for Balius

I found this on my department's forum, it is not held by the county and is run by us. Just wanted you to know that others feel your loss and I wish everyone the best in this difficult time.

 

City officials are waiting for answers after a 22-year-old Jacksonville Fire-Rescue recruit died nine days after he collapsed during training.

Karl "Kliff" Kramer collapsed May 19 while undergoing physical training at the department's fire academy.

Kramer died Saturday at Memorial Hospital, where he had been in intensive care since his collapse.

A spokeswoman for the Jacksonville Fire Department would not comment on the specifics of Kramer's death until an autopsy is conducted to determine the cause of his death.

"The training academy continually looks at the way they conduct exercise," spokeswoman Benny Seth said. "They continuously monitor the weather conditions, and those things will continue on as scheduled."

Other fire recruits told Channel 4's Bryan Kelly that the intense training makes everyone in the class close, "like a family."

"He had a real strong personality," Fire-Rescue cadet Mike Blcher said. "Whatever we were doing, he was always light hearted. We'll miss him."

 

Stay safe my brothers

JAWS of life not needed?

Wow, I knew it had been a while since I updated, but I didn't realize just how long it's been. Life's been hectic as usual, and my mind has been in other places and on other things. Life at work has become, well, let's just say it's been more like a job lately.

I went on a training ride a few days ago with the bike team, 10 miles later I could barely walk straight. There's another ride in a couple days, if I can get out of the station for a few hours I'll go. Our big training class is less than 2 weeks away, we'll learn how to ride up and down stairs, jump curbs, weave through pedestrian traffic, and whatever else they decide to cram into our minds.

I ran a pretty bad MVC since the last journal update. I wasn't even dispatched to the call originally. We were finishing up paperwork at a minor MVC when we saw 3 or 4 police cars hauling ass from the precinct towards our station. A few minutes later we went in service and decided to roll on past the station to see if we could find what was going on. My partner called the batallion chief and let him know we had a visual on the scene and would go ahead and respond.

Coming down the street, we saw 2 cars, 2 fire trucks, and 5-6 cop cars. The drivers of both cars were still inside their vehicles, this is 10 minutes after the first unit went onscene. Since we had a third-rider, her and my partner went to the sedan, and I took the SUV.

First of all, the SUV was flipped onto the driver's side, it was also facing the exact same direction as the other car. One of the guys from my station was in the SUV and the patient was standing on her door with her torso between the front seats, looking straight at us. He needed something to cover her with so I grabbed the fire blanket off my truck and brought it to him. By this time, the other rescue was onscene so I went and set up a couple bags of ringers for him. ***Lactated Ringer's is similar to Saline, but is much better for a trauma patient***

Heading to join my partners, I realized this was going to be difficult and take some time. The patient was pinned between the seat and the steering wheel (which was broken), the front tire was pushed so far back, it was nearly under her. To top it all off, you could clearly see the passenger-side airbag had deployed, but not the driver's...My guess is that she was pinned onto the steering wheel faster than the air-bag could deploy.

Looking quickly around, I see my partner hand his turnout coat and helmet to our rider so she could safely hold c-spine from the backseat of the car. It made me think, and I went and got my coat also (I already had my helmet on). Since they managed to get her door open, I ended up using my leg to brace the woman into the car while the Quint crew prepared to start the extrication.

My partner was beside me looking to start an IV and looked up at our captain who was just standing there, "Capt, we need to fly her."

"Uh, well, umm, I don't think so, umm, no."

????????????????????????????????????  The main criteria that would call for a helicopter is prolonged extrication of 15 minutes or more. They were onscene 10 minutes when we got there...WHAT (if anything) are you ThInKiNg?!?!?!? It didn't help any that the patient was somewhat combative.

Turning to the Quint's captain (who is hard to convince that the sky's blue) we asked him, "Do we need a bird? Tell him we need a bird."

He looked straight at our capt "She needs a bird."

Once the batallion chief got onscene, he originally said no bird, barely 5 minutes later he changed his mind. Of course, now the weather has supposedly grounded the helicopters.

Back to the extrication process.... Once everything was set up, the posts were cut and the roof of the car rolled back. Since our rider was not an employee and was not trained in rescue and extrication, I took her place in the back seat. The next step was to roll the dash off the woman and get her out. This was easier said than done. The car was crushed around her and placing the ram where it wouldn't slip was difficult. A few minutes later, the dash was rolled and the woman removed to a backboard.

Once inside the rescue unit, it was an absolute flurry of activity. All her clothes were removed, an IV established (she removed the one that was started in the car), broken bones splinted, and a 3-lead ECG. What showed up on the ECG was amazing. Her ST segment was depressed, indicating she was having an MI or heart attack. Now we've really upped the anty.

She continued to be somewhat combative enroute to the hospital. Since we never did get the helicopter, she got a very quick ride...What we like to joke about as a diesel drip.

At the hospital, we passed her off to the ER staff and would decon the ambulance for a few minutes, then go see how she was doing. The first thing they did was knock her out and get her intubated. At one point when we went inside, her X-rays were back. She had broken her left wrist, right ankle and femur, dislocated her right hip to the rear, and shattered her pelvis in at least 4 places. Moments later, she coded. The hospital staff worked her for 30 minutes before pronouncing her.

It may not have made a difference if she would have been flown in vs. ground transport, but she would've been at the hospital about 12 minutes sooner. From first dispatch to extrication, it took around 35 minutes to get the woman out of her car. Over double the standard based in our protocol that would require a helicopter. All I can do is pray for her family and hope that things will go better next time a call like this comes out.

Take care....

 

Oh, and after this call, it is cemented into my mind that my captain is 100% incompetent as a paramedic. I would not want him to touch me if anything ever happened to me, no matter how severe.

He's gone

As I'm sitting here, I have no clue what to write, but I feel the need to write something. I was able to talk to my fiance early this morning (about 0400) just before he got on a plane. He's going to try to email and call me whenever he can.

The actual deployment ceremony was interesting I guess, I couldn't actually see anything and could barely hear it. The only part I was able to see was the march out. We met up with our soldiers and had about 1 1/2 hours to say our final goodbyes before they went on lockdown. We had a nice meal at Popeye's together. Then said our goodbyes and went our seperate ways.

It's now day 2, and I'll admit it, I'm totally unmotivated to do anything. I ate a bagel, and I'm out of bed and dressed, that's as good as it gets right now.

I am lucky that one of my best friends is home from college for the summer. She knows how I am and has decided she'll keep me occupied and get me out of the house. She bought tickets to Star Wars III and I'll probably go. Living in a 3 bedroom house by myself and her staying with her parents, I've offered to let her move in while she's here. She needs the escape from her parents, and I need the company.

COPS is on now so I'm gonna go laugh at stupid criminals for a while.

Stay safe

Don't Go!!!!

In a few hours I'll be on my way to Ft. Stewart. My fiance is one of many Army National Guardsmen that will be deployed to Iraq this weekend. He'll be gone between 12 and 18 months. It's going to be rough on me, the past few months have been hard, he's been away for training since December. My only relief is that every few months, he will be able to come home for a few days. Not great, but definately better than nothing.

He was home all last week and we spent nearly every waking hour together. We went and got our tattoos (I'll put a picture up some day if I can figure it out), watched some DVDs, went to the circus, and just enjoyed our time together.

I'd better quit writing before I really start to make myself depressed.

Take care and tell someone you care about that you love them, they may already know it, but sometimes, it feels good to hear it again

Arrests and Seizures

Well, big surprise, I’d finished my entry and the dang modem stopped working again for the umpteenth time. Damn thing booted me offline, loosing my entry even though I’d hit save 20 times. I’ve decided to write all my entries in Microsoft word and copy/paste until Comcast fixes the stupid modem.

 

It’s now 0115; I started my entry at 2355 and fought the modem until a couple minutes ago. I better not be charged full price for a piece of crap that only works half the time if at all. UGH!!!

 

And yes, I feel better now. J

 

OK, now I’m getting tired so you’re getting the shorter version of these stories, it’s been a few days so I can’t remember all the details anyway.

 

The pediatric arrest came in early morning. We were toned out for a 3-month old, born 3-months premature, having difficulty breathing, possibly in cardiac arrest. Even experienced medics hate these calls, you can become indifferent or immune to most calls…not so with babies.

 

He warned me that if she was actually in arrest, he’d grab her and bring her to the rescue. On cue, radio gives the update we were all dreading…CPR in progress at this time.

 

Time to kick it into overdrive.

 

The baby being a scary shade of blue, he got her to the rescue as the engine and squad arrived. We intubated her and were instantly greeted with a gush of milk from her lungs. We also managed to start an IV in her hand before starting towards the children’s hospital.

 

On the way, she started trying to breathe on her own so we removed the tube and simply kept her mad by tapping the bottoms of her feet. Just an FYI, if a child is quiet…BE AFRAID!

 

Turns out, the home-care nurse had been feeding her and called for us when her pulse started slowing down. She’d aspirated the milk, but the Dr.’s said she’ll be fine…Thank God.

 

_________________________________________________________

A family member comes home and finds our lady on the floor seizing. He has no idea how long she’s been like this but is quite helpful to us in passing her medical history along once we got there.

 

We had to pin her arm down to start an IV and get a good line running before pushing Diazepam to try and stop the seizing. It worked, for all of 3 minutes. We got her to the rescue and I was in the back with my partner and another medic off the engine, one of the other guys from the engine drove us in.

 

Enroute, we tried to intubate her, but since she was still having seizures her teeth were clenched, making it impossible. So, what’s a medic to do? He shoved the tube right up her nose! The other medic confirmed placement while I held the tube and bagged her (forced oxygen into her lungs), then my partner secured the tube.

 

Later on, we dropped off another patient and I poked my head in the room. The family was surprised to learn I’d helped bring her in, but happy I’d wanted to know how she was doing. She was still having petite mal or small seizures. The hospital had tried to drop her blood pressure to make the seizures stop but it didn’t work. Plans were being made to move her to the ICU. Once her family members learned that we rarely get to see how a patient is doing once we leave the hospital, they said they will try to keep us updated on her progress.

 

I’m just afraid that she was down so long she’ll have permanent brain damage, or worse.

____________________________________________________________

 

As for the neat MVC?

 

A single car crossed the double-yellow and flipped ass-over-teakettle, landing upside-down in some bushes and trees beside the road. The car behind him pulled over to help, having witnessed the whole thing.

 

When we arrived, the driver was sitting in the back of a patrol car. Since he not only failed to answer our questions appropriately, but also met mechanism of injury (MOI), he was immobilized on a long back board.

 

In the rescue, he wanted off the board, then a pillow, then he just wanted us to let him go home…not gonna happen.

 

He really didn’t like the idea of getting an IV and kept pulling away and procrastinating until we threatened that I’d have to stick him again if he made me miss.

 

Skipping ahead a few hours….

 

A nurse gave us an update on his condition after we dropped off our most recent patient. He had two fractured vertebrae in his neck, C4 and C5!

 

This is a perfect example of why everyone that has the slightest neck or back pain gets put on a backboard.

 

Even after getting the IV and having to stay on the board, he still said those 2 little words we rarely hear that mean so much…

 

“Thank You”

lots to do, little time to do it in

The past few days have been hectic to say the least. I'll try to write out the stories when I get more time, but here's a quick synopsis for you...

Pediatric cardiac arrest

High School buddy died from Malaria

Circus performer accident (so much for being off-duty and having a good time)

Seizure patient down unknown amount of time

Wannabe stroke patient

Drive-thru service at 0545 at the station

Captain threatens he can make station life very hard

Fiance home for a few days before shipping off to Iraq

 

As you can see, my plate is a little full at the moment... To top it all off, I'm now assigned to the ambulance for the next 6 months...So much for a "merged department"