So I've been at work for 12 hours and 30 minute, and I decide I'm done studying for the day. I take a seat in a recliner, take off my shoes, and turn on the tube. The evening news starts to roll, and I contemplate what we're going to do for dinner. Before Brian Williams can even get to his title card, our doorbell rings. And again, and again.
This can't be good.
As I'm walking down the stairs to get to the front door, I hear the new guy yell up, "Full CODE!"
Shit. I take off at a quicker jog, and my partner comes out of the bunk room door with his shirt still untucked. We get down there, and there is a woman who is hysterical, and a guy flopped over on the passenger's seat. Sure enough, it looked like he was dead. Then we hear a snore. Ok, we still got snoring respirations. Being the second man on the truck, I know my job is airway, so I go grab a bag and an Oral Pharangeal Airway (OPA) to keep his tongue from blocking up his trachea. We get him out of the car onto our cot. We have a pulse, so CPR isn't necessary, just rescue breathing today. Code start time, 17:32. We're trying to get more details from the woman, but she is of no use. "I think he took something?" she said. Then she starts back toward her car.
My partner and I look at each other thinking, "Where is she going?" Right then, as if reading our minds, one of the cops pulls over from across the way at their station, and parks right in front of her. Escape route blocked. We're still assessing our patient, and we notice his pinpoint pupils indicating opiate use. At this time, by sheer random luck, an off-duty member of our department walks by in front of our station and offers a hand.
The cop immediately recognizes both of them as frequent abusers of drugs, and starts to question the lady on what they took. She wouldn't budge, and we didn't have time to wait around (my patient isn't breathing, remember?). Our driver gets in and we load our patient up and start heading toward the nearest county hospital.
My partner gets an IV established and start giving him some Narcan, little by little so he doesn't puke in our truck. IN order to keep his airway open, I have to use my knee on his head to keep his head tilted up since the other hands in the truck are busy giving him meds and working on the cardiac monitor. He starts to come around about 10 minutes later and we interrogate him on what he took. He refuses to tell us.
"I didn't take anything!"
"Look man, we know you took something, we know it was a narcotic, or else the Narcan wouldn't have brought you out of your coma!" He continues to argue with us until I say this, "Hey, do you see this in my hand?" I ask him, holding up the bag-valve-mask device, still yelling at him because he can't seem to hear very well. "I know you haven't been sleeping because I've been breathing for you for the last 11 minutes."
His response? "Oh... Well, shit!"
He tells us he took some Vicodin and Percocet, doesn't remember how many. We pull into the ER and drop him off telling the doc's the story. Before we're even finished with the report, he's already insisting on leaving and his friend who is now at the ER, is wanting to take him home. There's nothing the doctors can do. They tell him that he can leave, but as soon as the Narcan wears off, he'll go into his state of unconsciousness again. He refuses to listen and before we're done disinfecting the back of the truck, he is already gone.
So why does this piss me off? First of all, they guy doesn't have a job. We know this from looking up his records when we were filling out information. He is on Medicare/Medicaid and all sorts of welfare. So not only am I paying for his lazy ass, I'm also paying for his drugs, and then paying for his treatment when he OD's. That little tirade right there cost the taxpayers probably close to 5000 if not more! Furthermore, he left the ER AMA (against medical advice) and probably ended up right back there later that night after the Narcan wore off. Now his tirade has cost the taxpayers nearly $10k!
Solution? Anyone who had drug charges against them is immediately cut off of all public assistance. If you're not going to help yourself, why should society help you. If you're taking the money we give you and using it on drugs to damn yourself to hell, then there is no reason any of us should feel sorry for you.
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