Last night, an exasperated Paramedic made the following call in to med control: “we’re bringing in a 30y/o male with a mosquito bite on his butt”. When asked for details, like vital signs, etc, the reply was “I’ll tell you when we get there”, in a tone that communicated a lot more than the words.
Yes, Virginia, people call the ambulance for all manner of complaints; most are reasonable, but some are just stupid. Like people, I suppose.
Ahh the stories I could tell. Yes, the BS that is EMS. People just abuse it and treat it like no big deal, until it’s their loved one in the bus..
The best is when you pull up to the address and the pt is standing at the curb, luggage packed, medicais card in hand, ready to go. Usually family is standing around and when you ask why they didn’t take the pt, they reply that they are too busy, etc.
Yes it does hapen.
The best I’ve heard of (as an ER volunteer) is the woman who, at 3 a.m., brought her teen-age son in for treatment of a nightmare.
I thought you said you weren’t going to post any more stories about my brother.
My best call was this teenage girl whose CC was: bleeding from “down there”. Aparently she had a history of slight vaginal bleeding every, oh, month or so – and finally decided to call 911 about it that night. At 3 AM.
It turned out that nobody ever bothered to explain menstration to her, and she never bothered to ask. [bangs head on table]
Maybe it was a REALLY, REALLY BIG mosquito…?
You just can’t fix stupid.