Ask Lemmy

I work in X-ray. Get a foreign object like once every two weeks. Good times.

Don't get me wrong, personally I'm not taking an ambulance unless I'm actively dying, or physically incapable of driving or getting into a car with help from whoever's around me

But I've had people call for EMS because of stuff like a highish fever, nausea/vomiting, minor broken bones, strains, sprains, depression/anxiety or other fairly minor mental/emotional/psychological issues with no suicidal ideation or anything else presenting any immediate physical threat, food poisoning, head lice, and my personal favorite "just not feeling right" but unable to describe any actual symptoms.

And that's not counting the people who don't want an ambulance and just want to ask what they should do or if I think they should go to the hospital (and the answer is pretty much always something like "if you're concerned about it, you should probably be seen by a doctor," I can't really treat or diagnose or give medical advice, what we give are "pre-arrival instructions" which are basically "here's how to avoid dying until the ambulance arrives, and then you're their problem") or just want the ambulance to come check them out and see what they think (and again, that's not really their role either, they have more medical training than I do but their job is basically to keep you alive until you get to the hospital)

Couple personal favorite dumb medical calls are the guy who accidentally ate a pretty decent quantity of raw ground beef (his wife premade some cabbage rolls or stuffed peppers or something, put them in the fridge, and was going to cook them the next day, then he had a couple for a midnight snack) he wasn't feeling sick (at least not yet,) didn't want an ambulance, just kind of wanted me to tell him what to do, ended up connecting him with poison control who basically said (in much kinder words) "you're either going to get food poisoning and throw up for a couple days, or be perfectly fine, nothing you can really do either way, so suck it up." He then wanted to know if he could get prophylactic antibiotics.

There was the little kid who got kool-aid in their eye

The one who wanted an ambulance for head lice

The person who was sitting on the toilet, saw a mouse run past, lost sight of it, and was absolutely certain that it crawled up their butt

Now that I'm thinking of all my medical calls, another thing that surprised me a little, is just how clueless a lot of people apparently are about even very basic medical questions. I don't really expect people to have even basic first aid knowledge, but I get stuff like this every night

"Are they conscious?" No "Who's that talking in the background?" That's them. Unconscious people don't talk.

"Are they breathing normally?" I don't know. "Look at them, is their chest rising and falling?" Well they're laying on their side. Really?

"What's not normal about their breathing?" I don't know "Are they breathing at all?" Yes "Ok, try to describe it to me" I don't know "Is it shallow? Is it heavy? Are they gasping? Coughing? Making weird noises? ..." I end up having to list just about everything that could possibly be wrong with someone's breathing to figure out what's going on

I often describe large chunks of my job as "Fire duty". If I've done the initial bit right, I've got nothing to do for a large chunk. If I'm running around looking busy, it likely means I've screwed up somehow.

Where's the best place for a fireman (fire person?)? It's not out putting out fires. It's sat, bored, in the fire station because there's nothing left to do, and no fires to put out.