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Paramedic Stories: They Say Laughter Is Good For You. (By Nico Hernandez) by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Rated "PG" by the Author.
Some of the lighter moments as experienced by a rookie EMT.
In a business like mine, laughter is as important as breathing.
If we didn't laugh, we'd either end up killing ourselves or quitting this line of work altogether. Thank God we have a boss who allows time for downtime; in other words, when we aren't on call, we can have time to cut the fool, act stupid, cut up, actually have some fun between calls--just to break up the monotony of a stressful, action-filled day.
When we aren't playing practical jokes on one another, we can be expected to have some funny calls that still make us laugh even now every time we think of them. Or we'll eat something, smell something, see something, and it isn't long before one of the guys is laughing their asses off.
Like the time we saw Patricia Eileen Moss come back from vacation, resembling a lobster more than a human being. She was severely sunburnt; she was so sore she could barely move. It reminded us of the time we went on call for a guy who got burned while making a Cajun turkey.
The dude wanted to get done cooking the turkey in time for the football game, so as to hurry it up, he poured gasoline into the grill. BIG mistake. *~*BOOOOM!!*~* He wasn't killed (it was only by a miracle he wasn't), but he did suffer from severe chest burns, and he singed his face, hair, and eyebrows.
He not only cooked the turkey: he nearly cooked himself!
Needless to say, he hasn't cooked a Cajun turkey since.
We got a good laugh out of that one; I bet the guy feels stupid!! I bet he is the butt of jokes now; I bet his family/friends never let him live it down!
Another time, a young couple decided to make out. They were feeling rather amorous. They ended up gettings stuck somehow: the guy's foreskin of his penis somehow got caught in the girl's IUD; they became attached; no matter how hard they tried, they could not unattach themselves. The guy, now panicking, called 9-1-1; we ended up carting a very embarrassed couple to the ER, where doctors (successfully) pried them apart.
Still don't know how they did it!!
Another time, we were bored, and "Goose" decided to entertain us by deliberately shocking himself with the defibrillator.
He went flying across the room; pretty soon, his hair stuck up crazily in all directions, his eyes were wild, and he had several round, red markings on his chest from where the paddles had burnt his chest from where he shocked himself. He was like, "Yeah, man, now THAT was cool!"
We looked at "Goose" like he had been dippin' in the sauce or smoking some wacky weed.
Another time Isedoro Fuentes (he's no longer with our group; he moved to another area; he's with another squad) decided to jump rope--with the oxygen tubing. He was doing okay for a little while, but then he hooked his foot with the tubing. Down he went. He smashed his face into the wall; ended up breaking his nose and his chin.
Not the smartest guy on the team. He was something of a dimwit. How he became an EMT is something I still don't understand.
Still another example involved a little girl. She somehow dropped a toy down the toilet. When she reached down to get it, her hand somehow got stuck. We ended up having to call the plumber; this was way beyond our league. Of course, the poor kid was terrified, but once the plumbers took apart the toilet and got her hand out of there, we comforted her with a fuzzy teddybear and gave her worried parents lots of reassurance.
She was going to be fine; she just won't be sticking her hands in places that they don't belong. Lesson learned.
Some of my team members also had a call involving a kitty stuck up a tree--only it wasn't a kitty, no, not exactly: it was a lion. A baby lion. Nobody hurt, but some of the paramedics did get scratched; and they were certain they were going to get eaten up.
The lion was safely delivered to a local zoo, and the lady was arrested for keeping exotic animals without the proper license.
Last I know, the lion is still at the zoo, where I am sure he is much happier, being with his own kind.
We don't know what we would do if we didn't have calls like the above. All too many times our job is fraught with tragedy, tears, fear, high drama; some of the stuff we go through on a day to day basis can easily wear us down if we aren't careful; we've lost too may team members to suicide, mental breakdowns, or illness/injury as a direct result of the job.
That is why humor is so important to us. We thrive not only on high drama: we also thrive on humor because it is such a rarity in our line of work. In fact, it is more than that: it is a precious commodity, and it has kept us sane in a job that is more for the insane.
Humor. I don't know what we'd do without it. They say laughter is good for the soul--not to mention, your overall well being. I certainly am a believer in humor; it's gotten us through some of the worst times imaginable.
~Written by Nico Hernandez, EMT, Nashville, Tennessee.
Loved this real life drama, spiced with humour write on those who serve and don't always get recognized as much as they should. Great job on this one Karen
Silliness breaks the tension of a job that is filled with boredom, interspersed with moments of sheer terror. Laughter is good for the soul. But I bet "Goose" doesn't shock himself again...that could have proved disasterous! ROTF laughing at the story of the amorous couple and the dude cooking Cajun. Could picture it in my mind as you detailed it in perfect lines of humor: well done, Karen.
Homer's Ill Iliad & Odd Sea Odyssey (420 pages) is an adult satire/parody rewrite of the classic stories of the 10 year Trojan War and of the 10 year adventure of Odysseus trying to return home to his native Ithaca.
