Besides being a mom of a 15 yr old boy (who some days seems like 45), I work as a full time Primary Care Paramedic in small town Ontario. This coming May long weekend, I will have been on the job for 24 years!! My goodness where does the time go? I have been called it all~~Emergency Medical Attendant, Emergency Medical Care Attendant, Ambulance Attendant, Ambulance Driver and now for about the last 15 yrs or so, a PCP or Primary Care Paramedic!! Ask anyone and they will tell you I go beserk if I am referred to as an AMBULANCE DRIVER!! My response to them is always this "do you call an OPP officer, a police car driver? A firefighter a fire truck driver? so what makes you think you can call me an Ambulance Driver?" Most get a good giggle out of it, but I would have to say that is what is most irritating to me regarding my job!!
Not only has my title changed, so has the job and what it all entails. My goodness, all those years ago, it was very unusual for women to be doing this job~~ "that's a man's job you know"!!~~and it was certainly worse when you were a part timer. Those days, I showed up to work , did my job and kept my mouth shut. Oh how times have changed. Most coming out into the field are the opposite....put their feet up and do only what is expected of them when that pager goes off. What has happened ?
I love my job and always have. I don't like the politics and that is why I have stayed working in the buggy and being on the road. I used to work, all those years ago, 8 hour shifts and call back!! Now tell me that was fun~~for $2.10 an hour, I would take the pager home with me at night time and be on call~~if the pager went off, up I got and responded and if it didn't, well I managed to stay in my own bed and get a resonable night's sleep. I then changed and worked 12 hr shifts both days and nights. That was a hard adjustment but really, most 8 hour days I was not home until well after the shift was to end so what was the big deal? Oh ya, a hubby that didn't think it was his job to raise our child, but I digress and I suppose that is why he is my EX!! ;)
Then the biggest change of all happened..our union and management, along with the Ministry of Labour, agreed to allow us to work 24 hour shifts!! Yes that is not a typo my friends, 24 hour shifts!! Being in small town Ontario, the call volume does not warrant us to not be able to work as there is enough downtime or rest periods for us to function!!! That is still up for debate sometimes but the time off is very very sweet!! One week you get hammered with hours of work (Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday) but you finish Friday morning at 0700 and are DONE until the following Saturday( 8 full days off) when you return to work (Saturday, Monday, Wednesday) and the cycle returns~~8 more glorious days off!! If you work it right, you can take 72 hours off and have 21 days of no work!!! Life is sweet with that idea!!
Work is never the same any two days in a row. My partner is Joel and is about 13 yrs younger than I and is an Advanced Care Paramedic...what is the difference you ask?
I can use the defibrillator, use a King LT airway that keeps your tongue away from the back of your mouth and allows oxygen to flow directly into your lungs, adminster Nitro, ASA, Glugacon, Benadryl, Epinephrine, Gravol and Ventolin in emergency situations. Joel on the other hand, aside from the defib, intubate (a tube directly into your lungs) and administer up to 60 meds he carries on board plus start IV's. He is an awesome partner and I am considered to be his second wife. When you spend as much time in a week together as we do when working, I guess that is true. We know each other inside and out and are a good match.
A good match so much as we had our second save last week. A young 31 yr old fella collapsed at the side of the road on a construction site and was VSA~~vital signs absent~~and 2 bystanders started CPR until we arrived. With all of our protocols in place, we had a pulse back and he was breathing when we rushed him to the local hosptial. We had him back a few times and lost him a few times during the call but when he was flown out by air an hour later, he was stable and alive. Gosh it felt good as that is a very rare thing to have happen in our jobs. A SAVE!!!
Do you know CPR? You should as nowadays, there are AED's (defibs) in most public places and if you recognize that someone needs your help, call 911 and start CPR if that is the case AND a defib is available, that person has a greater chance of survival then if you stand there and do nothing!! He was one lucky young man but I know we will never hear anything more about him~~like what happened for him to collapse, is he back to "normal"? and so on.
I love my job, I really do and I sure as heck don't do it for the thanks as those words are few and far between in this line of work, but I do it nonetheless and hope I make a difference!!
So that is my job in a nutshell and since starting WW online, I am down a full uniform size compared to last year!! WOOHOO!! And let me tell you, wearing a uniform is NOT flattering or meant to be but it sure saves on my pocket book!!
Cheers everyone, have a safe and enjoyable day, and consider learning first aid and CPR as it could one day, save someone's life!!
Lizzie
You have a very full life, eh? Good on you about your weight loss, it does feel very good to fit into smaller clothes, I have lost 14lbs, and I can see a difference.
ReplyDeleteI had an incident happen by our place last year where a woman had been hit and run over by a car and I didn't need to do cpr, but I tried to keep her still and then remembered to hold her head still. She was so drunk and her partner with her was in such a drunk rage when the paramedics arrived they told me to get away from her, not even taking her head from me in the first aid manner...I wondered what happened to her...I'll never know. I think her pelvis had been broken...
Thanks for sharing:)
Thanks for sharing - it was very interesting to learn more about you. I used to be a Police Officer in the UK until emigrating to Canada in 2004, so had plenty of opportunity to work alongside the paramedics. They certainly had the same warped sense of humour as the Police and we got on very well with them. And now, I'll tell you my paramedic story! I worked in Birmingham - a huge UK city, and attended an incident where a youth had been shot - part of a gang warfare incident. He had to be transported to the hospital fast and I was in the ambulance to preserve evidence in case he didn't make it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, traffic was really heavy and the driver was having problems getting through. Fortunately, I was a able to call up on my Police radio to our dispatchers and get them to put motorbike officers on the junctions to close the roads so that we could get to the hospital quicker. It was an amazing journey - and I was honored to be able to assist them :o)
That was a wonderful bit of sharing you just did and I thank your for your candor. I have to tell you, I have the utmost respect for paramedics. They have saved my life a couple of times and got me to the hospital quickly on many other times. I have an arrhythmia problem that used to send me to the hospital for cardiac converstion once or twice a year. Thanks to the knowledge of the paramedics, I my heart was restarted in the ambulance twice. So I have to say I really love you and what you do.
ReplyDeleteA year ago December I ended up in the hospital again (my heart never converts on it's own) and the Atrial Flutter was in the 180 - 210 bpm range. All the alarms were going off because my already healthy low blood pressure bottoms out during these attacks.....needless to say, pandamomium around my bed. Anyhow, my cardioligist and arrhythmia specialist decided to it was time to do an ablation. Long story short, all went well and the A. Flutter is no more. I do, however, still have a A. Fib which fortunately will convert on it's own.
So to all you "amulance drivers" God bless you all!
Yvonne...we just transported a few wks ago, a young girl who had to have her 3rd ablation and this time, it took!! So know how you were functioning..
ReplyDeleteTwotoast...yes we are a warped bunch of medics but without our humour, we would never survive...
Singing...we too more often than not, never hear of the outcome of the patients that we deal with. Altho we are trying out darndest to find out about this 31 yr old but no one seems to know...and that is bothersome to never really know how things turn out!!
Oh the joys of healthcare!!
Cheers!