Breakfast, Shwarma, & Rogalach

Friday, July-16-10

So I know it seems like lately I’ve been saying that each of the last shifts have been some of my favourite but it’s true. They just seem to be getting better and better. And it’s really not that calls that have changed. Today I was once again with a team (driver, medic, & another chulnik) which I loved and it is definitely the team that makes will either make the shift awesome or dreadful, so I knew the day was going to be good no matter what that calls were. Being that we were stationed in Yafo today we had to head there from the main station where the shift starts, after doing our ambulance checks of course. I really like that we leave the station to go to Yafo because I think it gives us a chance to get a call earlier than if we were still waiting at the station, especially for the morning shift since dispatch knows that ambulances and teams still at the station might not be ready to go. This worked and on our way we got our first call. A drug overdose. We get to the guys apartment with all the equipment not really knowing what to expect and find him lying on the ground really groggy and crying. He really wasn’t being so cooperative and everything time we asked him questions like, what is your name, age, how many pills did you take, and why did you take them? He replied to each of them, “I don’t want to say.” Thankfully he agreed to go to the hospital and we loaded him up and took him to Ichilov. After the transfer our driver told us to come back to the ambulance because we were leaving. I was confused since we always have our 20-30min break at the hospital but soon I understood. He had taken us to a nearby mall for some breakfast. He was so awesome and relaxed and breakfast was a sweet was to start the day. Next call was for a homeless person in the park. We got there and as usual a bystander had called for no reason. He said he didn’t need our help and back to the ambulance we went, but instead of leaving our driver just pulls out the newspaper and puts on some music. After some chill time at the part we got a chance to go back to the station. We were only there for about 20min and that would be that last time we were there all day. The next call was for a lady going into anaphylactic shock from taking medication she was allergic too. By the time we got there, grabbed all of our equipment and ran up the 4 flights of stairs the נט''ן-Natan team was already just behind us. Our driver helped them carry her down the stairs and that was about it for us. She went with the ICU ambulance and I’m not really sure what happened after that. Immediately after leaving that scene we got our next call to a קופת חולים-kupat holim (Health Maintenance Organization or HMO). In Israel, I believe how it works is that instead of OHIP like we have at home, everyone here belongs to a HMO of their choice. In the ambulance we always ask whichקופת חולים-kupat holim they belong too so we know who to bill (I think this is how it works) but each company also has clinics which their members can go to. So this call was to one of them for a man who wasn’t feeling well and had low blood pressure. It was a simple transfer to the hospital and once again instead of chilling around the emergency room drop of centre getting second hand smoke as per usual, our driver asks who wants to go for shwarma! We all agree and go to a great place which of course I’ve now been to multiple times on different shifts. Mid-shwarma we get an emergency status call for a moped/car accident. We take our lunch to go and get there in no time. Only the moped driver was injured so we backboarded to be safe (he was complaining of some back pain) and took him to Ichilov. His only injury was probably a broken leg but when we got to the hospital one of the emergency doctors was really not nice and criticized us for putting on a neckbrace. Sorry for follow protocol. That was our last call for the day and of course we didn’t wait at the hospital for our break but instead our driver felt like getting some rogalach. I guess he was having a hungry day. Although nothing really special happened what made this shift so great were the people. I don’t think I’ve laughed so much during a shift date and I really liked having a female as the second medic. She was maybe a year older than us, doing her National Service through מד''א-MDA so the three of us girls just talked all day with our driver laughing at us the entire time. It was a great day. Unfortunately I woke up from my ‘short’ post shift nap about 5hrs later than I wanted to, so once again I don’t think I’ll be sleeping well before tomorrow’s morning shift. I’m starting to think if I’ll ever have a normal sleep schedule again after this program.