Did my first EMT third ride tuesday night/wednesday morning. First time I've ever really been in an ambulance, and I was in that baby for twelve hours. It's not as exciting as it seems on TV. Which is fine, I don't feel the need to see any sort of heavy trauma. But it's actually quite sad. There was a guy who was so drunk he had fallen down on the strip. Another one claimed his hernia had burst. One was having chest pains. There was a bloke who had been in a car accident earlier in the day, spun out, and now couldn't get out of his chair. Breaking a window to get into your apartment leaves quite a lot of blood. And the last one of the night was an old guy with a swollen nut.

The drunk guy and the hernia guy both freely admitted they were alcoholics, and couldn't hold their bladders (which we got to experience first hand). The guy with chest pains was a. . .large. . .gentleman who had been through this before, so wasn't surprised when they couldn't find a vein to get an IV going. The window-breaker? He was just drunk and it seemed like a good idea to him to break a window to get in, leaving a couple of lacerations down his arm. The swollen nut guy had waited a couple of days before calling the ambulance, and then called at 5am. Mostly because he wanted to go to the same hospital his wife had been in for a week.

No (real) trauma. No holding C-spine, or compressions, or BVM. Couple of blood pressures, couple of nasal cannulas, and that was it. Couple games of wiffle-ball.

I'm definitely not going into it full-time. Those guys aren't paid enough to deal with that much bullshit- but isn't that what everyone thinks about their lot? I don't think I'm paid enough to deal with people's little ego-trips, their passive-aggressive, sunshine-up-the-arse-blowing crap at work, and I'm paid more than guys who are qualified to try and save your life. They have more shit to deal with, cos at least at work I don't have to worry about people pissing themselves. No need for diapers at work, but couple of pacifiers wouldn't go amiss.

Did you know in England, pacifiers are called dummys?