A good call.

We were dispatched to a house for a medical call, dispatch told us it was a man unconscious, medical problem unknown. When we arrived we found something very different from what we expected.

I was an aparment building that was not finished yet, was under construction. An officer told us the patient was in the 1st floor with some of his partners. The problem here was that they had to jump a fence to get there.

The fence was closed with a lock and a chain. No problem.

First step: Secure the emergency scene and gain acces.

We took out our electric saw and tried to cut trought the chain. It didn´t work.

Well, seconds later we decided to open the fence the hard way.

Crowbar + Lots of muscle = Problem solved.

We enter the building and went upstairs. There, on the first floor, was lying a man, beaten up as hell. It had been a while since I saw a man so beaten up. Police officers told us they didn´t know what happened, they were called because the neighbors heard someone moaning and then they found him and called us.

Well dispatch obviously had it wrong, this was not a medical call, it was a trauma call.

We tried to secure his airway but he still had some reflexes. We ventilate him with a bag valve mask and then lowered him on the ambulance. (By the way, great help from the PD, they get a lot of smack from the citizens in Mexico, but when paramedics need help they always step up)

In the ambulance on route to the hospital we realize that his airway needed better care, we hook him up to an I.V. line and push him some meds to sedate him. Then was the time for the tube.

Intubation in a trauma patient is hard, if the person has a suspected spine injury you can´t move the neck, this makes it more difficult than an uninjured patient (Like a cardiac arrest or a stroke).

To add more problems to this slightly no-moving neck situation the man had his face all swollen and bloody. So we decided to go for a supraglotic airway. (For all the folks reading this that are not in the medical field, this device is a tube that is placed just before the trachea, not inside it.)

We went for it and worked out great.

After 4 or 5 minutes we arrived to the trauma center, when we walked out the door we had no idea if he was gonna make it.

This call was a great teamwork call, every each one of us knew what to do and did it right away. Even the PD helped out and they were great.

I hope he makes it.