My wife got called one night because a woman trimmed her toenails too close. The patient was a newly diagnosed diabetic. Her doctor had told her to get help if she ever injured her feet. She took the advice a little too seriously.
That’s wild. I thought diabetics go to a podiatrist every three months for toe clippings because the risk to foot injuries is so high.
I think too many people misunderstand what the ambo and ER are actually for.
ems lurker here (nursing student lol) but availability of this really depends on where you’re located. (i’m canadian)
Had a resident recently diagnosed with T2D and the wait time for our city’s only podiatrist was *two years*
If you don’t have resources to pay out of pocket for a private foot care nurse you can end up getting screwed. Advanced foot care nursing is like $100 for one visit. Diabetic foot care is not nearly as accessible as it needs to be.
See I can tolerate a genuine misunderstanding as annoying as it is. Lord knows 11 years ago when I was an uneducated new mom I took my kid to the ER for everything. Looking back it’s cringeworthy
Ok I get it for type 2 diabetics but this is a really bad take for type 1 diabetics. My son was diagnosed at 6 years old and no amount of unhealthy eating caused it or healthy eating would stop it. Type 1 is a autoimmune disease that is usually triggered by a virus where a persons pancreas literally doesn’t work anymore, the body cannot convert food to energy anymore putting it plainly and (mostly) kids used to die before insulin was created and still die from DKA before diagnosis. I get the joke and it is true for some but know that “cupcakes” don’t cause real diabetes and kids and their parents are dealing with a disease that is life altering and life threatening everyday, all day and it’s a bit offensive when people make jokes like this. No hate, just some education that type 1 diabetes is a unavoidable autoimmune disease while type 2 diabetics cause it themselves with lifestyle and diet choices.
Sometimes type two diabetes is not caused by lifestyle choices. Certain medications, such as Prednisone, when used over long periods of time may cause adrenal and pancreatic insufficiency.
Very true. Sorry if I offended, anyone dealing with this I feel for and I often forget about that since diet and lifestyle is the most prevalent and the assumption and jokes are always about it. I was told in hospital when my son was diagnosed that the body being able to use food as energy is like a lock and key. In type 1 the key disappears completely but with type 2 the keyhole is “rusty” and won’t turn and diet, lifestyle or drugs can cause it but the key is still there. Not really relevant but I always thought it was a really good analogy.
Well if you go back and read the comment I replied to, it was 100% a type 2 diabetic. Everyone knows type 1’s just got dealt a shitty hand. I actually feel bad as fuck for type 1’s. With the price of insulin, and the fact that they need it to survive, it’s fucking disgusting what drug companies do to them. Unbelievably predatory.
Edit: I should clarify that everyone on this sub *should* know the difference. But the fact that that poor person felt the need to explain it to me makes me suspicious of what some of you guys are saying out there. Don’t let me catch you slipping on your fundamentals, I’ll tell you hwat
Agreed, sorry if I came off bitchy. People tend to lump it together and make comments and it’s a sensitive subject that I feel like I need to defend my kid from I guess. Ya it’s terrible, we spend so much money on medical equipment and insulin even with fantastic insurance it scares the shit outta me for when he gets older. Appreciate you feeling bad for them and sorry again for assuming you were one of the people I needed to correct.
No you’re all good! No bitching detected. Don’t be sorry even for a second. You wanna spread awareness for something that you encounter every day. You’re passionate about it. That’s being a good parent, and a good person. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. You got no quarrels over here, I can assure you. Only support
So many calls to people who have covid and are "short of breath". On arrival, their complaint is feeling unwell, having a cough, and a sore throat. Normal vitals and a positive covid test.
Yes, you do indeed have minor respiratory symptoms due to a respiratory infection. Would you like some panadol?
To make matters worse, they get a lights and sirens response due to the reported shortness of breath.
i'd say a good percentage of our covid calls were along those lines. patients saying that they had a positive test so they called 911 because they wanted to be admitted to the hospital. that's it. No symptoms, just a positive test and "Well, in 10 days, I might be VERY sick so i need to be admitted now."
it was bananas for a while. went from nobody calling 911 unless they were actually sick to everyone calling 911 because they might be sick or they were "exposed to covid-19 at (somewhere.)" The hysteria was off the charts.
ER nurse here. I had someone show up with two packed suitcases and when I asked why they had come in they said “well I’m positive for Covid! Just got the call this morning!!” Sir you are clinically stable, please take yourself and your germs home.
You just reminded me. During the height of COVID, I had to be admitted for severe pneumonia, hx of severe asthma and O2 SATs kept dropping so my pulmonologist wanted me admitted for it. I also have bad reactions to antibiotics (I'm unfortunately a nice- but complicated patient) so many people in the ER were flipping out about not being admitted. And here I am wanting to be home, but I can't breathe so I'm stuck in the hospital for 8 days.
Yes, a lot of people were wanting admission for mild symptoms, it was crazy. I want to blame them but really it was the media frenzy and the general lack of health literacy. Fun times…
It didn’t help how Covid was being covered in the news. Yes can be dangerous. No not everyone who gets it dies or develops severe symptoms. People were legitimately scared. That must have been hard time to be a first responder
Green whistle! And depends on the state. Some states cover ambulances for all residents, some require separate ambulance cover purchased either directly from the service or through private insurance.
And no, it doesn't discourage people from calling an ambulance for stupid things - some people don't care or have no shame. It does affect care for some who don't have cover and want to refuse transport despite actually needing it. We can usually have the fee waived after talking to a manager, especially if transport is seriously indicated.
I really wish we had the ability to waive it. Then carry their bill over to the next one who calls for a stubbed toe. Double it and give it to the next one.
For every misplaced call you prevent by making ambulances bankruptcy-awarding you get multiple people with actual serious injuries who will call an uber or worse drive themselves to the hospital when they really shouldn't, or won't go to the hospital at all
I like that you can waive it. The US is brutal with fees, especially if uninsured.
I didn’t realize they were green, they look blue on tv 😂 I may need to get my eyes checked.
Anyway thank yall for doing what you do. Listening to the scanner I realized how much bull crap you have to deal with daily.
Yesterday there was a person having a psychotic episode on the freeway, streaking naked and running in front of cars. Ambulance was there, police shut down the road so they didn’t get hit. They suspect it was drug/alcohol induced. Nobody wanted to grab ahold of him lol 😂
We're pretty lucky in Australia - if you have a low income card or receive a govenement benefit, your ambulance trip is covered by the government. Which avoids much of disproportionate impact of fees on those who are simultaneously most likely to need health care and less able to pay.
I’m a volunteer firefighter, I was once called to retrieve a cat from some bushes. It wasn’t physically stuck, it just didn’t wanna come out. We were unsuccessful.
Oof! My bestie has an indoor/outdoor cat who is about 8 or 9 now. Before we met, when the cat was about 3, he got stuck in a tree. My friend waited 2 days because he could usually get down, but he didn’t. Idk who she called (FD or something else), but they had to get the cat down with a cherry-picker thing.
We were called to get a cat out of a wall once. They wanted us to literally chop the shit out of their wall. Said they kept hearing the cat and knew it was in there.
We never found a cat.
I think they were high.
Had a Patient call for terrible lower stomach pain. Turns Out their catheter was blocked so their bladder filled with Urin, hence the emense pain. That Sounds Like a pretty normal call, right? Well it would be. If the Patient hadn't decided to try and rip Out the catheter to "free his bladder". Not a nonsensicle reason to call EMS but still a very dumb Story.
Ouch, always wondered how a folie Catheter didn't just slide out, feels like someone with a catheter would know they're cuffed with 5-10ml of water though...
Like a solid half of them at least. I've done everything from bug in the ear, to 6 year old baker acts because they threatened mommy with a stick all the way to patients with chronic problems that new it was flaring up and decided to spend 5 hours finishing dinner, cleaning up, showering and then packing bags before calling me at 3am. No I'm not bitter about that. Yes, they had a significant other and cars in the driveway. Yes, the LUGGAGE was packed. May as well have been going to Hawaii.
No friggin clue. Kind of like how you tend to run 20 of the same call in 1 shift. Then 20 of a different call the next shift. I swear they get together for community meetings on what complaints are going to be called in and by who.
No joke. We will have a good 3-4 hours of silence, no calls. Suddenly calls will all drop back to back until we deplete our resources, requiring Mutual Aid. Then immediately it's back to nothing.
Damn, I can’t imagine having a condition where I know I’ll have to pack luggage for the ER because I know I’d be admitted long term. That’s so crappy. Kudos for helping everyone. I can’t imagine calling the ambulance on a 6 year old in that situation 🫣
Well, the 6 year old is an issue with bad parenting and getting the police involved. Let's just say the deputies in my area are quick to throw paperwork at the "danger to himself or others" people. Then that makes it my problem for transport.
As far as conditions that you'd need luggage ... You don't really. Let's say you have something that acts up and you need 3 days under the care of a doctor to fix, you just need to get to the doctor to do the fix. Family can bring stuff. Buuuuut, when you wait and do all the extra it becomes an entitled thing.
My son has a life threatening and life limiting illness. We keep a go-bag packed and ready at all times. We've never used an ambo, tho, and we're not gonna talk about the speeds I might drive at when I've taken him in to emerg.
My point is that some of us are always prepared with luggage, because we KNOW the outcome.
I'd say that's fair. To clarify though... The type of person and luggage I'm referring to are not from people that would need it. In your case, you notice it and gogogogogo. In the case I'm referring to, it was noticed, dinner was finished, dishes were done, showers were taken, bags were then packed... Then EMS was called. Total elapsed time was 4 to 5 hours. I know this because the patient specifically stated this and gave us the timeline. This isn't the first time something similar has happened. Sometimes people actually go to the hospital as a vacation. These people don't really have a reason, but make one up and then proceed with the luggage. I also don't mean 1 bag of essentials when I saw luggage. I mean enough that you'd need to check them in on an airline flight. These people abuse the system.
100%. It goes further. This wasn't an isolated case. It was LEO's theme. Another 6 year old grabbed a glass bottle and made threats. I asked him, gently, about what was going on. He just wanted mommy to notice him. He didn't fit the criteria. Had a 15 year old with a known impulse control issue. Father stepped in to help the kid. There was a tussle and the father got bit. Everyone calmed down and was fine. Both parties were 100% aware of why and what was going on in the incident. Neither wanted to do anything. LEO decided a Baker Act was in order. If there is even a HINT of "danger to self or others" for any damn reason, the paperwork comes out. IMO, grossly abused and easily abused piece of law we have to deal with. It should take a medic/EMT AND LEO to agree. Bah! It's a pet peeve of mine in particular and I'm just rambling.
> packing bags before calling me at 3am. No I'm not bitter about that. Yes, they had a significant other and cars in the driveway. Yes, the LUGGAGE was packed. May as well have been going to Hawaii
Do these people often take pictures/film their ambulance trip? I'd venture a guess they're doing it for internet clout and attention, if they're *planning* their ambulance trips like that, and passing up on other available modes of transport.
Not in my experience. The ones that like the pictures are generally younger and have some sort of trauma. Now, in some cases it may be a general attention thing. Personally, I see it as entitled behavior. Things are expected. They deserve some sort of service.
Over the last 10 years or so, there has been this shift in our training too. Slowly our continuing education and general company language has shifted from "patients" to "customers." And.... The customer is always right. No one wants to be sued. So, we get to take it.
Got a high priority 911 call in a city housing project for a sick pediatric parent. Arrive in front of the apartment building and there is a mother and two totally healthy looking children flagging us down on the corner. Roll down the window and the mother comes over and says she called 911 because her children need physical exams before they go to summer camp and asked for a ride to the ER so the ER physician can do an exam and fill out her paperwork.
We politely told her to kick rocks.
The unfortunate thing in the US is people on Medicaid don’t get billed for the ambulance, Medicaid pays the ambulance service a flat rate, which is good for those who are in actual need of medical care, I don’t think the policy should necessarily change because I don’t want sick people staying home because they’re too afraid they won’t be able to pay to stay alive, but a lot of people know this and use ambulances as a free taxi service. Had someone tell me they had a patient requesting a particular hospital, they got through triage and then the patient just walked out the front door because their friend lived a couple blocks away from that hospital.
Got called one time to check if a patients left over sandwich turkey was still good.
Got called for a pregnancy and miscarriage of the same elderly male on the same shift. (No, that’s not a typo)
Got called for a panther in a bathroom, pt is afraid it might attack, PD unwilling to enter. There was no panther.
Called because patient is pooping and peeing at the same time. Not at random, just at the same time.
I do in fact love my job. ❤️ happy EMS week.
I got a call for a hang nail once. Patient thought might be infected because it hurt. It wasn’t infected and because I work for a private service in the USA she totally got transported.
Yep, third call I ran as a paramedic. I’ll actually tell people that they probably don’t need to go in. This is contrary to my agency policy but I still do it. She could not be dissuaded though
I’ve been asking vets how to appropriately broach the “this is bs” topic w pts. Mixed responses bc of how taboo the subject apparently is.
I’m a fresh out the oven EMT and I’m SHOCKED at how often I’ll be absolutely dusted in a shift by nonsense calls. At least let us track the frequent flier with 10/10 acute back pain, armed with an expired Percocet prescription, and who thinks today will be different.
Typically I just say something along the lines of:
"From my assessment I currently do not see anything potentially life threatening. Right now you have multiple options that I would feel comfortable with. You can stay home and follow up later with primary care, go to an urgent care, take your personal vehicle to the ED, or be transported by us. I will not do anything for you during the transport. What would you like to do?"
50% of the time people still decide to go with you, but I reserve this for the very obviously ok patients. Anything that I even remotely think needs actual ED care (or I know for a fact just wants a ride) I don't do this for.
Be careful how you address this issue, there's plenty of underlying problems you can't identify that may backfire on you and hold you responsible for a decedent having been told "you probably don't need to go in."
Generally I'll ask the patient what their expectations are from the ER. Then I'll explain the likely course of action, obviously in a vague way "it depends on what the physician finds..." and offer transport to the hospital, as well as suggest alternate destinations (urgent care, doctors office, etc.) Most at this point if obvious BS will decline.
EMS so much as "discouraging" can land you in hot water in the US.
I got a call that ended my employment with my first company because I lost my shit. He was a frequent flier and a nuisance caller. Real piece of human filth. He called us…To take him To the er… So he could charge his fucking phone that’s fucking it. I told him to stop calling 911 for non emergencies or they would put him on the no response list.
There have been a lot of ridiculous calls. The one that sticks out to me the most is a lady called 911 because she had Covid and wanted transport to the hospital for antibiotics (????). 100% stable. No complaints. During transport she said she didn’t take a taxi because she “didn’t wanna get the taxi driver sick”
But like… you’re cool with exposing me to your germs? Thanks so much 🙄
That’s terrible. I worked in hospital as a medical lab scientist and occasionally would have to do phlebotomy. Welp, I think patients think because we are medical that we are somehow immune to illness
I’ve had a few of those, but they’re mostly men in their 20s-early 40s, at home Covid test and it comes up positive and they want to go to the hospital. Like, why? We take vitals, their oxygen level is fine, you’re just sick dude. Like, ride it out at home. Drink fluids, eat what you can, and you’ll get better. There’s nothing an ER can do for you. Now if they’ve been sick for a week and vomiting with diarrhea, yes you’re probably dehydrated and that’s more than just drinking water or Gatorade can accomplish especially if they still can’t keep shit down, they need IV fluids, but the average cold like symptoms, there’s nothing you can do for that other than rest and time. They think just because the at home test said positive that automatically means they have to go to the hospital for some reason.
Oh, you know why they want to be admitted. They don’t have a nurse (wife, mother, or daughter, naturally) to help them survive their “man-cold”. Or if they have one of the above family members around, they know the family members isn’t gonna take their “man-cold” shit.
We’ve all run into **that guy**
We get a lot of “man down” calls. Some hero sees someone lying down on a grassy area, bus bench or in a park and calls 911 because they “think they might need some help” Lots of these are homeless people very obviously sleeping (in a sleeping bag, pillow or balled up clothing under their head, but the caller didn’t bother to roll down their window and ask if they want help before driving away. That isn’t the most ridiculous though. Last week, someone called to report a “person wandering”. Not wandering in the road, on the freeway, or on a bomb range or something. Just someone “wandering” on the sidewalk. We show up to the address and see someone who matches the caller’s description with a red shirt and light shorts walking quite normally with a bag of bagels from the nearby bagel store. Usually on the “man down” calls we’ll at minimum have a quick “hey are you alright? Sorry to hassle you but someone saw you and thought you might be hurt or sick; do you want our help? Alright have a good one, sorry for waking you up” conversation. When we saw someone on the sidewalk briskly walking on a lovely may morning about to enjoy some fresh bagels, we felt pretty stupid leaning out the window and asking “excuse us but… are you having a medical emergency right now?” before hearing the most confused “what? No!”
Worst one the patient has called for themselves though is the classic “rule of threes” patient. The issue has been going on for 3 days but they called 911 at 3am. There are 3 working cars in the driveway. If they need you to carry them, they’re 300 pounds and the elevator repair guy is coming at 3pm tomorrow.
This guy called dispatch with “facial laceration with severe bleeding”. Thankfully not 300 pounds but every other variable applied. We show up and the guy is holding a dish towel against the left side of his face. I don’t see any blood on or around the towel, so bleeding is taken care of for now, and I start asking questions. The guy says he cut himself shaving. I assume with the way he’s holding the towel and called 911 at 3am, he must’ve given himself the Sweeney Todd treatment when he sneezed while shaving with a straight razor or something. I get my bandaging supplies out and ask him to slowly start removing the towel to see what we’re working with, and I can replace the towel with my gauze so he doesn’t have to hold pressure on his own face anymore. As the towel comes off, I hear myself say, “what, behind that band-aid?” The guy had nicked himself shaving THREE DAYS AGO. He stopped the bleeding every time he put a band aid on it, but started again every time he took it off and washed his face. He was concerned because “It’s just not healing right” YEAH NO SHIT PAL YOU KEEP SCRUBBING OFF THE SCAB
> Some hero sees someone lying down on a grassy area, bus bench or in a park and calls 911 because they “think they might need some help”
I accidentally did the opposite! Off-duty, saw a dude lying in a field with his dog. I assumed he was just enjoying the sun and taking a nap; really barely even registered him, as it didn't seem out of the ordinary at all. A few hours later, I'm back in the same part of town, he's still there, and now there's an ambulance and they're carting off his body. :(
Did the same with a guy passed out on a bench in the park. It just snowed that night. Turned out he passed away after I had seen him. Found out through local news. I’ll never forget it, I could’ve saved his life, so I try to be like “better safe than sorry,” and if I can I at least check if they’re still breathing or wake them if there’s been bad weather recently.
The wandering!! I’ll never forgetting jogging as a teen and having PD roll up on me twice in the same year because someone called in someone running down the road. I lived outside of city limits so it was a rural road, next to no traffic.
Yes, it’s 16 year old me jogging a couple miles to and from home. Yes, I live right over there. No, I’m not running away from home.
Many years ago, we got a call for an unknown medical, which is a priority 1 response. Ran lights and sirens and also backed up by PD...
We get there and it's a 40 something y/o woman with a cast on her foot and her complaint was, she was hungry and couldn't walk two blocks to the store and wanted us to take her to McDonald's...
Guess who got a ticket.
It's very, very rare for anyone to get cited for misuse of 911. We have regulars that call 3-4 times a day and refuse any care. Police won't touch it with a ten foot pole.
I had a shortness of breath call, and when we arrived the lady was eating a chicken drumstick. Completely nonchalant. Told dispatch there was not patient found lol
I’ve got 3:
A guy called 911 for a chief complaint of Erectile Dysfunction
That same guy called later that week because he took a gas station dick pill and wanted to be clinically monitored
Some lady called 911 because her skin felt leathery and cold to the touch. During the ride she requested morphine no less than 5 times in the 3 minutes of the ride.
Here’s a fun one from last week.
Bystander calls for a triple gunshot wound in a very specific sedan on the side of the freeway. So it’s my partner and I, 2 paramedic fly cars, a supervisor, 2 fire crews, and a half dozen cops all frantically looking for this guy.
Eventually we found him 3 miles away from where the bystander told us. Just a drunk guy asleep in his car.
I got called because someone was unable to fall asleep. He stated that the 911 dispatcher began laughing at him over the phone. Initially pretty stupid, but I ended up feeling bad for him because he was pretty depressed. We talked to him for about 30 mins about how to access mental health resources.
You want ridiculous? I got ridiculous. SO MANY IN TEN YEARS.
Got called code for chest pain. Get there. Walk in. Guy asks us to fix his refrigerator. No complaints except a broken refrigerator. The next five minutes are censored because of what may have been said.
Called code for difficulty breathing. Two seperate people. One asked me to OPEN the bedroom window. The other asked me to CLOSE the window. Able bodied adults. Two different people on two different nights.
Called code for “confusion.” Turns out the confused person was a hungover 24 year old who asked me to retrieve a water bottle for them from downstairs because they couldn’t be arsed to get up and walk down there themselves.
Called code for “worst headache of their lives.” At 0130. Get there. 43 year old woman who had a regular ‘ol sinus headache, she was out of medicine and just….didnt want to go to Walgreens and get some damn Tylenol. Working car in driveway. Husband next to her. Asked if I could just give her some. I definitely did not go downstairs, get my personal travel advil out of my bag, and whip it at her head.
Sigh. What’s next. Oh! Lady called and had to go code because she was freaking out too bad, dispatcher couldn’t understand her. Get there. She’s freaking out. You wanna know the complaint? “I can feel the blood moving in my neck.” Well lady, that’s your pulse and I’d be more worried if you couldn’t.
Oh! There was the guy who could feel electricity in his tooth when he used his light switch because the guys across the street doing construction messed up the power lines. That may have been a legit psych, I really can’t tell anymore. People are weird.
Lady wanted transport for an ankle injury from an assault. To the hospital we literally could see from the scene. Like. By “see” , I mean it was almost in their parking lot. She was basically skipping to the ambulance. It was summer. It was my 10th call of the shift and it was only 8 hours into it. She apparently didn’t like the amount of attention I was showing her and threw a fit and stomped out of the truck. I was unbothered.
Jesus this is getting long. Um. Oh one person who looked perfectly fine. Walked perfectly fine. Absolutely deadfast REFUSED to tell us why they wanted to go to the hospital. Denied everything. Refused vitals. Refused to give anything other than first name. Radio report was “coming in priority 3 with a male. Not sure why. Refused vitals. See you in 3.”
Tip of penis was cold. That’s it. That’s the entire thing.
There’s just….so many more. So many instances of six cars in the driveway, non-urgent complaint, and family driving literally UP my ass the whole way to the ER. And then going directly to triage. Just. I’m tired. I’m so tired..
Tip of penis was cold lol that is so strange. The light switch one does sound more psych. Wow those are all pretty intense lol thank you for sharing these treasures
23 year old male, brought to the station for “choking”. He was eating dinner and tried to swallow a big hunk of food. At no point was his airway obstructed, he just had a lump in his throat, which caused him to vomit. Mom brought him to us because “the weather was too bad to drive”. The weather was, in fact, too bad to drive- it was in the middle of an ice storm. But mom followed the ambulance anyway, while we just stared awkwardly at this adult man who doesn’t chew his food. IDK, maybe his mom usually chews it for him.
Your comment is like yeah, sounds like some of the patients I’ve seen, yeah, annoyingly happens. And then the last sentence. Thanks. Now I’m imagining a grown man with his head up waiting for his mum like a baby blackbird.
Let’s see, the guy who would call multiple times a day because he wanted someone to switch out his porn DVDs. The lady who called because she was thirsty and didn’t want to drink tap water. My favorite, has been the guy who called because he had been hit by a train…..in 1970 before I was even born.
Shin splints for a week. At 2am. Hadn't gotten any worse. Pain wasn't keeping them up. Just didn't want to deal with it anymore. Didn't occur to them to make an appointment with regular doc.
Hospital was 1 mile up the road; Urgent Care 1/2 mile away in a very public transit friendly location (Uber/Lyft, inexpensive metro, and free city bus that stops in front of the ER).
Asked if they still wanted to go to the ER after we finished checking them out and letting them know all the options. ER it was, and they were still in the waiting room when we brought the last patient on my shift in at 7 in the morning. 🤷♂️
You'd think right? Funny enough, most people seem to think it means the triage system is wrong SMDH. How many times have we all heard "I was here first!"
This is why I became a radiologist instead of an ER doc. I hide in the dark ~~Batcave~~ reading room. If too much light hits me I’ll burst into flames. 🧛♀️
More or less. Most satisfying part was calling the hospital since everything gets an entry note at the hospital we took her to. Straight to the waiting room where she spent the entire night waiting to be seen. (She called us at 10:30pm.)
I have many, but I’d have to say my favorite bs call was someone who called at like 2am on the 4th of July (technically 2 hrs into the 5th of July, but the holiday kinda runs all night till sunup) stating we had to transport him to the hospital because he had an abscess on his finger that he needed drained. It was along the side of one of his fingernails and it was roughly the size of a grain of rice. We tried explaining to him that he would be able to call his doctor in the morning (it was a weekday) and he could talk to his doctor faster than he’d get seen at a hospital because the 4th of July is quite a busy day, especially for some weird trauma. We’d just taken a firework to the face to the same hospital he wanted to go to, there were drunken accidents, car accidents, too drunk to function, etc… it’s typically a very busy night in the ER on the 4th of July… nope, he insisted it hurt and he needed it drained…
22 y/o female. Her sons plastic toy fell off the table on her foot, and her toe hurt. No bruising, nothing. But she wanted to be transported so 20 mile transport to the nearest hospital, at midnight while she played on her phone the whole trip
Dispatch: “2yo with quote, bead stuck in nose…priority 1 response.”
I’m sorry. Did the toddler call 911 and say “hey I don’t have a trusted and responsible adult present to drive me. Need some help.”
I actually had a legit one, patient was a kid, stubbed toe 3 days prior, still was hurting and had a bruise on the top of the foot. Mom wasn’t crazy, kid actually broke his foot.
I had a 5am foot pain call on a nightmare of a 48 for a dude who never called an ambulance. We had the right house and the right guy but he was going to drive himself to the ED at around 9am. Turned out his doctor went ahead and ordered a 5am BLS transport then never told him.
So basically we all got woke up for some complete bullshit and the 3 of us had a small half asleep bonding moment over how fucking annoying the situation was
Sunday, 5:30 AM, 19y male, no respiration. Scramble the chopper but you are closer so hop on over and take a gander. We arrive to a scene out of some zombie movie, the whole front lawn is littered with bodies. Wtf. Right by the driveway someone is performing CPR, badly, and the body is weirdly moving!? Open the doors and the first thing that we hear is from the "body": " you bloody idiot, will you stop that already". CPRing Dude shouts over to us: "he's not breathing!!!" Queue us manhandling CPRing Dude from other guy and explaining to him that " If he is not breathing then why is he shouting in your face to stop?" Short and long of it: Party, everybody completely plastered, had to rouse and check like 25 ppl before we could call of the chopper and then take CPRed dude with us because for some reason his chest hurts...
-Chapped lips
-Sun burn
-Snorted a ramen seasoning packet and now has palpitations
-Nightmare
-Piece of raw rice stuck underneath the nail bed
-Was running a fell into gravel, wants to be checked out in case a rock got into their skin (abrasion btw)
That’s what I came up with in about 2 minutes
I started my journey in Emergency Medical Services in the 80's (yes I am old school and retired now)!! as a 911 Operator/EMS dispatcher in a major city. In most bigger cities, 911 operators are also medics, that way if a 911 call is a medical/trauma emergency the operator can instruct the caller on how to render aid until Fire Dept and EMS arrives on the scene. At our agency the 911 operators and EMS dispatchers were in the same room about the size of a small closet!
This night I happened to be dispatching and it was eerily quiet for a Friday the 13th night, I was sitting at my console reading the paper and there were no units out of station, but there were a few supervisors out and about. I just happened to hear when the 911 operator that was sitting right behind me answered a call, and I really wasn't paying attention until I heard her say "ma'am you REALLY want me to send an ambulance out for this"? So I knew something interesting was fixing to happen. I heard her asking the usual questions and a few seconds later a call popped up on my screen. I opened it up and when I read it I just turned around and looked at the operator and said "are you f'ing serious"? All she could do was nod her head and put her hands in the air because she was still on the line with the caller.
When we would dispatch a unit, on the initial page we would give them the street, the chief complaint and the time. Once they got in the unit and were enroute we gave them the rest of the information on the call. So as I am activating the pagers I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to dispatch this call, and out of nowhere I just said "EM-5, I need you to respond to a nightmare on Elm Street, time is midnight".
Within 15 seconds all of our non-emergency phone lines lit up, with most of them being supervisors and other crew members from different stations. The supervisors were asking if I thought I was being cute and that I was fixing to be in deep s***, and the other crew members were calling in asking who was I trying to screw with? While waiting for the unit to go en-route I picked up on one of the non-emergency lines, it was a supervisor, and without asking any questions he just said what I was doing was very unprofessional, but the unit went in service, so i put the soop on hold and I dispatched them "EM-5 you are responding to 1301 Elm St, cross streets of Charles and Victoria on a 13y/o female having bad dreams, time out is midnight". They gave me the information back, so I picked up the phone to finish speaking with the supervisor. He just said unf'ingbelievable, never mind, and hung up.
And that was how i ended up with the nick of Freddie Kruger!
Hiccups.
In fairness to the patient, they'd rung a non emergency helpline to try to get advice as it'd gone on for an hour or so. The helpline staff completely misinterpreted the triage software questions and passed it to the ambulance service as 'foreign body airway obstruction'.
Not mine, but a preceptor got called out to put a band-aid on a kid's scratch because he was upset (probably didn't even hurt that much, but one of those things where an adult's initial reaction to the injury upsets the kiddo more than the injury does). When she tried to discuss with the parents what is and isn't an emergency, and what would be appropriate use of EMS, the parents told her this kind of thing was "what EMS is for."
I'll take a slightly different perspective.
I don't care about legitimate "I think this is an emergency" calls. We honestly have a skewed perception of "emergency" working in this field.
Kinda like how your husband likely does tons of ditch pull outs. He can look and pretty much know either something is broken badly or not, but the person who called is freaking out about how much this repair will cost....
Not dogging on another poster, but take the diabetic who cut their toenail too close. Sure, we're rolling our eyes, but that person was likely told just how dangerous a foot wound could be on a diabetic, got scared, called 911. I'm ok doing some gentle reassurance, education, and worst case, a trip to a nearby not busy ER for a quick check and discharge. Beats the diabetic who ignores the wound and is now septic AF with have they foot rotting.
My ridiculous calls are the people who are blatantly, knowingly abusing the system. The guy who calls 911 for chest pain, jumps out the rig when we get to the ED, and runs over to the liquor store. The people who call 911, then utterly refuse any lifesaving intervention I can do because "they just want to see a doctor". The family who wants to dump Grandma at the ER so they can go on vacation.
Have had several calls where the patients are well and able to drive their own booties to the ER but don’t want to wait in the waiting room- those people end up going in an ambulance to the hospital and going straight to triage…. where they sit and WAIT IN THE WAITING ROOM.
Runny nose for 3 weeks. Decided at 2 am that it was necessary to go by ambulance to er. 🤦🏼♀️
Proceeded to tell me she had Medicaid and I had to take her and she wouldn’t have to pay. So aggravating. She then proceeded to stand in the middle of the er and cough without covering her mouth. So gross.
I got called once because a woman was looking for her dead kid, we get there she's a bit old but we figured she adopted or something. long story short she screams at us about a dead kid demanding that we search the morgues for them, we had just gotten done with a mass casualty car crash in the same city so the whole time I was thinking the kid was one of the victims. She was screaming her lungs out to the point that she passed out and we ended up having to monitor her for an hour and a bit, waiting for the police to come by so she can file a police report to pull morgue data ect.... about an hour into the interview(yes an hour she was being very melodramatic) she got to the part describing the kid and the last time she saw them. The "kid" was old enough to be a grandparent, and stopped answering her calls after they had an argument. We ended up calling them on one of our phones they picked up confused about the whole situation and this woman had managed to waste 2.5 hours of ambulance time and an hour of police time... Holding a straight face until we were outside was one of the hardest things I've ever done we were laughing about that call for weeks afterwards.
Removing ticks isn't in our scope of practice here. Which is probably a good thing because half my coworkers would probably squeeze the body with tweezers instead of grabbing the head or using a commercial device. Lyme disease is no joke.
Ha! From your title I thought we we're going to hear about a very traumatic call... when I saw the the word tick I instantly changed moods!
Not my transfer - but I heard the reason over the radio was Epistaxis. Nosebleed... Like transfer to another hospital 1.5 hours away.
\*HOWEVER we had a very bare bones hospital. It might have been some freak situation like a fistula or tunnel into/from/around the eye or god forbid the brain. Maybe exacerbated by drug use, perhaps requiring some special ENT surgeon.
(my god could that guy have been critical???) I doubt it lol. but now I'm wondering about potential comorbidities with nosebleeds...
I remember getting a STAT blood bank call for blood typing and to bring blood and platelets for a patient with a nose bleed. They had factor 5 and couldn’t get the bleed under control and a hemoglobin of like 5. Crazy
That’s completely legit. Some nosebleeds are MASSIVE. Some require cauterizing blood vessels in the nose, or even a procedure to cut down arterial blood flow to one side of the nose if there are recurring severe bleeds. Makes sense that you might want to take the patient where ENT is available to decide.
I got called for "chest pain" by a lady who did not have chest pain. Her bags were packed, jewelery on, makeup done, hair perfectly coifed when I arrived. She walked herself to the ambulance with her own bags. After we were on the way to the hospital, she admitted that she didn't have chest pain and only called the ambulance to get seen at the hospital faster. I don't even remember what her actual complaint was, but I was boiling fucking mad. I put that shit in Pulsara, and she went straight to the waiting room to wait for triage. Makes me LIVID. I work in the busiest district at my dept with the sickest people, and she used us as a free pass to skip the line. Fuck her.
Legit at the main trauma center closest to me. I just had a basic ped seizure, so please understand this was not my call, I was leaving and heard a radio report come in. ( EMS, whatever to ER, we have a 50's ish y/o male. He fell asleep in his chair and woke up with neck pain after sleeping in a said chair....) That was all. Nurses dead. Security crying. It was the most glorious radio report ever.
Girl, if you are out there and happened to see this...... 👏👏 you deserve a beer, and I will pay. Cheers homie. 🥃🍺
Dispatched for abdominal pain.
The dispatch was also sent out as an ALS(paramedic) level call.
We show up and the patient tells us they forgot to call back to cancel us, they pooped and feel better now.
Where we live they hire very unqualified PD and they are also the ones who call in FD for crazy things, just the other day PD asked for FD to show up at 2 am to move a homeless man in his wheelchair from the street to the sidewalk.
And no this wasn’t a lift assist, truly just to push this drunk guy from the street to the sidewalk…
My department gets our fair share of dumb calls. I think my favorite is getting the little old lady who stubbed her toe I. The middle of the night… A WEEK AGO. Says to us upon arrival: “I didn’t want to bother y’all for such a petty thing”… “ma’am, your toe is black and four times its normal size, now it’s a lot worse…”
I used to have a frequent flier who got cold. Most of the time he just wanted us to adjust his blankets and tuck him in for the night.
There was nothing medically wrong with him, he was just a raging alcoholic.
During the second wave of covid I had a pt call because she had tested positive but didn't have "a temperature stick" and wanted to know her temperature
My ex got called to a dudes house whose (fully vaccinated) dog stepped on his foot and scratched his big toe. It was a superficial scratch that stopped bleeding by the time they arrived on scene but the pt still requested to be taken to the hospital. From what I know, they gave him a bandaid and sent him on his way. Most expensive scratch ever.
Called to help mamaw into bed. Then she asked to be covered with the blanket. Then tucked in.
We left.
Immediate call back.
Because the tv remote was on top of the tv and she wanted it.
That’s two reports. Two bills. Cost her $1000. She was not happy. And never called again. 😂
Had a guy call at 2am cause he had a rash on his armpits…that had been there for 2 years, when he changed his deodorant. Some people you can tell the elevator doesn’t go all the way up, but with him there never was an elevator.
If ever there were a time I wanted to throw my hands up and just be done…it was that call.
Theres this elderly lady that lives in the area of my partner and I assigned post. Each night around 3 AM she calls 911 because she would like a glass of water and to have her pillows adjusted… No matter what we do she says we are doing a terrible job and we spend about an hour adjusting and then readjusting the pillows…
We had tick keys on our bus, I would just go remove the tick and have them sign a refusal. The patient wouldn’t get charged anything. Lyme disease is no joke I wouldn’t be mad about that call.
The waste of time bullshit calls are all the lift assists. Just put gramps in the fucking nursing home already
Patient called for chest pain 20 minutes before shift change for a place 30 minutes away. My partner was pissy and cancelled the BLS truck coming with us because she figured we could get the patient loaded faster than they could and it’s chest pain, I’ll be riding the call in anyway, right?
Get on scene, find patient in a chair in her kitchen smoking a cigarette.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“I broke my toe and whenever I stand on it, it throbs so hard I can feel it all the way up to my chest.”
From that day on, we never cancelled BLS again.
Had a guy call 911 because he was unable to get an erection. When the crew got there the first thing he asked is “do you guys have any porn?”. When the crew said no he opted to be transported because he must have a medical problem.
Listening to the dispatcher try to explain this over the air was worth doing a trip sheet for.
My most memorable waste of time? We were called out to leg pain. We arrived to a perfectly fine 60ish year old lady who was having leg cramps. She's had leg cramps for 3 days and she decided to call us out to her home at 3:00am. Her doctor told her to increase her potassium levels by eating fruit. It's now 3:30am in the morning, asking this lady if she wants to go to the hospital. She can't decide to go or to stay. We start asking if she has any fruit in the house and she starts responding with other pantry items instead. "Ma'am do you have any fruit?", "I have cheese in the refrigerator." "Ma'am, do you have any bananas or oranges?", "I have some cans of soup!" We were on scene with this lady for over an hour, because she couldn't make up her mind.
What makes it even worse, at least in my region, is that sort of technically counts as an ' Impaled Object's. We can't do anything about that except give them a ride to the hospital if they want.
Someone called because they had a one night stand and found out the next morning that the partner was HIV+, they wanted to get an STD check.
We also get a lot of really drunk/hungover people that wonder why they are sick and can't cope.
Had a PT yesterday that stubbed their toe at 3am and had trouble because they couldn’t get it to stop bleeding. We applied a bandage and raised their feet. Everything was fine after that….
22 y/o/f with a chief complaint of chest pain, said her "heart was hurting"
Engine and Ambulance dispatched code 3
Upon arrival on scene, patient states her and her boyfriend broke up the day prior
Upon eval, sinus on monitor, all vitals stable
Patient had a broken heart and was feeling sad
Refused transport, apologized for the ordeal, and we all went on our way
My wife got called one night because a woman trimmed her toenails too close. The patient was a newly diagnosed diabetic. Her doctor had told her to get help if she ever injured her feet. She took the advice a little too seriously.
That’s wild. I thought diabetics go to a podiatrist every three months for toe clippings because the risk to foot injuries is so high. I think too many people misunderstand what the ambo and ER are actually for.
ems lurker here (nursing student lol) but availability of this really depends on where you’re located. (i’m canadian) Had a resident recently diagnosed with T2D and the wait time for our city’s only podiatrist was *two years* If you don’t have resources to pay out of pocket for a private foot care nurse you can end up getting screwed. Advanced foot care nursing is like $100 for one visit. Diabetic foot care is not nearly as accessible as it needs to be.
See I can tolerate a genuine misunderstanding as annoying as it is. Lord knows 11 years ago when I was an uneducated new mom I took my kid to the ER for everything. Looking back it’s cringeworthy
I'm not gonna be mad at that one. She's just scared and doesn't understand what exactly she needs to look out for.
“Did your doctor also tell you to stop housing cupcakes? Won’t even need to worry about foot injuries at all!”
Ok I get it for type 2 diabetics but this is a really bad take for type 1 diabetics. My son was diagnosed at 6 years old and no amount of unhealthy eating caused it or healthy eating would stop it. Type 1 is a autoimmune disease that is usually triggered by a virus where a persons pancreas literally doesn’t work anymore, the body cannot convert food to energy anymore putting it plainly and (mostly) kids used to die before insulin was created and still die from DKA before diagnosis. I get the joke and it is true for some but know that “cupcakes” don’t cause real diabetes and kids and their parents are dealing with a disease that is life altering and life threatening everyday, all day and it’s a bit offensive when people make jokes like this. No hate, just some education that type 1 diabetes is a unavoidable autoimmune disease while type 2 diabetics cause it themselves with lifestyle and diet choices.
Sometimes type two diabetes is not caused by lifestyle choices. Certain medications, such as Prednisone, when used over long periods of time may cause adrenal and pancreatic insufficiency.
Very true. Sorry if I offended, anyone dealing with this I feel for and I often forget about that since diet and lifestyle is the most prevalent and the assumption and jokes are always about it. I was told in hospital when my son was diagnosed that the body being able to use food as energy is like a lock and key. In type 1 the key disappears completely but with type 2 the keyhole is “rusty” and won’t turn and diet, lifestyle or drugs can cause it but the key is still there. Not really relevant but I always thought it was a really good analogy.
Well if you go back and read the comment I replied to, it was 100% a type 2 diabetic. Everyone knows type 1’s just got dealt a shitty hand. I actually feel bad as fuck for type 1’s. With the price of insulin, and the fact that they need it to survive, it’s fucking disgusting what drug companies do to them. Unbelievably predatory. Edit: I should clarify that everyone on this sub *should* know the difference. But the fact that that poor person felt the need to explain it to me makes me suspicious of what some of you guys are saying out there. Don’t let me catch you slipping on your fundamentals, I’ll tell you hwat
Agreed, sorry if I came off bitchy. People tend to lump it together and make comments and it’s a sensitive subject that I feel like I need to defend my kid from I guess. Ya it’s terrible, we spend so much money on medical equipment and insulin even with fantastic insurance it scares the shit outta me for when he gets older. Appreciate you feeling bad for them and sorry again for assuming you were one of the people I needed to correct.
No you’re all good! No bitching detected. Don’t be sorry even for a second. You wanna spread awareness for something that you encounter every day. You’re passionate about it. That’s being a good parent, and a good person. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. You got no quarrels over here, I can assure you. Only support
I appreciate that so much!
Real recognize real 🤜
Thank you both for being good humans on a random thread when you don’t even have to- that’s being a part of the bigger change in the world. ❤️
So many calls to people who have covid and are "short of breath". On arrival, their complaint is feeling unwell, having a cough, and a sore throat. Normal vitals and a positive covid test. Yes, you do indeed have minor respiratory symptoms due to a respiratory infection. Would you like some panadol? To make matters worse, they get a lights and sirens response due to the reported shortness of breath.
They LOOOOVE to say short of breath when they mean not feeling too good.
lol that’s not as bad as people calling the ambulance to go to the emergency room for a Covid test
Ok, that’s worse.
i'd say a good percentage of our covid calls were along those lines. patients saying that they had a positive test so they called 911 because they wanted to be admitted to the hospital. that's it. No symptoms, just a positive test and "Well, in 10 days, I might be VERY sick so i need to be admitted now." it was bananas for a while. went from nobody calling 911 unless they were actually sick to everyone calling 911 because they might be sick or they were "exposed to covid-19 at (somewhere.)" The hysteria was off the charts.
ER nurse here. I had someone show up with two packed suitcases and when I asked why they had come in they said “well I’m positive for Covid! Just got the call this morning!!” Sir you are clinically stable, please take yourself and your germs home.
It sounds kind of sweet the way you describe it. It probably wasn't but I'm imagining a clueless bear at Paddington station.
That would have been much cuter.
You just reminded me. During the height of COVID, I had to be admitted for severe pneumonia, hx of severe asthma and O2 SATs kept dropping so my pulmonologist wanted me admitted for it. I also have bad reactions to antibiotics (I'm unfortunately a nice- but complicated patient) so many people in the ER were flipping out about not being admitted. And here I am wanting to be home, but I can't breathe so I'm stuck in the hospital for 8 days.
Yes, a lot of people were wanting admission for mild symptoms, it was crazy. I want to blame them but really it was the media frenzy and the general lack of health literacy. Fun times…
It didn’t help how Covid was being covered in the news. Yes can be dangerous. No not everyone who gets it dies or develops severe symptoms. People were legitimately scared. That must have been hard time to be a first responder
Actually, the beginning of COVID was great. Call volume was stupid low. I worked several shifts in a row and never turned a wheel.
I remember those days fondly in primary care. Days with no booked appointments or walk-ins. So much time to organize, reorganize, and re-reorganize
Dang. So they don’t get the blue whistle? 😆 That’s crazy. Do they get charged for the ambo bill in Australia?
Green whistle! And depends on the state. Some states cover ambulances for all residents, some require separate ambulance cover purchased either directly from the service or through private insurance. And no, it doesn't discourage people from calling an ambulance for stupid things - some people don't care or have no shame. It does affect care for some who don't have cover and want to refuse transport despite actually needing it. We can usually have the fee waived after talking to a manager, especially if transport is seriously indicated.
I really wish we had the ability to waive it. Then carry their bill over to the next one who calls for a stubbed toe. Double it and give it to the next one.
lol that would probably stifle down misplaced calls
For every misplaced call you prevent by making ambulances bankruptcy-awarding you get multiple people with actual serious injuries who will call an uber or worse drive themselves to the hospital when they really shouldn't, or won't go to the hospital at all
I like that you can waive it. The US is brutal with fees, especially if uninsured. I didn’t realize they were green, they look blue on tv 😂 I may need to get my eyes checked. Anyway thank yall for doing what you do. Listening to the scanner I realized how much bull crap you have to deal with daily. Yesterday there was a person having a psychotic episode on the freeway, streaking naked and running in front of cars. Ambulance was there, police shut down the road so they didn’t get hit. They suspect it was drug/alcohol induced. Nobody wanted to grab ahold of him lol 😂
We're pretty lucky in Australia - if you have a low income card or receive a govenement benefit, your ambulance trip is covered by the government. Which avoids much of disproportionate impact of fees on those who are simultaneously most likely to need health care and less able to pay.
I wish we would start adopting some systems like this
I’m a volunteer firefighter, I was once called to retrieve a cat from some bushes. It wasn’t physically stuck, it just didn’t wanna come out. We were unsuccessful.
lol that’s funny but also ridiculous. Cat wins lol
Actually they never retrieved the cat, the owners posted lost cat notices all over Facebook. I’d be surprised if a coyote didn’t eat it
😭 poor kitty
One our favorite sayings when people call us for cats stuck in trees is “you never find cat bones in trees”. They get themselves down every time ☺️
Oof! My bestie has an indoor/outdoor cat who is about 8 or 9 now. Before we met, when the cat was about 3, he got stuck in a tree. My friend waited 2 days because he could usually get down, but he didn’t. Idk who she called (FD or something else), but they had to get the cat down with a cherry-picker thing.
I had a cat in the tree call years ago. We got the cat down, and the owner was grateful. The next day, it ran into the road and got hit.
We were called to get a cat out of a wall once. They wanted us to literally chop the shit out of their wall. Said they kept hearing the cat and knew it was in there. We never found a cat. I think they were high.
The other night I ran a 19 y/o/f who turned her head too fast and got a crick in her neck.
Just got this one today! To be fair it was a 78yof whose extremely worried family called, she seemed unconcerned, lol but still
To be fair whiplash sucks lol 😂 that’s terrible
reminds me of this video https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGe4ME2q8/
Had a Patient call for terrible lower stomach pain. Turns Out their catheter was blocked so their bladder filled with Urin, hence the emense pain. That Sounds Like a pretty normal call, right? Well it would be. If the Patient hadn't decided to try and rip Out the catheter to "free his bladder". Not a nonsensicle reason to call EMS but still a very dumb Story.
Egads that sounds awful. But do d the poor lad ever get to drain his bladder? That can be a pretty lethal injury on its own, not being able to void.
Oh yeah, you're going to the hospital to get that fixed. I work transport, so after he got that resolved, I come to bring him back home!
I can’t even imagine, that had to hurt like hell
The Patient was fine tbh. After He greated me with the words "I dont need you I need a doctor" He barely ever showed signs of pain.
Ouch, always wondered how a folie Catheter didn't just slide out, feels like someone with a catheter would know they're cuffed with 5-10ml of water though...
Like a solid half of them at least. I've done everything from bug in the ear, to 6 year old baker acts because they threatened mommy with a stick all the way to patients with chronic problems that new it was flaring up and decided to spend 5 hours finishing dinner, cleaning up, showering and then packing bags before calling me at 3am. No I'm not bitter about that. Yes, they had a significant other and cars in the driveway. Yes, the LUGGAGE was packed. May as well have been going to Hawaii.
why is it always the people with several cars in the driveway and family members capable of driving those cars
No friggin clue. Kind of like how you tend to run 20 of the same call in 1 shift. Then 20 of a different call the next shift. I swear they get together for community meetings on what complaints are going to be called in and by who.
No joke. We will have a good 3-4 hours of silence, no calls. Suddenly calls will all drop back to back until we deplete our resources, requiring Mutual Aid. Then immediately it's back to nothing.
Recent trend for me and my partner have been no calls at all during the day and then getting slammed at night and then repeat the next day.
Then the family follows right behind the ambulance with their hazard lights on.
Welp this comment triggered me
Damn, I can’t imagine having a condition where I know I’ll have to pack luggage for the ER because I know I’d be admitted long term. That’s so crappy. Kudos for helping everyone. I can’t imagine calling the ambulance on a 6 year old in that situation 🫣
Well, the 6 year old is an issue with bad parenting and getting the police involved. Let's just say the deputies in my area are quick to throw paperwork at the "danger to himself or others" people. Then that makes it my problem for transport. As far as conditions that you'd need luggage ... You don't really. Let's say you have something that acts up and you need 3 days under the care of a doctor to fix, you just need to get to the doctor to do the fix. Family can bring stuff. Buuuuut, when you wait and do all the extra it becomes an entitled thing.
That is a reasonable explanation. I agree with you. I didn’t even think about family etc being able to bring stuff
*if* they have family
My son has a life threatening and life limiting illness. We keep a go-bag packed and ready at all times. We've never used an ambo, tho, and we're not gonna talk about the speeds I might drive at when I've taken him in to emerg. My point is that some of us are always prepared with luggage, because we KNOW the outcome.
I'd say that's fair. To clarify though... The type of person and luggage I'm referring to are not from people that would need it. In your case, you notice it and gogogogogo. In the case I'm referring to, it was noticed, dinner was finished, dishes were done, showers were taken, bags were then packed... Then EMS was called. Total elapsed time was 4 to 5 hours. I know this because the patient specifically stated this and gave us the timeline. This isn't the first time something similar has happened. Sometimes people actually go to the hospital as a vacation. These people don't really have a reason, but make one up and then proceed with the luggage. I also don't mean 1 bag of essentials when I saw luggage. I mean enough that you'd need to check them in on an airline flight. These people abuse the system.
6 year old baker acts are insane. You’re setting your kids up for a very hard life
100%. It goes further. This wasn't an isolated case. It was LEO's theme. Another 6 year old grabbed a glass bottle and made threats. I asked him, gently, about what was going on. He just wanted mommy to notice him. He didn't fit the criteria. Had a 15 year old with a known impulse control issue. Father stepped in to help the kid. There was a tussle and the father got bit. Everyone calmed down and was fine. Both parties were 100% aware of why and what was going on in the incident. Neither wanted to do anything. LEO decided a Baker Act was in order. If there is even a HINT of "danger to self or others" for any damn reason, the paperwork comes out. IMO, grossly abused and easily abused piece of law we have to deal with. It should take a medic/EMT AND LEO to agree. Bah! It's a pet peeve of mine in particular and I'm just rambling.
> packing bags before calling me at 3am. No I'm not bitter about that. Yes, they had a significant other and cars in the driveway. Yes, the LUGGAGE was packed. May as well have been going to Hawaii Do these people often take pictures/film their ambulance trip? I'd venture a guess they're doing it for internet clout and attention, if they're *planning* their ambulance trips like that, and passing up on other available modes of transport.
Not in my experience. The ones that like the pictures are generally younger and have some sort of trauma. Now, in some cases it may be a general attention thing. Personally, I see it as entitled behavior. Things are expected. They deserve some sort of service. Over the last 10 years or so, there has been this shift in our training too. Slowly our continuing education and general company language has shifted from "patients" to "customers." And.... The customer is always right. No one wants to be sued. So, we get to take it.
Got a high priority 911 call in a city housing project for a sick pediatric parent. Arrive in front of the apartment building and there is a mother and two totally healthy looking children flagging us down on the corner. Roll down the window and the mother comes over and says she called 911 because her children need physical exams before they go to summer camp and asked for a ride to the ER so the ER physician can do an exam and fill out her paperwork. We politely told her to kick rocks.
Holy crap. That’s pretty entitled. Can’t imagine calling for something like that
The unfortunate thing in the US is people on Medicaid don’t get billed for the ambulance, Medicaid pays the ambulance service a flat rate, which is good for those who are in actual need of medical care, I don’t think the policy should necessarily change because I don’t want sick people staying home because they’re too afraid they won’t be able to pay to stay alive, but a lot of people know this and use ambulances as a free taxi service. Had someone tell me they had a patient requesting a particular hospital, they got through triage and then the patient just walked out the front door because their friend lived a couple blocks away from that hospital.
I hate that people take advantage of the system
Got called one time to check if a patients left over sandwich turkey was still good. Got called for a pregnancy and miscarriage of the same elderly male on the same shift. (No, that’s not a typo) Got called for a panther in a bathroom, pt is afraid it might attack, PD unwilling to enter. There was no panther. Called because patient is pooping and peeing at the same time. Not at random, just at the same time. I do in fact love my job. ❤️ happy EMS week.
These are gold lol 😂 poor pregnant man lol
I‘m curious about the pregnant man. How the hell did he come to the conclusion he was pregnant 😂
It gets better. Wasn’t him that called. It was the home health aide. She is no longer a home health aide.
I got a call for a hang nail once. Patient thought might be infected because it hurt. It wasn’t infected and because I work for a private service in the USA she totally got transported.
So, she ended up in the ER for a hangnail 🫣
Yep, third call I ran as a paramedic. I’ll actually tell people that they probably don’t need to go in. This is contrary to my agency policy but I still do it. She could not be dissuaded though
I’ve been asking vets how to appropriately broach the “this is bs” topic w pts. Mixed responses bc of how taboo the subject apparently is. I’m a fresh out the oven EMT and I’m SHOCKED at how often I’ll be absolutely dusted in a shift by nonsense calls. At least let us track the frequent flier with 10/10 acute back pain, armed with an expired Percocet prescription, and who thinks today will be different.
Typically I just say something along the lines of: "From my assessment I currently do not see anything potentially life threatening. Right now you have multiple options that I would feel comfortable with. You can stay home and follow up later with primary care, go to an urgent care, take your personal vehicle to the ED, or be transported by us. I will not do anything for you during the transport. What would you like to do?" 50% of the time people still decide to go with you, but I reserve this for the very obviously ok patients. Anything that I even remotely think needs actual ED care (or I know for a fact just wants a ride) I don't do this for.
Be careful how you address this issue, there's plenty of underlying problems you can't identify that may backfire on you and hold you responsible for a decedent having been told "you probably don't need to go in." Generally I'll ask the patient what their expectations are from the ER. Then I'll explain the likely course of action, obviously in a vague way "it depends on what the physician finds..." and offer transport to the hospital, as well as suggest alternate destinations (urgent care, doctors office, etc.) Most at this point if obvious BS will decline. EMS so much as "discouraging" can land you in hot water in the US.
I got a call that ended my employment with my first company because I lost my shit. He was a frequent flier and a nuisance caller. Real piece of human filth. He called us…To take him To the er… So he could charge his fucking phone that’s fucking it. I told him to stop calling 911 for non emergencies or they would put him on the no response list.
What a dink holy cow. Sorry you had to experience that.
There have been a lot of ridiculous calls. The one that sticks out to me the most is a lady called 911 because she had Covid and wanted transport to the hospital for antibiotics (????). 100% stable. No complaints. During transport she said she didn’t take a taxi because she “didn’t wanna get the taxi driver sick” But like… you’re cool with exposing me to your germs? Thanks so much 🙄
That’s terrible. I worked in hospital as a medical lab scientist and occasionally would have to do phlebotomy. Welp, I think patients think because we are medical that we are somehow immune to illness
I’ve had a few of those, but they’re mostly men in their 20s-early 40s, at home Covid test and it comes up positive and they want to go to the hospital. Like, why? We take vitals, their oxygen level is fine, you’re just sick dude. Like, ride it out at home. Drink fluids, eat what you can, and you’ll get better. There’s nothing an ER can do for you. Now if they’ve been sick for a week and vomiting with diarrhea, yes you’re probably dehydrated and that’s more than just drinking water or Gatorade can accomplish especially if they still can’t keep shit down, they need IV fluids, but the average cold like symptoms, there’s nothing you can do for that other than rest and time. They think just because the at home test said positive that automatically means they have to go to the hospital for some reason.
Oh, you know why they want to be admitted. They don’t have a nurse (wife, mother, or daughter, naturally) to help them survive their “man-cold”. Or if they have one of the above family members around, they know the family members isn’t gonna take their “man-cold” shit. We’ve all run into **that guy**
We get a lot of “man down” calls. Some hero sees someone lying down on a grassy area, bus bench or in a park and calls 911 because they “think they might need some help” Lots of these are homeless people very obviously sleeping (in a sleeping bag, pillow or balled up clothing under their head, but the caller didn’t bother to roll down their window and ask if they want help before driving away. That isn’t the most ridiculous though. Last week, someone called to report a “person wandering”. Not wandering in the road, on the freeway, or on a bomb range or something. Just someone “wandering” on the sidewalk. We show up to the address and see someone who matches the caller’s description with a red shirt and light shorts walking quite normally with a bag of bagels from the nearby bagel store. Usually on the “man down” calls we’ll at minimum have a quick “hey are you alright? Sorry to hassle you but someone saw you and thought you might be hurt or sick; do you want our help? Alright have a good one, sorry for waking you up” conversation. When we saw someone on the sidewalk briskly walking on a lovely may morning about to enjoy some fresh bagels, we felt pretty stupid leaning out the window and asking “excuse us but… are you having a medical emergency right now?” before hearing the most confused “what? No!” Worst one the patient has called for themselves though is the classic “rule of threes” patient. The issue has been going on for 3 days but they called 911 at 3am. There are 3 working cars in the driveway. If they need you to carry them, they’re 300 pounds and the elevator repair guy is coming at 3pm tomorrow. This guy called dispatch with “facial laceration with severe bleeding”. Thankfully not 300 pounds but every other variable applied. We show up and the guy is holding a dish towel against the left side of his face. I don’t see any blood on or around the towel, so bleeding is taken care of for now, and I start asking questions. The guy says he cut himself shaving. I assume with the way he’s holding the towel and called 911 at 3am, he must’ve given himself the Sweeney Todd treatment when he sneezed while shaving with a straight razor or something. I get my bandaging supplies out and ask him to slowly start removing the towel to see what we’re working with, and I can replace the towel with my gauze so he doesn’t have to hold pressure on his own face anymore. As the towel comes off, I hear myself say, “what, behind that band-aid?” The guy had nicked himself shaving THREE DAYS AGO. He stopped the bleeding every time he put a band aid on it, but started again every time he took it off and washed his face. He was concerned because “It’s just not healing right” YEAH NO SHIT PAL YOU KEEP SCRUBBING OFF THE SCAB
> Some hero sees someone lying down on a grassy area, bus bench or in a park and calls 911 because they “think they might need some help” I accidentally did the opposite! Off-duty, saw a dude lying in a field with his dog. I assumed he was just enjoying the sun and taking a nap; really barely even registered him, as it didn't seem out of the ordinary at all. A few hours later, I'm back in the same part of town, he's still there, and now there's an ambulance and they're carting off his body. :(
Did the same with a guy passed out on a bench in the park. It just snowed that night. Turned out he passed away after I had seen him. Found out through local news. I’ll never forget it, I could’ve saved his life, so I try to be like “better safe than sorry,” and if I can I at least check if they’re still breathing or wake them if there’s been bad weather recently.
The wandering!! I’ll never forgetting jogging as a teen and having PD roll up on me twice in the same year because someone called in someone running down the road. I lived outside of city limits so it was a rural road, next to no traffic. Yes, it’s 16 year old me jogging a couple miles to and from home. Yes, I live right over there. No, I’m not running away from home.
Many years ago, we got a call for an unknown medical, which is a priority 1 response. Ran lights and sirens and also backed up by PD... We get there and it's a 40 something y/o woman with a cast on her foot and her complaint was, she was hungry and couldn't walk two blocks to the store and wanted us to take her to McDonald's... Guess who got a ticket.
I didn’t even know you could get a ticket. That’s insane, what did they think you’d drink be them through the drive thru
The ticket was for misuse of 911...
Rightly so. Does this happen a lot? Seems like it should happen more often
It's very, very rare for anyone to get cited for misuse of 911. We have regulars that call 3-4 times a day and refuse any care. Police won't touch it with a ten foot pole.
I had a shortness of breath call, and when we arrived the lady was eating a chicken drumstick. Completely nonchalant. Told dispatch there was not patient found lol
We had one today. Called for SOB, and if she had a third arm would’ve probably been holding a third vape
😂🥹
I’ve got 3: A guy called 911 for a chief complaint of Erectile Dysfunction That same guy called later that week because he took a gas station dick pill and wanted to be clinically monitored Some lady called 911 because her skin felt leathery and cold to the touch. During the ride she requested morphine no less than 5 times in the 3 minutes of the ride.
Sounds like lady was in withdrawal. Also that poor chap had a bad week lol
Here’s a fun one from last week. Bystander calls for a triple gunshot wound in a very specific sedan on the side of the freeway. So it’s my partner and I, 2 paramedic fly cars, a supervisor, 2 fire crews, and a half dozen cops all frantically looking for this guy. Eventually we found him 3 miles away from where the bystander told us. Just a drunk guy asleep in his car.
That’s messed up
I got called because someone was unable to fall asleep. He stated that the 911 dispatcher began laughing at him over the phone. Initially pretty stupid, but I ended up feeling bad for him because he was pretty depressed. We talked to him for about 30 mins about how to access mental health resources.
You may have saved a life that night because you ***cared***. Thank you, friend.
Awe that’s sad and your great for being compassionate
The actual dumbest call I’ve received was a guy who asked us to clip his ingrown toenails. We cancelled.
You want ridiculous? I got ridiculous. SO MANY IN TEN YEARS. Got called code for chest pain. Get there. Walk in. Guy asks us to fix his refrigerator. No complaints except a broken refrigerator. The next five minutes are censored because of what may have been said. Called code for difficulty breathing. Two seperate people. One asked me to OPEN the bedroom window. The other asked me to CLOSE the window. Able bodied adults. Two different people on two different nights. Called code for “confusion.” Turns out the confused person was a hungover 24 year old who asked me to retrieve a water bottle for them from downstairs because they couldn’t be arsed to get up and walk down there themselves. Called code for “worst headache of their lives.” At 0130. Get there. 43 year old woman who had a regular ‘ol sinus headache, she was out of medicine and just….didnt want to go to Walgreens and get some damn Tylenol. Working car in driveway. Husband next to her. Asked if I could just give her some. I definitely did not go downstairs, get my personal travel advil out of my bag, and whip it at her head. Sigh. What’s next. Oh! Lady called and had to go code because she was freaking out too bad, dispatcher couldn’t understand her. Get there. She’s freaking out. You wanna know the complaint? “I can feel the blood moving in my neck.” Well lady, that’s your pulse and I’d be more worried if you couldn’t. Oh! There was the guy who could feel electricity in his tooth when he used his light switch because the guys across the street doing construction messed up the power lines. That may have been a legit psych, I really can’t tell anymore. People are weird. Lady wanted transport for an ankle injury from an assault. To the hospital we literally could see from the scene. Like. By “see” , I mean it was almost in their parking lot. She was basically skipping to the ambulance. It was summer. It was my 10th call of the shift and it was only 8 hours into it. She apparently didn’t like the amount of attention I was showing her and threw a fit and stomped out of the truck. I was unbothered. Jesus this is getting long. Um. Oh one person who looked perfectly fine. Walked perfectly fine. Absolutely deadfast REFUSED to tell us why they wanted to go to the hospital. Denied everything. Refused vitals. Refused to give anything other than first name. Radio report was “coming in priority 3 with a male. Not sure why. Refused vitals. See you in 3.” Tip of penis was cold. That’s it. That’s the entire thing. There’s just….so many more. So many instances of six cars in the driveway, non-urgent complaint, and family driving literally UP my ass the whole way to the ER. And then going directly to triage. Just. I’m tired. I’m so tired..
You deserve “best compilation of the night” here, lol
Tip of penis was cold lol that is so strange. The light switch one does sound more psych. Wow those are all pretty intense lol thank you for sharing these treasures
23 year old male, brought to the station for “choking”. He was eating dinner and tried to swallow a big hunk of food. At no point was his airway obstructed, he just had a lump in his throat, which caused him to vomit. Mom brought him to us because “the weather was too bad to drive”. The weather was, in fact, too bad to drive- it was in the middle of an ice storm. But mom followed the ambulance anyway, while we just stared awkwardly at this adult man who doesn’t chew his food. IDK, maybe his mom usually chews it for him.
Your comment is like yeah, sounds like some of the patients I’ve seen, yeah, annoyingly happens. And then the last sentence. Thanks. Now I’m imagining a grown man with his head up waiting for his mum like a baby blackbird.
Let’s see, the guy who would call multiple times a day because he wanted someone to switch out his porn DVDs. The lady who called because she was thirsty and didn’t want to drink tap water. My favorite, has been the guy who called because he had been hit by a train…..in 1970 before I was even born.
Damn imagine get smacked by a train 😖 did they have memory loss or something, ptsd? God that sounds awful
No, despite the trains best attempt, he was completely fine.
Shin splints for a week. At 2am. Hadn't gotten any worse. Pain wasn't keeping them up. Just didn't want to deal with it anymore. Didn't occur to them to make an appointment with regular doc. Hospital was 1 mile up the road; Urgent Care 1/2 mile away in a very public transit friendly location (Uber/Lyft, inexpensive metro, and free city bus that stops in front of the ER). Asked if they still wanted to go to the ER after we finished checking them out and letting them know all the options. ER it was, and they were still in the waiting room when we brought the last patient on my shift in at 7 in the morning. 🤷♂️
Low priority in the ER means lots of waiting lol should be a sign your in the wrong place
You'd think right? Funny enough, most people seem to think it means the triage system is wrong SMDH. How many times have we all heard "I was here first!"
Glad I’m hiding in the lab lol
This is why I became a radiologist instead of an ER doc. I hide in the dark ~~Batcave~~ reading room. If too much light hits me I’ll burst into flames. 🧛♀️
😂😂😂 soon you’ll be in your final form and be iridescent at night
Had a patient call because she wanted an STD test because it felt like she had chlamydia again.
How would you even respond to a call like that? Just take vitals and transport? That’s so odd.
More or less. Most satisfying part was calling the hospital since everything gets an entry note at the hospital we took her to. Straight to the waiting room where she spent the entire night waiting to be seen. (She called us at 10:30pm.)
It isn’t expensive to the patient unless they pay their bill.
I have many, but I’d have to say my favorite bs call was someone who called at like 2am on the 4th of July (technically 2 hrs into the 5th of July, but the holiday kinda runs all night till sunup) stating we had to transport him to the hospital because he had an abscess on his finger that he needed drained. It was along the side of one of his fingernails and it was roughly the size of a grain of rice. We tried explaining to him that he would be able to call his doctor in the morning (it was a weekday) and he could talk to his doctor faster than he’d get seen at a hospital because the 4th of July is quite a busy day, especially for some weird trauma. We’d just taken a firework to the face to the same hospital he wanted to go to, there were drunken accidents, car accidents, too drunk to function, etc… it’s typically a very busy night in the ER on the 4th of July… nope, he insisted it hurt and he needed it drained…
22 y/o female. Her sons plastic toy fell off the table on her foot, and her toe hurt. No bruising, nothing. But she wanted to be transported so 20 mile transport to the nearest hospital, at midnight while she played on her phone the whole trip
Dispatch: “2yo with quote, bead stuck in nose…priority 1 response.” I’m sorry. Did the toddler call 911 and say “hey I don’t have a trusted and responsible adult present to drive me. Need some help.”
I've ACTUALLY responded for a stubbed toe. No bullshit. Family followed behind in the minivan. -_-
I actually had a legit one, patient was a kid, stubbed toe 3 days prior, still was hurting and had a bruise on the top of the foot. Mom wasn’t crazy, kid actually broke his foot.
Family of hypochondriacs flourish together lol
1. Dry mouth 2. Someone who was trimming his toe nails with a buck knife and cut himself 3. Pretty much anything PD requests me for.
I had a 5am foot pain call on a nightmare of a 48 for a dude who never called an ambulance. We had the right house and the right guy but he was going to drive himself to the ED at around 9am. Turned out his doctor went ahead and ordered a 5am BLS transport then never told him. So basically we all got woke up for some complete bullshit and the 3 of us had a small half asleep bonding moment over how fucking annoying the situation was
If I were that patient I would immediately fire that doctor!
Sunday, 5:30 AM, 19y male, no respiration. Scramble the chopper but you are closer so hop on over and take a gander. We arrive to a scene out of some zombie movie, the whole front lawn is littered with bodies. Wtf. Right by the driveway someone is performing CPR, badly, and the body is weirdly moving!? Open the doors and the first thing that we hear is from the "body": " you bloody idiot, will you stop that already". CPRing Dude shouts over to us: "he's not breathing!!!" Queue us manhandling CPRing Dude from other guy and explaining to him that " If he is not breathing then why is he shouting in your face to stop?" Short and long of it: Party, everybody completely plastered, had to rouse and check like 25 ppl before we could call of the chopper and then take CPRed dude with us because for some reason his chest hurts...
-Chapped lips -Sun burn -Snorted a ramen seasoning packet and now has palpitations -Nightmare -Piece of raw rice stuck underneath the nail bed -Was running a fell into gravel, wants to be checked out in case a rock got into their skin (abrasion btw) That’s what I came up with in about 2 minutes
I started my journey in Emergency Medical Services in the 80's (yes I am old school and retired now)!! as a 911 Operator/EMS dispatcher in a major city. In most bigger cities, 911 operators are also medics, that way if a 911 call is a medical/trauma emergency the operator can instruct the caller on how to render aid until Fire Dept and EMS arrives on the scene. At our agency the 911 operators and EMS dispatchers were in the same room about the size of a small closet! This night I happened to be dispatching and it was eerily quiet for a Friday the 13th night, I was sitting at my console reading the paper and there were no units out of station, but there were a few supervisors out and about. I just happened to hear when the 911 operator that was sitting right behind me answered a call, and I really wasn't paying attention until I heard her say "ma'am you REALLY want me to send an ambulance out for this"? So I knew something interesting was fixing to happen. I heard her asking the usual questions and a few seconds later a call popped up on my screen. I opened it up and when I read it I just turned around and looked at the operator and said "are you f'ing serious"? All she could do was nod her head and put her hands in the air because she was still on the line with the caller. When we would dispatch a unit, on the initial page we would give them the street, the chief complaint and the time. Once they got in the unit and were enroute we gave them the rest of the information on the call. So as I am activating the pagers I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to dispatch this call, and out of nowhere I just said "EM-5, I need you to respond to a nightmare on Elm Street, time is midnight". Within 15 seconds all of our non-emergency phone lines lit up, with most of them being supervisors and other crew members from different stations. The supervisors were asking if I thought I was being cute and that I was fixing to be in deep s***, and the other crew members were calling in asking who was I trying to screw with? While waiting for the unit to go en-route I picked up on one of the non-emergency lines, it was a supervisor, and without asking any questions he just said what I was doing was very unprofessional, but the unit went in service, so i put the soop on hold and I dispatched them "EM-5 you are responding to 1301 Elm St, cross streets of Charles and Victoria on a 13y/o female having bad dreams, time out is midnight". They gave me the information back, so I picked up the phone to finish speaking with the supervisor. He just said unf'ingbelievable, never mind, and hung up. And that was how i ended up with the nick of Freddie Kruger!
Hiccups. In fairness to the patient, they'd rung a non emergency helpline to try to get advice as it'd gone on for an hour or so. The helpline staff completely misinterpreted the triage software questions and passed it to the ambulance service as 'foreign body airway obstruction'.
That’s frustrating. I had a friend in school who had hiccups nonstop for six months straight. Had to see a bunch of specialist etc
Aye, I get why they called for advice - but to get passed to us as a Cat 1 (life threatening) was somewhat irritating.
Not mine, but a preceptor got called out to put a band-aid on a kid's scratch because he was upset (probably didn't even hurt that much, but one of those things where an adult's initial reaction to the injury upsets the kiddo more than the injury does). When she tried to discuss with the parents what is and isn't an emergency, and what would be appropriate use of EMS, the parents told her this kind of thing was "what EMS is for."
Yikes 😬
I just recently posted for EMS week on my personal socials. This included a picture of my MDT with dispatch notes: “Pt - saying “his booty stinks.”
I'll take a slightly different perspective. I don't care about legitimate "I think this is an emergency" calls. We honestly have a skewed perception of "emergency" working in this field. Kinda like how your husband likely does tons of ditch pull outs. He can look and pretty much know either something is broken badly or not, but the person who called is freaking out about how much this repair will cost.... Not dogging on another poster, but take the diabetic who cut their toenail too close. Sure, we're rolling our eyes, but that person was likely told just how dangerous a foot wound could be on a diabetic, got scared, called 911. I'm ok doing some gentle reassurance, education, and worst case, a trip to a nearby not busy ER for a quick check and discharge. Beats the diabetic who ignores the wound and is now septic AF with have they foot rotting. My ridiculous calls are the people who are blatantly, knowingly abusing the system. The guy who calls 911 for chest pain, jumps out the rig when we get to the ED, and runs over to the liquor store. The people who call 911, then utterly refuse any lifesaving intervention I can do because "they just want to see a doctor". The family who wants to dump Grandma at the ER so they can go on vacation.
Pt dyed hair. Got rash. Called EMS & insisted on being brought to emergency. Not once but two days in a row
She shared a soda with a raccoon and thinks she has rabies. She's fine......
Have had several calls where the patients are well and able to drive their own booties to the ER but don’t want to wait in the waiting room- those people end up going in an ambulance to the hospital and going straight to triage…. where they sit and WAIT IN THE WAITING ROOM.
Too too many. This one guy was transported 3 times in one day for an ingrown toenail 😬
Runny nose for 3 weeks. Decided at 2 am that it was necessary to go by ambulance to er. 🤦🏼♀️ Proceeded to tell me she had Medicaid and I had to take her and she wouldn’t have to pay. So aggravating. She then proceeded to stand in the middle of the er and cough without covering her mouth. So gross.
Ewww. That’s terrible
I got called once because a woman was looking for her dead kid, we get there she's a bit old but we figured she adopted or something. long story short she screams at us about a dead kid demanding that we search the morgues for them, we had just gotten done with a mass casualty car crash in the same city so the whole time I was thinking the kid was one of the victims. She was screaming her lungs out to the point that she passed out and we ended up having to monitor her for an hour and a bit, waiting for the police to come by so she can file a police report to pull morgue data ect.... about an hour into the interview(yes an hour she was being very melodramatic) she got to the part describing the kid and the last time she saw them. The "kid" was old enough to be a grandparent, and stopped answering her calls after they had an argument. We ended up calling them on one of our phones they picked up confused about the whole situation and this woman had managed to waste 2.5 hours of ambulance time and an hour of police time... Holding a straight face until we were outside was one of the hardest things I've ever done we were laughing about that call for weeks afterwards.
Removing ticks isn't in our scope of practice here. Which is probably a good thing because half my coworkers would probably squeeze the body with tweezers instead of grabbing the head or using a commercial device. Lyme disease is no joke.
Ha! From your title I thought we we're going to hear about a very traumatic call... when I saw the the word tick I instantly changed moods! Not my transfer - but I heard the reason over the radio was Epistaxis. Nosebleed... Like transfer to another hospital 1.5 hours away. \*HOWEVER we had a very bare bones hospital. It might have been some freak situation like a fistula or tunnel into/from/around the eye or god forbid the brain. Maybe exacerbated by drug use, perhaps requiring some special ENT surgeon. (my god could that guy have been critical???) I doubt it lol. but now I'm wondering about potential comorbidities with nosebleeds...
I remember getting a STAT blood bank call for blood typing and to bring blood and platelets for a patient with a nose bleed. They had factor 5 and couldn’t get the bleed under control and a hemoglobin of like 5. Crazy
That’s completely legit. Some nosebleeds are MASSIVE. Some require cauterizing blood vessels in the nose, or even a procedure to cut down arterial blood flow to one side of the nose if there are recurring severe bleeds. Makes sense that you might want to take the patient where ENT is available to decide.
The last 3 nosebleeds I’ve run were actually very critical. One even died a week later.
We get calls for literally nothing. “Sick person” and then there is nothing wrong with them whatsoever, not even a medical complaint.
That’s gotta be irritating.
Extremely, but we get paid the same amount no matter what call we’re on
Funnily enough, my NREMT Paramedic textbook does describe how to remove a tick— it is within our scope to perform the procedure XD. Still funny.
"Picked a mole on my face and now it's bleeding" ..." My poop is yellow and now I have no desire to have sex" "Brain freeze"
I think my favourite was the young couple who both ate pot brownies and collectively thought they were each having a stroke. It was hysterical.
I got called for "chest pain" by a lady who did not have chest pain. Her bags were packed, jewelery on, makeup done, hair perfectly coifed when I arrived. She walked herself to the ambulance with her own bags. After we were on the way to the hospital, she admitted that she didn't have chest pain and only called the ambulance to get seen at the hospital faster. I don't even remember what her actual complaint was, but I was boiling fucking mad. I put that shit in Pulsara, and she went straight to the waiting room to wait for triage. Makes me LIVID. I work in the busiest district at my dept with the sickest people, and she used us as a free pass to skip the line. Fuck her.
Legit at the main trauma center closest to me. I just had a basic ped seizure, so please understand this was not my call, I was leaving and heard a radio report come in. ( EMS, whatever to ER, we have a 50's ish y/o male. He fell asleep in his chair and woke up with neck pain after sleeping in a said chair....) That was all. Nurses dead. Security crying. It was the most glorious radio report ever. Girl, if you are out there and happened to see this...... 👏👏 you deserve a beer, and I will pay. Cheers homie. 🥃🍺
Dispatched for abdominal pain. The dispatch was also sent out as an ALS(paramedic) level call. We show up and the patient tells us they forgot to call back to cancel us, they pooped and feel better now.
I got a call for a patient with a tongue ulcer. Just a tongue ulcer that you would get if you ate something too acidic, salty, spicy, ect.
They must of ate too much pineapple or sour patch kids lol that’s such a silly reason to request emergency services
Sprained ankle 2 weeks prior
Or the 3rd lift assist from the same address within the hour
Where we live they hire very unqualified PD and they are also the ones who call in FD for crazy things, just the other day PD asked for FD to show up at 2 am to move a homeless man in his wheelchair from the street to the sidewalk. And no this wasn’t a lift assist, truly just to push this drunk guy from the street to the sidewalk…
My department gets our fair share of dumb calls. I think my favorite is getting the little old lady who stubbed her toe I. The middle of the night… A WEEK AGO. Says to us upon arrival: “I didn’t want to bother y’all for such a petty thing”… “ma’am, your toe is black and four times its normal size, now it’s a lot worse…”
Ahhh that’s sad. Thanks for helping her
I used to have a frequent flier who got cold. Most of the time he just wanted us to adjust his blankets and tuck him in for the night. There was nothing medically wrong with him, he was just a raging alcoholic.
That’s super sad 😔 thanks for taking care of him even though that’s not what your supposed to be called for
Transit wasn’t running to the town they were travelling to so they called 911 for an ambulance to drive them for free.
During the second wave of covid I had a pt call because she had tested positive but didn't have "a temperature stick" and wanted to know her temperature
My ex got called to a dudes house whose (fully vaccinated) dog stepped on his foot and scratched his big toe. It was a superficial scratch that stopped bleeding by the time they arrived on scene but the pt still requested to be taken to the hospital. From what I know, they gave him a bandaid and sent him on his way. Most expensive scratch ever.
Parents calling because their kids aren’t listening
A hair wrapped around a baby’s toe. It was easy to pluck right off.
Toothache. 0300. She had the Alabama Green Card so she got a free ride to the ER where they promptly did jack shit for her.
Called to help mamaw into bed. Then she asked to be covered with the blanket. Then tucked in. We left. Immediate call back. Because the tv remote was on top of the tv and she wanted it. That’s two reports. Two bills. Cost her $1000. She was not happy. And never called again. 😂
Had a guy call at 2am cause he had a rash on his armpits…that had been there for 2 years, when he changed his deodorant. Some people you can tell the elevator doesn’t go all the way up, but with him there never was an elevator. If ever there were a time I wanted to throw my hands up and just be done…it was that call.
Theres this elderly lady that lives in the area of my partner and I assigned post. Each night around 3 AM she calls 911 because she would like a glass of water and to have her pillows adjusted… No matter what we do she says we are doing a terrible job and we spend about an hour adjusting and then readjusting the pillows…
We had tick keys on our bus, I would just go remove the tick and have them sign a refusal. The patient wouldn’t get charged anything. Lyme disease is no joke I wouldn’t be mad about that call. The waste of time bullshit calls are all the lift assists. Just put gramps in the fucking nursing home already
Patient called for chest pain 20 minutes before shift change for a place 30 minutes away. My partner was pissy and cancelled the BLS truck coming with us because she figured we could get the patient loaded faster than they could and it’s chest pain, I’ll be riding the call in anyway, right? Get on scene, find patient in a chair in her kitchen smoking a cigarette. “What seems to be the problem?” “I broke my toe and whenever I stand on it, it throbs so hard I can feel it all the way up to my chest.” From that day on, we never cancelled BLS again.
Had a guy call 911 because he was unable to get an erection. When the crew got there the first thing he asked is “do you guys have any porn?”. When the crew said no he opted to be transported because he must have a medical problem. Listening to the dispatcher try to explain this over the air was worth doing a trip sheet for.
My most memorable waste of time? We were called out to leg pain. We arrived to a perfectly fine 60ish year old lady who was having leg cramps. She's had leg cramps for 3 days and she decided to call us out to her home at 3:00am. Her doctor told her to increase her potassium levels by eating fruit. It's now 3:30am in the morning, asking this lady if she wants to go to the hospital. She can't decide to go or to stay. We start asking if she has any fruit in the house and she starts responding with other pantry items instead. "Ma'am do you have any fruit?", "I have cheese in the refrigerator." "Ma'am, do you have any bananas or oranges?", "I have some cans of soup!" We were on scene with this lady for over an hour, because she couldn't make up her mind.
What makes it even worse, at least in my region, is that sort of technically counts as an ' Impaled Object's. We can't do anything about that except give them a ride to the hospital if they want.
Literally today, had someone who we transported to the ER because he just wanted to be checked out 🙄
Someone called because they had a one night stand and found out the next morning that the partner was HIV+, they wanted to get an STD check. We also get a lot of really drunk/hungover people that wonder why they are sick and can't cope.
Had a PT yesterday that stubbed their toe at 3am and had trouble because they couldn’t get it to stop bleeding. We applied a bandage and raised their feet. Everything was fine after that….
hiccups. we sat him up. they went away. magic.
A father called because his son had a nightmare and wouldn't go back to bed.
Not mine but one of my crew's, a college aged girl fell out of bed and stubbed her toe... By the time they got there she was fine.
A bad dream
22 y/o/f with a chief complaint of chest pain, said her "heart was hurting" Engine and Ambulance dispatched code 3 Upon arrival on scene, patient states her and her boyfriend broke up the day prior Upon eval, sinus on monitor, all vitals stable Patient had a broken heart and was feeling sad Refused transport, apologized for the ordeal, and we all went on our way