I Thought This Shit Only Happened In Movies
The Adventures of an EMT, Missionary, and Screenwriter
Friday, October 14, 2011
My Favorite Rescue
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
When Kids Die
Monday, April 4, 2011
East Africa As A Spiritual Bullseye -Part 2
Friday, April 1, 2011
East Africa As A Spiritual Bullseye
Heart of Darkness
Saturday, March 26, 2011
The Devil's Hour
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Am I Going To Die?
- If you are asking if you’re going to live, you are TALKING and thus are conscious and relatively okay. The very fact that you are able to form this morbid thought and then articulate it means your brain and vital organs are functioning adequately and you are in good shape. The ones who are actually in danger of biting it are those who are unconscious, and thus do not speak.
- If you are asking this absurd question to me, an EMT, it means you or someone has already activated the 911 system and you are getting help as we speak. You’d only be in danger when you’re conscious if you were in the middle of nowhere or alone and could circle the drain over a long period of time. Your 127 HOURS survival scenario.
Monday, February 7, 2011
The 500 lb. Naked Man
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Shock To The Heart
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Heat Waves, Booze, and Full Moons
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Where are my patients now?
Thursday, December 16, 2010
My Egyptian Sidekick
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
My Grossest Call
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Combative Patients
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Worse Than Death
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Brazilian Dance Off
- If someone calls you out, you have to step up. It’s a matter of honor
- If you get served (God forbid), you got to serve them back.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
The Hot Nurse Scale
- Take the number of hours (h) worked on your current shift (1-48) and Divide it by 10.
- Take the disgustingness (d) of your patient (1-10)
- Add the two numbers together and divide them by 10
- Add that number to the normal base beauty (b) of the nurse (1-10) scale.
- This gets you’re the relative beauty (rb) of the nurse
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Don't Go In The Water!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
My Saddest Call
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
My Craziest Call: GSW
People often ask me, as an EMT, what was my craziest call? As of now, it is my first Gun Shot Wound (GSW). My partner and I awoke at 2am to a GSW call in Inglewood. We threw our uniform on, kicked on the lights and sirens, and hauled to the call. We arrived to a chaotic seen of flashing red and blue police lights, caution tape, bystanders, and fire department rigs. The body, a male in his early twenties (could have been a teen) was lying on the front lawn of a home. I looked him over but couldn’t see a gunshot wound, but I did see blood pouring out onto the lawn. This meant the gunshot was to the back of the head.
We rolled him over to check the trauma on his backside. As we did, blood shot out the back of his head, almost spraying my partner. I checked for ID, but he had nothing on him other than pepper spray. With the utmost urgency, we put him on a backboard (gunshots can cause spinal trauma) and put him on the gurney while trying to stop the bleeding.
As soon as we got him into the back of the ambulance, he went into full cardiac arrest, meaning his heart stopped beating and he stopped breathing. At this point he is considered clinically dead. We take off for UCLA. With these calls you have to go to a trauma center, and this part of Inglewood is the furthest you can be from a trauma center in West LA. With a long way to go, I started doing chest compressions as the fire department paramedic but a bag valve mask over the patient and forced air into his lungs.
As I was pumping this guy’s heart, it caused the blood from the back of his head to go spewing out and for blood to start pooling on the floor of the ambulance. We threw down towels as to not slip on the blood. Doing CPR is much more rigorous that it would seem and after five minutes, you’re sweating. I looked through the window, and we were only at the 405 and the 10. There was not much hope.
Finally we made it to the UCLA ER. We pulled him out the back and I continued to do compressions while stuffing towels under his head to curb the bleeding all the way to the trauma room. In my field, having a full arrest is rare and so is a gunshot wound, but having both at the same time is near unheard of. We got him into the trauma room, threw him on the bed and a team of 12 trauma ER doctors went to work. They pumped epinephrine into his system, and he regained his heartbeat and started breathing. The guy made it. It was a good night,… except for cleaning the ambulance.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
On A Wing And A Prayer: A Testimony of God's Providence in the Amazon
Recently I went with a Bel Air team to Brazil intending to work on a Medical Boat traveling up the Amazon River giving aid to the native villagers. Unfortunately, Brazil kicked me out.
On the 4th of July, our team flew from Los Angeles to Panama and then to the city of Manaus, Brazil. While going through customs, the Federal Police informed me there was a fine on my passport from an earlier trip – which turned out to be a clerical error. I offered to pay the fine, but it was no use. The Federal Police forced me on to the plane going back to Panama. I waved goodbye to my shocked team. I was going home. I knew that even if I could work things out to return, the odds of finding my team in the middle of the Amazon were slim to none.
As my flight to LA didn’t leave from Panama until the next day, I convinced the airline to put me up in a hotel for the night. They begrudgingly agreed, but inexplicably put me up in a hotel twenty-five miles from the airport. Traveling in a taxicab through the foreign county at night, I realized not only did I not know anyone within a thousand miles, but also no one knew where I was. I was on my own. Upon arrival, I received an email message from fellow team member Kyle Collier. He sent me phone numbers for Pastor Dejard, our Brazilian contact. When I called, he told me to work out the fine with the Brazilian Consulate in Panama, get back to Manaus, and he would somehow get me to the medical boat. As it was now midnight, and my ride to the airport leaving the next morning at eight thirty, this plan was ludicrous. But after a little investigating, I discovered the Brazilian Consulate was literally three blocks away from my hotel!
I now had a choice to make. Go back to LA, or attempt the most insane Hail Mary pass of my life and try to get back to my team. After much prayer that night, I decided to go for it. The next morning, the Consulate gave me the necessary paperwork so I could fly back to Brazil. I quickly hailed a cab and raced to the airport. Late for my flight, the airline Attendant ran me through the airport security and we made gate just as they were closing. Once on the plane, I knew I needed a Portuguese translator. I turned to the gentleman behind me, told my story, and told me that he and his newly wed wife not only knew Pastor Dejard, but they went to his church. By this point, I knew God was behind this.
After working things out with immigration, the newlywed couple drove me to the church office where I met pastor Dejard. He figured I had exactly one shot at meeting with the team. The next day I journeyed with a Brazilian guide, who didn’t speak a word of English or Spanish, 200 kilometers up the river. We took a ferry to a taxicab that drove for 2 ½ hours on a lone road through the jungle. Arriving at the river, my guide pointed to a speedboat, waved goodbye, and drove off. I got into a speedboat with a cross-eyed driver and we journeyed up the river for the next hour and a half.
Being on that glassy river, with the setting sun and brilliant cloudscapes, was one of the greatest moments of my life: a moment of experiencing God in all his beauty and providence. We finally came to the village and the driver pointed to a small chapel up on a hill. I took my guitar and walked into the back of this chapel to looks of disbelief from my team. I thought this stuff only happened in movies. After 48 hours and 2,000 miles, my journey had come to a close. I stood there realizing that God had worked in a real specific way in my life. Also, that I should have studied more Portuguese.