Day Thirteen of the holiday.

Ah, a night in our own bed.
You all know what it feels like and so you know the pleasure of which I speak.

The real estate sent around a fella today to look at the latch on our rear fly screen door.
Like I already knew there was no fix for this old door so the owner will have to decide if we get a new door?

Tracy and I are back down to manageable levels of mail and our little dog has returned from her holiday at the kennels.

So all should be good with the world except for the weather here now in Sydney.
Damn, must have brought some of the chill up with us from Hobart.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Day Twelve of the holidays.

So that was that.
We came home for a quick trip.
Never caught up with everyone, sorry.
Relaxed in the clean, fresh environment and the much slower pace that is our ol' home.

This is the second time I've been home now where no one has come up to me and said G'day and where have I been. Before I came to NSW it didn't matter how far a field I travelled in the state there seemed to always be someone I knew.

And so we arrived back home in Sydney to an intact house, that was the security issue I mentioned previously and very full Inboxes for both of us.

With sadness I read that one of our fellow Ambos has decided to stop blogging because of a single question about patient confidentiality from a peer.

The job that we attend usually ends up in all the local media with photos and complete names of the victims. We don't want to mention them because really the whole point of the blog is about US!
The job we love and the great pleasure we get out of the service we provide.
I won't mention the important and famous persons that I have picked up because it's about ME! This is part of the way I de-stress myself and become part of an international clan who provide pre-hospital and in-hospital medical care.

I hope that he finds his answers to this questions he seeks on this matter, we all have to set our own standards and I found nothing lacking in his.

There that's my spray for the week.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Day Eleven of the holidays.

A quick last trip around some we hadn't yet got to see before returning to home.

I spent the afternoon working with Father mounting a TV fixture inside the caravan.
I have no shed or tools like I did at Midway Point (Ol' Tassie Home).

So I found this very enjoyable on many levels.

Chris and his girlfriend Jess came over for Dinner and Chris was able to help out Father with some IT issues that neither of us could. Handy having an IT Tech in the family.

And then to bed for our last night in Tassie. Tracy was very amused (not) that it got down to 2 degrees Celsius that night.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Day Ten of the holiday.

Tracy got a lift from Dad to go and visit Perky Jo's daughter who took our wedding photos and I collected her from a local shopping centre around mid-day.

While she was waiting for me she picked up a better gizmo that should allow us to capture the video we want to digital media and then Bondi Taz can be shown.

Mummy made roast chicken for dinner, two servings there and the temperature is starting to drop and the mountain has a snow capped splendour to it now.

Photo courtesy http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:osLz7m-YIFwf6M:http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200706/r153336

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Day Nine of the holidays

So your not bored yet?

This trip has given me lots to note so I'm still good for the moment!


The Internationally Renown Salamanca Market in Hobart is usually held on a Saturday. ANZAC day was the Saturday so it was moved to the Sunday and we arranged to go there with Chris.

Fifth Anniversary is wooden and Tracy wanted to get something small to celebrate.

We only had carry on luggage so these were great.

We had lunch Thirty kilometres away at the historic Richmond not far from Hobart Airport.

And then we dropped him off and returned to Mum and Dads to help them unpack and clean up the caravan from their trip.


Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Day Eight of the holidays.

Needed to sleep in this morning as I was a little hung over.
Most men only have one Fifth Wedding Anniversary, I don't really recall any details from my first one but I was much younger and very much different from the Taz of today.

12:00 Trekked off to visit the chief bridesmaid Perky Jo at work.

14:00 We finally caught up with our son Christopher. As only a mother can within the first five minutes he was told that his hair needed to be cut and it would happen today, but with a new job he needs to make a good impression and it was ugly.

Much better.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Day Seven of the Holidays.

Today is our fifth wedding anniversary.

07:30 - Get up and make a nice drink for my darlin' wife.

11:00 - Off for another pleasant drive this time south through the beautiful Huon Vally to the Ida Bay Rail (Google it up, it's a very interesting local feature)

Just an old shed, but lots of them down here.

Contemplation looking over Southport Bay (she snuck up behind me).

The southern most Cafe in Australia with one of the best steak sandwiches I've ever had, shared with my beautiful wife.

18:00 - Dinner, just the two of us at the same hotel we had breakfast at the day after our wedding with all of my family (it's kind of a recent tradition)

Mind you our wedding was arranged while I trained in NSW so we forgot to take a change of clothes to our wedding suite and had to re-dress in our wedding clobber to go home and change for the breakfast!

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Day Six of the holidays.

Up early today because we're off to the airport (we can walk we're that close) and take a plane back home to Tasmania.
Collected from the airport by one of the bridesmaids and dropped off at my Mum and Dads place. Their off on their own trip at the moment in the caravan but will be back in a few days.
A pleasant drive up to the top of Mt Wellington the 1200m back drop to Hobart.
Fish and chips fresh from the wharf in Hobart before I go off to visit the National Champion 'A' Grade Concert Band, the Hobart City Band.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Day five of the holidays.

Did not sleep well last night.

Someone was barking and someone else was snoring so I'm getting up and letting someone out for a wee and then re-adjusting someone else's pillows to open the occluded airway and it was just a shit night.

So again I slept in but I had a reason too! Got no idea what time I got up.
Frigged around on the computer and an hour or two after lunch went over to Lane Cove to the cycle shop to collect the bikes.

Read all the forum entries on the EMSPA site, made a few of my own and then had dinner.

There is some other stuff but in the interest of security I can't tell. Sorry

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Test from book launch.

Just friggin' around before it starts.


And it didn't go through until I sync'ed with home PC.

Day four of my holidays

Got up at sometime????

Ate sometime soon after that.

Frigged about and did nothing useful.

With the onset of the rainy weather I thought about getting just a spray jacket to ride in. I have a really good rain jacket that I purchased when I was a volunteer in Tassie but it's just to water proof and I do crack a sweat riding in it, so wifey and I popped out to the shops to just have a look at prices.

$20.00 - I'll take it, from a local cheap men's apparel store.

19:00 - (only 'cause I had to book my place) attend the launch of a new book 'Paramedics in Australia' at an ACAP NSW education evening. Several of the authors spoke as did one of the editors. I'll take it with me on my visit home to read when I'm not busy visiting.

22:00 - 01:30 Finally got my sign-on for the new EMSPA site and have been reading some of the forums.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Day Three of my Holidays.

Ya' Bored Yet?

I'm not.

08:30 Got up, yeah still no watch but I looked at the clock/radio. We had an inspection by the Real Estate and Tracy defiantly didn't want me still in bed!!!!
10:00 Real Estate chick arrives or I guess it was then because that was the booked time.

Some thing really out of Left Field then.

The background - Tracy once a fortnight cleans the apartment of an older disabled gent with developmental issues. It's a long story but basically it gets her, out of the house, away from the computer and some pocket money to boot.

Well it seems he may have been non-compliant with medication and suffered an episode that triggered inanimate object rage (busted everything just about in the place). In the process he suffered some lacerations that made a fair ol' mess of the place.

So it needed cleaning, my lovin' wife asked me to come with her. Good thing too, we both worked for over three hours.

I found myself thinking about cleaning the back of ambulances, stretchers and other pieces of equipment that over the years we have all had to spend so much time cleaning.

Silly as it sounds while I was cleaning walls, windows, vertical drapes, ceilings and anything else that got splattered I also found it very cathartic.

Then we came home and I played with the gizmo a bit more and our son called to tell us after five or six months of unemployment he has another job again in government IT and will be working when we visit next week!

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Day two of my holidays.

Not wearing a watch so time is fleeting (thank you Riff Raff).

Got up late and cooked up brunch on the BBQ in my night shirt and dressing gown.
Bacon, Eggs, Grilled Toast and warmed up left over Rissoles in gravy from dinner last night.
Set up a computer TV gizmo that I think I can extract video from to the computer.
Watch the Super cars from Hamilton in New Zealand, Go the Ford boys.
Watch the Chinese Formula 1, Go Red Bull and the our boy Mark Webber.
Had pizza for dinner played with the gizmo a bit more before CSI started.

Did anyone here in Australia catch the 60 Minutes report on the NSW Riot Squad?
With what I see and deal with in the city I support their activation and involvement. We deal more with the regular General Duties Police and interact with them but the boys and girl in the squad are sadly needed on our streets.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Day one of holidays.

This will get boring, but until then here goes.

08:00 - 12:00 Continued to sleep.
12:00 - 15:30 Got up had some food, caught up on daily events on computer.
15:30 - 17:00 Loaded the bikes and drove to bike shop to get them serviced.
18:00 - 19:00 Had more food.
19:00 - 23:00 Watched TV, sat with wife on couch.
23:00 - 23:15 Told you about my first day of holidays.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

That was nothing much.

I mean we did nine jobs for the night.

Transported six of those.

Who needed a Definitive Emergency Medical Facility?

None of them.

There were those who needed to be there because of ??? social welfare (I'm old and frail and my GP couldn't see me) Ambos, Nurses and Doctors are used by some of the lonely aged population.

But the I'm full to the Snoot on booze and either can't be bothered to get off the road and pass out/sleep
or
I'm a princess and I'm not getting enough attention so I'll chuck a hysterical tantrum and endanger my friends, hotel staff and emergency workers with my actions.

Yeah, another one of those clocked me on the head last night.
I just don't assess the danger from chicks that well and they catch me out.

Any Who, stuff it I had it written up on the dispatch log of the job as well as waking up the District Inspector to advise him of the incident and completed an incident report. I've got the hang of this Government Paper Trail Game now.

One last shift tomorrow then holidays and when I come back it will be to the 'new' twelve hour, two days, two nights, five off roster.

I wait to be convinced that increasing the dayshift length will decrease late finishes and stress.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

O/t

Got a late call the other morning for that day but after having jumped out of bed, showered etc got a call back saying the no-show had turned up after all so it's still a minimum of four hours pay.

And sitting here today watching a two day old replay of the St Louis Cardinals v Arizona Diamondback baseball game on our new all sports free to air channel I got another call and had a choice of three stations, one of them being mine.

So better be off give you a report tomorrow.

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

THIS IS MY BAND

I mention it every now and then.
I was/am a musician.
Thirty years with the HOBART CITY BAND before Ambulance got it's hooks into me.

Well the Australian National Band Championships were held here in Sydney over Easter and I had to work and missed seeing and listening to my Band Family.

Well check out this link

http://hobartcityband.org.au/

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Tougher Alcohol Restrictions may be the Answer.

The work load on Ambulance and the Hospitals on Good Friday seems to clearly indicate this.
Now there are strong calls for the legal drinking age to be raised to Twenty One.

While we're at it lets just ban tobacco products too!

Saturday night showed that there were still plenty of people who had not gone away for the long weekend and the city was a-pumping.

My car had some trauma, heavily pissed and fell down many steps through safety glass with spinal precautions.
Poly pharmacy OD, paracetamol, codeine, anti depressants and alcohol. Not a good prognosis for this pt.
Drunks,
Social issues and welfare.
And some sick people.

The other cars at our station had similar work and simliar quantity so about Forty jobs for the night between the three crews.

I put myself up for any possible shift on my days off for Overtime.
This coming Friday will be my last shift as I start holidays on Saturday.
Plenty of sleep to recharge this aging body,
Trip home to Tassie to catch up with family and friends,
Bike rides with Tracy,


Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Boring Easter.

First day yesterday.
A couple of refused treatment and/or transport.
A couple of non transports when Ambulance really should not have been called at all.
A couple of from/to hospital and that was our day!

Not that today was any better, four jobs!!!!!!!!

The first one had a good ending.

Elderly male fallen.
Arrive to find as stated (Very unusual that).
Nil injuries but he is really confused with no physical indicators as to why.
Convince him to come to hospital, frisk his pockets as he waits to open the door.
$360.00 in new bills and a pension card with an address a good hours drive away up north.
Padawan says 'I think he has dementia', I agree.
Triage listens and says 'I think he has dementia', we both agree.
I get online and search the telephone directories and come up with a phone number.

Turns out Grandad, has been missing since 1600hrs yesterday and yes he does have dementia and has gone walk-about before.

Apart from that we washed the vehicle and drank some coffee.

It's Good Friday what else can I expect?

Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Will you put the seat down?

Our nights were good, got coffee, something to eat on the run and did a fair bit of work to boot.

I had put myself down to do a third night shift (Sunday) it's really good pay but hard to do three straight with such a high activity level. Anyway I got it at the other inner city station here in Sydney.

One standout job for us was a two car MVA.

Classic T bone collision my patient was hit in the drivers side door at about 60kph.
Restrained by seat belt.
Side airbag deployment.
Impact sent car up onto the footpath with secondary impact against a building.
No access on the drivers side with damages to door and a bloody light pole in the way.
Fire & Police on scene, Police Rescue arrived five minutes or so later.

Patient complaining of Lateral Right Femoral and Hip pain, Vascular intact, nil Motor/Sensory deficit and three really minor lacs on the right cheek from the shattered door window.
No Loss of Consciousness.
No Neck pain.

Treatment - Oxygen, Cervical Collar, Analgesia (to reduce pain and relieve patients anxiety)
Methoxyflurane followed by Fentanyal Intra Nasal that reduced the pain from 9/10 to 2/10 at Triage, (I've completed the Morphine upgrade but not submitted it until the Union clear it due to the pay issue for extra skills is resolved).
Antiemetic via an excellent cannula in the left cube inserted with Ambo Arse propped up on the dashboard of the car and mini mag light stuck in the mouth while Rescue took out the B pillar and removed the front door.
Extricate patient and depart.

All three Services played and worked well together. There was no major life threatening injury that was really good to work on, it was just a really good overall job.

Patient update, xrays showed a fracture near the femoral head, not complete and to be managed conservatively. Interestingly the patient HR increased when unloading in the Resus Bay and had remained so six odd hours later at a rate of 140bpm or so. No cardiac history

Now what does that have to do with the title of the post??


Nothing!

It was a job we just backed up on.

Male, effected by something fell on the porcelain toilets bowl and shattered it and thereby scalped himself on the sharp porcelain.
So when Mum, the wife or one of the many other females in your life will comment about males not putting the seat back down,
their only doing it for your safety.


Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

CVA's

I reckon on our first day I heard six or eight jobs given over the radio for this category.

Our first two jobs for the day were CVAs

Over both of the day shifts there just seems to be a greater number of really sick people about and it is putting a huge strain on the entire hospital system in Sydney, that I know of.

Night shift crews are being given jobs on the way back to station to knock off and not getting clear from the hospital for another couple of hours.

Day shift crews work a constant day without a meal break and control seem to be reluctant to let you knock off, even if your on station restocked and cleaned up.

Just in my little patch of Sydney with the three large hospitals and one small, we have Ten Resuscitation Beds and nearly Eighty Ward Beds in the combined Emergency Departments.

With staff levels down on Ambos, Nurses and Doctors stress and pressure will mount. But by the very nature that directed us to this profession of ours, we will persevere and cope even if it kills some of us.

Grim thoughts indeed.



Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz

Dumb F&%ks and the Good general public.

Last night shift right,


Padawan and I are up stairs in an establishment of ill repute treating a worker who may of had too much party powder and collapsed.



Two of our local friendly constabulary turn up???



'We're good guys, there's no need for you!'



'Ah no we're here about your ambulance, someones taken off the wing mirror. It's completely smashed the glass.'



Shit goes my brain calculating the hours of paperwork I'd have to do as the driver.



'We've got him in the back of the truck, bystanders stopped him and got us. We've got statements we just thought you better know.'



I had parked LEGALLY!!!!!! opposite the address.


This numb-nut winner had been walking up the footpath and king-hit my ambulance!!!
Members of the public on the street in Kings Cross thought not highly of this, stopped him and got the nearest Police!!!




Most of us use the Mercedes Sprinter so you know how the mirrors fold and pop back.


I had one of the new ones with the complete molded plastic hinge.


He busted out the mirror, expected and he busted the hinge, it wouldn't pop back.










Good work Mr & Mrs ordinary, the cops are going for cost as well.





Be careful out there and I'll see you at the Big One.

Taz