My partner and I had just dropped off “the dude” at the cath lab and finally were cleared to head back to our coverage area. We make a few strategic turns here and there to get us out of this particular city ASAP. Unfortunately that did us no good. As we are driving up one of the larger avenues, we are waved down by a portly woman standing next to someone that I can only describe as Dave Chapelle's crack head character he played on his show. You know the one he had before he went crazy with fame and fell off the face of the earth only to land in Ohio. Anyway, I digress…
My partner, who feels it’s a good idea to pull over and save the world in the middle of what I would refer to as “not the safest place on earth” flips on the lights and pulls us over to take a look. My first thoughts are “Three things are probably going to happen. We either going to get robbed, shot, or stabbed”. Thankfully none of which happened, but judging from the location, anything could have happened.
So we find a moderately old (relative term) man lying on the ground with his pants and boxers halfway between his knees and hips. Thanks for that buddy. Gross. So I ask him “Hey man, what’s going on?”, you know the typical national registry type test questions. He responds with a grunt an odd waving of his arms. My partner is calling him “sir” and really playing the part of the good cop really well. We stand him up, pull his pants up and he says “take me…hospital” with a smile on his face. He then proceeds to point in the direction of a particular hospital that is about 6 miles away. If he pointed to the east, it would have been half a mile away. Then he starts to get mad. I still do not know the reason for the change in attitude…whatever.
We get the pt on the gurney and secure him down. Since he is angry and we are “in da hood”, I point out to my partner that it is probably not a good idea to for him to have control of the cane he was walking with. He immediately tries to take it away. Not a good idea. The pt gets very upset and spews a long list of derogatory terms in our general direction. He also won’t let go of the cane. So in his altered state, we just loop the leg straps around it a few times to prevent any “sword play” with his walking stick.
Oh by the way, our initial assessment raveled pin point pupils and altered mental status. Guess what buddy, we are going to the closest facility since you are currently a/o x “wtf”. That didn’t make him happy, and I just let my partner try and cure this guy with “the power of positive thinking”. Better him than me. I was running low on patience. It dropped to a critical low when the this guy said he wasn’t going to tell us his name. And I’m done. Let’s just go to the hospital that shares the same name as the city we are currently in. Ugh! I had to turn the radio up so I couldn’t hear the “conversation” in the back.
Upon arrival to the ER, the staff look at the guy on our gurney and instantly know him. Apparently he is a regular here and has since lightened up. I think he was just happy to be out of the cold and into the much warmer ER. The total time we were with the pt was about 25 minutes, but it was just so frustrating. “Just keep swimming”…
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