospital as soon as possible if he was to have any chance of making it through this crisis.
We put Johnny onto the stretcher-bed, strapped him in place so he wouldn't fall off lest he started seizing again, and placed an oxygen mask onto his face. We also hooked him up to an IV line in one arm, and we put EKG leads on his chest; and we soon had the EKG monitor up and running. We then quickly rolled the stretcher-bed to the back of the ambulance, and we quickly loaded Johnny into the back, and we soon were on our way to the hospital, hoping (and praying) that Johnny would make it.
On our way to the hospital, Johnny started shaking again as he went into another seizure; and he vomited right into the mask. We quickly pulled the mask off his face, suctioned his mouth and nose, and inserted an airway down his throat and hooked a breathing bag to it, to assist his breathing, which was quickly becoming erratic. We then gave him some antiseizure medicines into his IV line, in the hopes that it would break the seizure, and we did an awful lot of praying. We hoped that the E.R. team could stabilize him and stop his seizures because as for us, we weren't having good luck at all. The kid was in dire straits, and it was out of our hands. It was up to the Big Man Upstairs if Johnny was to live or not; and we had no control over the situation. That was probably what was the hardest thing about the whole deal. The kid could still possibly die, even though we tried everything to save his life.
Thankfully, though, Johnny did NOT die. He survived, believe it or not. He was treated in the E.R., where the docs and nurses got his seizures finally under control. Johnny was put onto a ventilator and was put into the PICU, where he stayed for a few days while docs monitored his precarious condition and put him onto a new antiseizure medication. (The reason why Johnny had gone into status epilepticus in the first place because the medicine he was presently on quit working, and he needed something stronger to control his seizures.)
Suspenseful and close to home, Rain of Deception 2 will leave you in Tears. Much like Part 1, this will shocking sequel will keep you on the edge of your fingertips.
I have ssen many sights I would much rather forget, but that is my job: saving people's lives, and that includes helping people who are whacked out somewhere on the T-Zone Special, or elderly people with Alzheimer's or other dementive illnesses that completely changes their personality or able to function, children who aren't breathing or are at death's door because of sudden illness, accident, or injury, and people of different faiths or nationalities. I have seen some pretty ghastly things during my run as an EMT, and yet, I feel that it is my (patriotic) duty to help those people in our community who are in most need whenever disaster strikes.
