Just Chilling at Ichilov

Sunday, June-27-10

Today was my second shift as a מד''א chulnikit. Started out as per usual. Woke up at 5:45am, got dressed, made a sandwich for lunch, and headed to catch the bus—which this time was a success! Caught the 26 in perfect timing and arrived to the station within 10min. Good start to the morning I’d say. Then the chaos began. There is a woman whose job at the station (as part of her National Service I believe) is partly to organise the volunteers and pair them with drivers at the beginning of each shift. For whatever reason she was having an unorganised day and for starters, the driver Moriel and I were paired with decided to chill at his home for a bit and two other girls from our course were told by this lady to wait for a minute so she could find out their ambulance number. She then decided to leave without ever returning with their ambulance number so in the end the four of us were all stuck around with nothing to do. By the way, that really doesn’t sit well after having got up at 5:45am to be there early for our shifts. Anyways, we found someone to help us and after an hour or so of World Cup watching our driver decided to come to the station. Problem solved, well not quite. Apparently no one told him there were two of us and he didn’t have room for us both. Just then a paramedic passed and asked the problem. He offered to take one of us (me) on his ambulance and that was the beginning of my most awesome day to come. The paramedic was on a נט''ן (Natan-Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance) as opposed to the regular ambulance which I would normally be working on. Being on the נט''ן is a completely difference experience and being only my second shift it was unbelievable. On the נט''ן paramedics have the ability to administer drugs, intubate etc. so they often get the more urgent (i.e. exciting) calls.

My calls for the day were as follows;

1. Dispatch reads, unconscious possibly homeless man, could be diseased. We leave the station, jump into the ambulance, flick the sirens on and head off. I look up at the computer/GPS screen which sits between the driver and passenger seats and see that the location is really really close to us. Look down to grab some gloves off the box on the floor and BAM. I go flying out of my seat and into the front of the ambulance. Lesson learned. Seatbelt first next time. Apparently someone parked on the road didn’t see us coming and opened their door. Anyways we get to the call and surely there is a homeless man lying on a bench. We wake him up and ask him what’s wrong. He says his stomach hurts. Well judging by the 26oz bottle of vodka next to him and a bottle of Prigat no wonder his stomach hurts. We ask him if he even wants to go to the hospital, he says no, and that’s the end of that. I was left thinking, really נט''ן’s still get calls like that...

2. Dispatch reads, elderly man who fell at home. Non urgent. This call was very typical. We get to his house, it’s soon evident that he has broken something around his upper leg/hip, quick transfer to the stretch and off to the hospital. We get to Ichilov Hospital (the main hospital in TA) and I see at least four people from my course. It was so nice to see everyone and chat about our calls. We normally have a bit less than 30min once we get to the hospital before leaving again.

3. Dispatch reads, elderly women, history of heart problems, pain down her leg. We go with sirens this time and get there pretty quickly. Although she doesn’t seem to be in any real distress the paramedic decides to put on some heart leads along with the vitals. He reads the monitor and says A. Fib. The driver pulls over the ambulance and hops in the back. They started iv’s, pushed some sort of drug and did an ECG all in about 1.5min. The driver hops back up to the front and we rush of to the hospital, sirens, horns and all. Once we arrive, again at Ichilov we transfer our patient and on my way out once again I see more Mda Chulniks. Looks like this is going to become our meeting place!

4. 4^th and what would be the final call of the day. Dispatch reads, man unconscious at the Central Bus Station a regular ambulance as already responded and they need a נט''ן (us). This time we run to the ambulance (we were back at the station) and I remember my lesson from the morning and did my seatbelt. The CBS is a bit far from us and the driver, well drives with full emergency manner. This was unlike any siren driving I had already experience. We crossed traffic, jumped on the highway, and made it there in about 5min. We arrive to an unconscious man lying on the floor of the bus, who then begins to seize. Eventually we get him onto the stretcher and into the נט''ן and before we know it he is seizing again. The paramedics rush to open iv’s and get anti-seizure drugs going (I’m supposing) while we (myself and another volunteer from the army) are holding him down between the paramedics inserting the needles and preparing the next ones. He seizes about 3 times while in the ambulance and is totally out of it. Once again the driver headed back to the hospital in complete emergency style, an experience in itself, trying to get things done while in the back while racing through traffic. After we transfer him to the hospital, of course I ran into some more Mda Chul people, and by this time near the end of our shifts we all had stories to share.

That call would be the end of my very eventful second shift. I still cannot believe I got to be on a נט''ן on only my second shift. After, we headed back to the station where I met up with the girls from the morning and we headed out for some lunch at Aroma. Caught the bus immediately again which was so nice and headed back to the apartment. Finished the evening with a run and some eggys for dinner. Looking forward to getting to sleep in a bit since I have my first afternoon shift tomorrow (3pm start), I just hope I can make it to 11pm without my nap.

p.s. wow that was longer then I intended.