The reports here I have found while surfung
the internet!
“A call from dispatch saying there was a man down on the
side of the road one night. He drove down the road slowly,
looking for the person with their searchlight. The ambulance
ran over something. Trying to figure it out, he backed the
ambulance up and ram over the same something. The same
something happened to be the patient’s legs. They had to
explain to the ER staff why a guy coming in with some sort
of heart problems had two broken legs.”
Skip Pacheco
thairlar @ seaull.ultranet.com
“A guy who was fixing a leak under his sink when his wife
went out shopping. When she came home, she saw legs
sticking out from under the sink and gave him a friendly
goose. Turns out the guy had given up and called a plumber
who sat up quickly at the sensation, knocking himself
unconscious in the process. The ambulance was called and
when the EMT’s heard the story, they laughed so hard they
dropped the stretcher.”
Ken Kinser, White Bear Lake
Fire and Rescue
“How about this one, Ken, which comes from a friend who
belonged to the Hennepin Co. Rescue Squad... A husband is
at home feeling a little frisky. His wife is in the kitchen
making a cake with a hand mixer. The husband (sans
clothing) sneaks up behind his wife and gives her a ‘friendly
goose’. The wife, now startled, spins around with the mixer
in hand and *zing* catches a certain unnamed appendage.
Unable to free “man’s best friend” from the grip of the
mixer, the husband and wife travel to the hospital for help.
Upon presenting in the ED, the triage nurse asks the man
(clad in an overcoat) what the problem is and he refuses to
answer saying only that “I have to see a doctor”. After some
discourse with the man, the nurse finally asserts herself and
informs him that if he wants to see the doctor, he will have to
tell her what’s wrong. Finally in frustration, the man opens
his coat and the nurse ‘sees’ the problem. Unfortunately, the
ED had no ring cutter (the desired tool) and the Rescue
Squad was called (adding yet another group of people aware
of the man’s unfortunate predicament). Upon arrival of the
Squad, the were finally able to cut it off (the mixer blades,
that is) and free the man from his agony.”
Brandon Guest
bguest@empros.com
“A call went out for an unconscious man in a bathroom. Our
team arrived to find a naked man knocked out under the
bathroom sink. The secondary survey revealed an injury to
the occipital region and several suspicious-looking scratches
in the genital region. The man regained consciousness in the
back of the bus (ambulance) where upon we learned his
story. Apparently the family cat had snuck into the
bathroom behind the man, who had planned to take a
shower. He dropped his back-brush under the sink and was
attempting to retrieve it. I don't think anyone will have
trouble figuring out what happened next...”
“Let’s see if I can remember this one - can’t find the article
just now. Anyway, this man brings a potted tree inside the
home so his wife can transfer it or something and then he
gets in the shower. A snake crawls out of the pot, scaring the
woman. The husband hears the screams, and thinking
something bad just happened, runs out of the shower
without even grabbing a towel. Trying to find the snake, he
gets down on all fours and looks under the table. The family
dog walks along and “noses” the guy. Guy hits head and is
knocked out. Wife calls 9-1-1. When the ambulance gets
there, they put him on a cot. As they were carrying him
down the stairs, the snake comes out, startling the EMT’s
who drop the cot, breaking the guy’s arm. “Then there’s
always the story about the man in cardiac arrest who
converted when they dropped the cot unloading him at the
hospital.”
Curtis Clinton Sandy
medic1@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
“As the story goes, a local fire department’s ambulance and
rescue squad were dispatched for an “unknown rescue” one
night. (we are not fond of those here, they’re usually DOA’s,
codes, or something requiring a bullet- proof vest.) All the
dispatch info told them was that 911 had been called and a
woman could be heard screaming in the background. On
arrival to the apartment, the crews found a neighbor, bat in
hand, getting ready to kick the door in, he’d heard the
screams. They and the police proceeded to force entry to the
apartment. Once inside they found an adult male
unconscious on the floor wearing NOTHING but a Batman
cowl and a cape. They also found a woman, quite conscious
and screaming, naked and handcuffed to the bed.
Apparently the couple had been planning a, shall we say
frisky night. ‘Batman” had donned his apparel and mounted
his trusty dresser in plans to leap down onto his companion.
Well, on the way down, he managed to crack his skull on the
ceiling fan and knock himself silly. Being handcuffed was not
conducive to helping her lover, but the woman managed to
knock the receiver off the hook and dial 911. I believe the
neighbor simply turned and walked out.”
Lt. Cindy Ramsey
Kensington Volunteer F.D.
cptkirk@GWIS@.CIRC.gwu.edu
“An ambulance company in Adelaide, South Australia,
attended a 54 y.o. male in cardiac arrest in a private
residence. On entering the house, the crew found a male
patient lying supine on the floor in the kitchen with a frantic
wife and a yapping dog (some kind of terrier) running
around the house. The ambulance crew started working on
the patient immediately but the dog inhibited the crew by
biting at them and running across the patient. They
suggested to the wife that she might like to lock the dog in
another so they could effectively treat her husband. The
woman closed the dog in the lounge room. The patient was
in coarse ventricular fibrillation so the crew prepared to
defibrillate the patient. After defibbing the patient at 300
joules, the crew heard a small yelp come from the feet of the
patient. Lying unconscious at the feet of the patient was the
small dog. Apparently the dog had exited the lounge room
via another door and was possibly licking at his feet. The
outcome of the situation was that the patient survived with
full recovery returning home after 2 weeks in the hospital,
but unfortunately the dog died. Apparently the patient’s
wife was more upset about the death of her little dog than
the near death of her husband.”
Kym Hobbs
Adelaide, South Australia
hobbsy@ADAM.COM.AU
“This one was actually documented in a medical journal --
I’ve also found a reference to it while surfing on WWW
(World Wide Web)... The man went to the emergency room
complaining of problems “down there.” He refused to
accept treatment from any of the female nurses. Upon
exam, one of the man’s testicles was missing. His scrotum
was swollen, somewhere in the range of a basketball, and
was oozing... He explained this to the E.R.: He worked at a
local factory which had a big drum sander in it. During his
lunch, he would masturbate by rubbing his penis against the
side of the (operating) sander. About three days prior, he
slipped, and his scrotum had come in contact with the
sanding belt. The belt ripped one testicle off. The man used
an industrial staple gun to try to staple the avulsion closed,
then wrapped the entire area with a gauze bandage. X-rays
revealed several staples still in the sack. When surgery was
performed, the rusting staples were removed. Ouch!
Christopher Hawk
University of Illinois at Urbana
chawk@prairenet.org
“I’ve got one similar to the one mentioned above. The nurses
at our ED one day told us they had treated a man for some
unusual bite marks. The marks weren’t unusual, the
placement of them was. Apparently, (as the nurses tell me)
the man was having oral sex when he called out the wrong
name (not his wife’s). So, the wife decided to make him really
call out. I guess by what I was told by the ED staff, he was a
little shy to tell the truth and get “fixed”.
Danny Deniott
dveniott@is.dal.ca
How about a story from in the E.R. Working as a paramedic
in a major northside Chicago trauma center, I was routinely
assigned to watch over the intoxicated patients in our
holding area. Well, one night we had a patient who was
conscious with the highest recorded alcohol level ever seen
for a conscious patient - 679. One of our staff members who
happened to be five feet tall and four feet round was walking
past the holding area when the intoxicated person sat up
and stated to her, “You’ve got the same problem I do. I’m
an alcoholic and you’re a food-aholic.” The bariatric nurse
stopped in her tracks and replied, “I am NOT a food-a-
holic!” To which the intoxicated person replied, “I suppose
you’re going to tell me its a glandular problem.”
Frank Jacobson
jake@whidbey.com
“In reply to the belt sander story, another true story to get
all the men out there to cross their legs and wince in
imagined pain. A friend of mine was doing some repair work
on a car, and had to drill through some sheet metal. He
rested the piece of metal on his legs and was drilling down.
The drill slipped, a 3/16” metal drill bit went through his
pants and into his scrotum. My friend, being the man that he
is, stopped the drill, removed the bit from the chuck, and
backed the bit out of his scrotum by hand. He then called me
at work on the pay phone and asked what he should do. I
could not convince him to go to the ED, but got him to see
his doctor. Meanwhile, he swore me to absolute secrecy.
But, he was not alone when this occurred, and a few minutes
later, one of our co-workers showed up and yells, “You
should have seen what ????? just did.”
John Q. Webb
JQWebb@AOL.com
"Respond to a women impaled on a fish, with difficulty
breathing. Female employee at an exotic fish store was
getting a tiger shovel mouthed catfish out of the tank, when
she lost control of the fish and it fell to the floor. The fish
was
about a foot long, and like all catfish had a sharp spike which
was part of its dorsal fin. When she reached down to grab
the fish, she got spiked by the dorsal fin. The spike entered
her medial palm just below the little finger and went 2.5
inches into her hand. (I saw the XRAYs) Upon our arrival,
the fish, now doing the kibbie, was still attached to her hand,
and our patient was hyperventilating (understandable). We
cut the spike from the fin with a pair of scissors, which
allowed the patient to stop hyperventilating. Transported the
patient, she required surgery to remove the spike.”
Jack Webb, FF/Paramedic
JQWebb@AOL.COM
“Back in the late 70's there were still a few Cadillac
ambulances cruising the streets of Chicago. One crew (of
which a crew member is now a high ranking EMS official)
had a unit that had a window that would not roll up and had
no heat. Unfortunately for them, it was a typical Chicago 10
degree below zero day. Figuring they would put the
ambulance "out of service" by causing a mechanical
malfunction in which case they would get a spare unit from
the shops, they sped the ambulance up to 50 miles per hour
on Lake Shore Drive and threw the transmission into
reverse. Well, the shifter went up, and instead of dropping
the transmission, the rear wheels started reversing. Nothing
could hurt those Caddys. It wasn’t until several days later
that they were driving up a steep ramp at a hospital
emergency department and the drive shaft dropped in the
driveway and the bus (ambulance) gently rolled back into
the street.”
Frank Jacobson
jake@whidbey.com
“Do I need to drag out my "Sex is Dangerous" chapter,
subtitled "Medic 5-8, respond for trouble breeding..."
Frank Ney EMT-A
Last Friday, members of a certain ambulance corps. in Long
Island, New York were wrapping up one call, in the Hospital
parking lot. While doing so, they got a second call and
started to respond, when they got into a little accident. It
seems that when the truck was cleaned the previous week,
the cleaners decided to armor-all the whole truck, seats
included. Well, the driver in the above ambulance had made
a left turn while stepping on the accelerator and slid right off
the seat, but she held on to the wheel and her foot
incidentally went further down on the peddle. Seems they
went up over a curb, through a fence and literally landed on
a 1995 Nissan Maxima, totaling the Maxima and causing
$10,000 in damage to the ambulance, which was the
departments newest - A 1995 International. Fortunately, no
one was hurt seriously, although a few walked away with
some bumps and bruises. I was ROTFL when I first heard
this, as a co-worker of mine was on the ambulance at the
time - he relayed it first hand. Kind of sad that the new rig
was messed-up, and the Maxima was completely totaled, but
the insurance will take care of that.
Jason Cerovac
jcerovac@panix.com
A rather young EMT decided to clean his private car in the
ems-station’s cleaning hall, when the crew got a call. After
several other calls, close to shift’s end, they’re tired and just
wanted to go home after a quick cleaning of the ambulance.
The EMT drove the rig backwards into the cleaning hall...
....and crashed right into his own car, causing severe damage
on his *new* car (a week old) and the *new* ambulance (a
week old, too).
Bernhard Nowotny
E-Mail: now@cat.m.isar.de
On this particular day, I
was working overtime on one of our medical units on the
beach. We got called to a possible drowning. We responded
along with one of our ALS engines from another station and
we both arrived at pretty much the same time to the
location. We grabbed our equipment, headed down the
beach expecting to see someone doing CPR or whatever.
Down the beach a couplf of hundred yards away was this
guy flopping around in the water. The EMT and Medic on
the engine walked down to the guy and told him to come out
of the water. We started questioning him as to what was
going on. He proceeded to tell us that he was pretending to
be a sea turtle and wanted to show the other area
beach-goers “How a sea turtle gets from the sand , to the
water, and out into the sea.” He told us that he started in
the sand on the beach on his belly, flopped around like a
turtle does, and headed toward the water. He gets to the
water, flops around to get past the waves and makes it out
to sea. Someone apparently came by and thought he was in
triuble and called it in. He seemed upset, because he told us
that no one was paying attention to him as he was showing
them how turtles go out to sea.
Jim Frye, Brevard County Professional Firefighters
JDFrye@aol.com
The SeaTac Fire Department (just south of Seattle, WA)
was dispatched to a two year old female who was choking.
When they arrived, they found that the two year old was a
pit bull!!. She had been choking on a steak bone. The best
part was the write up. Brandy’s medications included 500
mg of Milkbone and an allergy to steaks.
Katy Hein, King County EMS
katyhein@u.washington.edu
Well, this doesn’t exactly fit the entire call scenarios, but
recently we’ve had some funny (possibly sad) but true
dispatches... “request for an ambulance for a sick
person”...or “request for an ambulance for a vomiting
patient that can’t tand vomit.” And, as of recent, we got
dispatched by a local secutiry company for a medical alarm.
Upon arrival, we got no answer at the door and founf it
locked. After numerous attempts to see if anyone was home,
we received permission to forcibly enter (noises could be
heard inside). Our Chief arrived and the door was removed
from it’s hinges and in we all go. We quickly located the
sound of the noise in one of the upstairs bedrooms. A couple
was practicing reproduction, to put it mildly. Well, after lots
od red faces, we scurry back out of the room and call our
dispatcher. The dispatcher calls back the security company
and discovered they had given us the wrong address and the
call was a false alarm. We replaced the door and the couple
did sign off on our PCR (We figured we’d better have good
documentation on this one.
Pete, EMT
peteemt@aol.com
How about being dispatched to “Unknown subject,
unknown complaint” finding PD on the scene outside the
house rolling around laughing. Walking in and finding a guy,
and a girl with braces. The rest is left to the imagination,
however it was called in to the hospital as “adult female
possible obstructed airway, adule male, entangled object.” I
think you get the picture.
Jay Hellman, EMT-D, Coram FD, NY
jayhell@panix.com
I had to chuckle a little the other day. I heard a call go out
over the radio for “rescue personnel, report to your station
for a walk-in call, a possible broken leg.” Sounds more like a
drag-in or hop-in to me.
Greg Firman, TLC EMS, INC
firmang@snycorva.cortland.edu
This one happened a few years ago. At an MVA, my captain
was explaining to the nice elderly lady that this is a cervical
collar, and I’m gonna have to put it on you. At this point, she
interrupted him by saying that it wasn’t necessary...her
cervix has been bad for years.
Ed Shanks
af905@yfn.ysu.edu
A response for man with difficulty breathing. Upon our
arrival, we found a female frantically waving us down and
directing us to her boyfriend, age 21. When getting the
history, we found out that they were necking on the couch
and in between kisses, he reached for his Binaca, but
instead, grabbed his pocket mace spray and shot it in his
mouth. Well, we learned, and the patient learned, that mace
spray does not cure halitosis!
Frank Jacobson
jake@gonzo.wolfe.net
Well, I was going tobring up a story later, but one of the
preceeding posts brought up a hospital one I thought I’d
share... The nurse says to the woman, “I’m sorry. I know
this sounds silly, but I need to ask you if you have been
sexually active. The woman replies, “Honey, I haven’t had
any in five years.” The woman was in her 90’s...
Steven Berkson
blazing@teleport.com
The local ambulance was driving past a fire station that was
out on a call. They spotted the stove on fire and turned in
the alarm for a fire at the fire station. It was a very hard
thing to live down.
Kevin Waterman, Brisbane, Australia
waterman@brisbane.dialix.oz.au
MORE TO COME PLEASE STAND BY!