March 26, 2010

The dog.

A couple of friends thought it was a very good idea to go out and have some
( 10 < some < 20) tonight. A guys night. Bobby, John and Spike (Labrador).

(All the names were changed to keep the privacy of Spike)

It was one of the funniest calls. One of the guys was sitting on a chair inside a bar at 5:00 am and when I entered the room I could clearly saw that his ankle was broken (Unless you are a yoga instructor or something like that you cant bend you body like that).

We tried to convince him that he had to go to the hospital, but he told us he was ok that there was nothing wrong with him, “I just tripped, that’s all. I am ok, come have a seat I buy you a drink”.
His buddy on the other hand was hysterical. Yelling all over the place, telling everybody that his friend need urgent help.
And on the other side (yes this coin has 3 sides) my partners were loosing their patience because of the constant negatives of the patient to be transported and with all the yelling of his friend.

I really enjoy watching my partner loose his very small portion of patience over a situation that involves late night calls, alcohol and attitudes. She is not that friendly with drunks. And yes they were VERY intoxicated.

The patients friend told us something like this about the broken ankle.

“He went outside to fight with the dog because it was barking a lot, then, the next thing I know is that he is sitting inside with his ankle like that.”

If that was a fight clearly the dog won. By far.
It was just sitting there on the sidewalk watching the police officers and us going back and forth.

All of a sudden our patient tried to stand up so he could go home. Well this was the moment I got serious and place my hand over his shoulder and didn’t let him rise so he couldn’t hurt himself no more. I finally, after 20 minutes of my endless patience, convinced him of going to the hospital. In route he said he was “so ok” that he will buy a drink to the paramedic that was driving the ambulance.

His friend kept looking back from the front seat to see how his buddy was doing. I just gave him a thumbs up and a little smile.

Later on the night I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. It was so funny watch one loosing it hysterically the other sit there and invite drinks to everyone and my partners go nuts trying to cope with them both.

There are basically two types of drunks, the nice ones and the nasty ones. A lot of times the one that you will get depends totally on how you treat them and your attitude.

Hope you get well. I know that in that moment it didn´t hurt a bit. I am convinced that once the alcohol was washed off your system this morning you were in hell.

Cheers Bobby.

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