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It’s been a while since we had an EMS stories thread, so why not. I’ve been doing this poo poo for four years and I’m calling it a good run at the end of May when my card expires. It’s a fun job and you see some weird poo poo, but the pay sucks. Phoneposting for now, so I’ll keep this one short. There’s a nursing home in the town I work in that sucks and we hate it. One day, we got a call there for a 27 year old, which we thought was definitely dispatch loving up. Why would a 27 year old be in that shithole? We got there, though, and found out they were absolutely right and the “why” was “because she is tremendously fat. Nightmarishly obese. Globular. She was too fat to walk, , so she was admitted for weight loss. It wasn’t working, though, for some reason. When the five people we had to move her got her shifted over, we found out why. Sitting in the cellulitis juice oozing out of her side was a shitload of McDonald’s. Her mom had been smuggling her fast food for weeks and she was stashing it under her infected-rear end skin. Much gagging occurred. She also had a disease called entropion usually I M.M. only seen in things like bulldogs with hosed up faces. Her eyelids were so fat that the eyelashes bent inwards and were abrading her corneas. Next time I’ll tell the story of the time a dead lady threw up in my eyes. That was somethin’.
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Feb 25, 2018 22:48
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 23:15 |
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I think there's already a thread for laughing at tragically obese people
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Feb 25, 2018 22:50
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Looking forward to said vomiting story..
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Feb 25, 2018 22:51
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I appreciate you guys most when you shoot annoying people in the rear end with ketamine.
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Feb 25, 2018 22:53
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Kibbles n Shits posted:I think there's already a thread for laughing at tragically obese people yeah I posted these there a while ago: Have Blue posted:Fats are awful for ems in general. Most companies now have a big boy bus (bariatric ambulance) that's upscaled in dimensions from "human being" to "bloated fleshpile" because all the standard gear is too small or breaks and even then it's a challenge to provide care. Imagine being so fat that you're effectively beyond medical intervention when your swollen heart finally bursts jfc Have Blue posted:My boss chewed me out once cause I called in the big boy bus and the pt's family overheard and got really mad lol Have Blue posted:Depends. Most institutions like hospitals and nursing homes do provide a weight to dispatch though nursing homes in particular liked to undershoot on weight* (and piss us off) cause that means the transfer doesn't wait on the 1-2 bariatric units to show up. Home stuff tends to be more of a mixed bag, I've definitely had to call for lift assist/bariatric when it turns out the pt is massive. Have Blue posted:I've seen legs.jpg irl a few times. The fat gets the beetus and their lower legs start to bloat/rot. Another crew had a toe fall off while they were hauling a woman in a stairchair. Supposedly it then rolled under one of their boots and got crushed into fetid paste (complete with a wet cracking sound) but we had a regular grossest story competition for free drinks so poo poo tends to get exaggerated. The co I worked for mostly did transfers so we got a lot of shuttling fat diabetics around with the occasional OD sprinkled in.
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Feb 25, 2018 22:56
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do you have ambulances with TVs in the back
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Feb 25, 2018 22:58
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what is legs.jpg?
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Feb 25, 2018 23:00
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gently caress yes I love these threads.
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Feb 25, 2018 23:00
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Ein cooler Typ posted:do you have ambulances with TVs in the back No crews just mostly watch poo poo on their phones while waiting for calls. It's a really lovely lifestyle cause you're stuck sitting in a cab pretty much all shift and the only thing you have time to eat is fast food. That plus all the lifting and hauling you do really fucks your body up. Have Blue fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Feb 25, 2018 |
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Feb 25, 2018 23:00
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Sounds like that glutton in 7even. I don’t think I’d want to be an EMS responder
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Feb 25, 2018 23:01
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Her eyelids were so fat that the eyelashes bent inwards and were abrading her corneas. Ugly In The Morning posted:Her eyelids were so fat that the eyelashes bent inwards Ugly In The Morning posted:EYELIDS
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Feb 25, 2018 23:01
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Have Blue posted:yeah I posted these there a while ago: We just had to get a setup to turn one of our ambulances into a Fat gently caress Truck because that nursing home has been adding a lot of bariatric patients. They keep calling 911 for what should be a routine scheduled trip with a commercial agency, too, it’s been really annoying.
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Feb 25, 2018 23:01
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Il Federale posted:what is legs.jpg?  Ugly In The Morning posted:Fat gently caress Truck ooo I like that one
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Feb 25, 2018 23:02
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Could probably do with a foot soak at a spa
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Feb 25, 2018 23:04
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Have Blue posted:yeah I posted these there a while ago: I work in high hazard insurance (think Lloyds of London) and one of the things that has gotten pushed into my sector the last few years versus standard commercial lines carriers is morturary equipment and crematory furnaces. Why, you may ask? The increasing number of massive corpses is burning crematories to the ground, then the owners are turning around and suing the furnace manufacturer/installer for not magically anticipating an extra 300 pounds of high temp burning fat being incinerated in chambers built 20 years ago. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2786560/Crematorium-set-ablaze-800lb-body-created-flames-caused-ceiling-catch-fire.html https://nypost.com/2017/04/26/overly-obese-body-sets-crematorium-on-fire/ https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/500-pound-body-crematorium-fire_n_5959700.html http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39735904
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Feb 25, 2018 23:08
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Another nice short one since I don’t feel like typing up the vomiting corpse one yet. We have a frequent flier in our district that made up 2 percent of our calls last year. She’s got a major pill problem and is also fuckin’ nuts. In the last year she has -run herself over -been transported to the hospital 3 times in a 24 hour period. -had seven Percocet fall out of her cooch when the hospital had her change into a gown And most recently, called 911 because she gave herself three enemas and felt dizzy. Good ol frequent fliers.
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Feb 25, 2018 23:13
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13Pandora13 posted:I work in high hazard insurance (think Lloyds of London) and one of the things that has gotten pushed into my sector the last few years versus standard commercial lines carriers is morturary equipment and crematory furnaces. Why, you may ask? The increasing number of massive corpses is burning crematories to the ground, then the owners are turning around and suing the furnace manufacturer/installer for not magically anticipating an extra 300 pounds of high temp burning fat being incinerated in chambers built 20 years ago. haha i acutally mathed this out Literally A Person posted:What's the exchange on BTU's to human flesh? Like, who's getting the better side of the trade here. Have Blue posted:1kcal is about 4 btu and a lb of fat is about 3500 kcal, so a 400lb obese person (classed as 25%+ bodyfat) yields about 400*.25*3500*4=1.4 million BTU for reference a grill puts out ~35k BTU an hr and a gallon of gasoline contains ~115,000 BTU
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Feb 25, 2018 23:14
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I used to work nights as an EMT when I lived in upstate NY. The only thing of note I remember is working a shift with a new Paramedic fresh out of school. We were stopped at a light and the medic was commenting on how excited she was to start working. My attention, however was directed at the homeless man making GBS threads into a mailbox and wiping his rear end with his hand. And as soon as I made eye contact, he made a beeline for the ambulance. Ran the light, heard a thud and found a poo streak down the side of the truck. Pretty much the high point of my EMS career. Nowadays I work part time mostly slamming naloxone to opioid addicts and I don’t have the same drive I used to.
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Feb 26, 2018 02:20
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you poor unsung fuckers are real american heroes (not sarcasm) and I anticipate more stories of human failure
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Feb 26, 2018 05:38
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It's a different field of work but I was a crime scene clean-up technician. I can post a few weird stories if no one cares about it not being EMS.
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Feb 26, 2018 13:52
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Papa Emeritus III posted:It's a different field of work but I was a crime scene clean-up technician. I can post a few weird stories if no one cares about it not being EMS. Go for it!
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Feb 26, 2018 14:23
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Have Blue posted:well you asked, so:
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Feb 26, 2018 14:30
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what is that? Cellulitis?
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Feb 26, 2018 14:43
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Go for it!  Okay.Only a few come to mind right now and I'm sure more will pop out of my mental breadbasket later. I just woke up, so bear with me. The company I worked for was based out of Tampa, FL. We could be dispatched statewide and we covered accidental death, suicides, unattended death, ambulance/police vehicle clean ups, and we even cleaned hoarding houses. On my first day, we got a call to a place in the middle of nowhere(Brooksville) and most of the work was on me due to being new. The client was calling for an unattended death of an elderly man. He'd been undiscovered for 3 months. Supposedly. After the body was removed, there was ...--poo poo. How do I put this? There's a TON of fluid your body makes. Plus, all of your fat turns into adipocere(lard or waxy type substance that usually develops in humid conditions). If I were to set a hamster down on the floor next to the puddle this guy left, he'd be at a hamster beach. To clean it up, we use a special vacuum to suck up the fluids. But the adipocere is so slippery that the suction was literally pulling me along the tile floor. I did not fall into the substance, which is what my boss was kinda hoping for as a hazing ritual. With the biohazard gone, we had to basically take out everything in this man's bathroom(that's where he'd passed away, which is actually a pretty common spot). Linoleum, drywall, toilet, cabinet, the loving bathtub(we usually leave and disinfect toilets/tubs, but the bio had penetrated the flooring underneath), and even the support boards under the floor. The next day, I got a new call to another unattended death. This one was in the Tampa bay area and it wasn't too bad. Just a bit depressing. A lady had passed away in her chair and was there for a week or so. The landlord called me in and I noticed she had me walk through the back of the home instead of the front door. Later on, I noticed the front door had been nailed shut. The lady also had a few literal towers of those P'zones from Pizza Hut. Nothing else in her kitchen. Okay, the woman couldn't cook, I thought, and then I just had to ask.... "Does she have any family or next of kin?" "No." Basically, that meant we had to throw away all of her belongings. Then, it hit me... "Did.... the pizza guy find her?" "Yeah. How did you know?" Poor lady. The pizza guy visited her daily and would deliver those P'zones. He hadn't heard from her in a while and dropped by to visit. He couldn't get in, so he called the cops. The police kicked in the door for a wellness check, which is why the landlord nailed it shut.
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Feb 26, 2018 14:47
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I also almost electrocuted myself at a site. I was cleaning out a hoarding house and we were in the final stages of making things a bit cleaner than "poo poo everyfuckingwhere!". You know; Wiping down countertops and stuff. I was in the kitchen, wiping down the sink and needed some light. I hit a switch nearby but the light didn't come on. I didn't think anything of it and kept cleaning, then suddenly heard a pop and then buzzing. I froze and looked down to see an arc of electricity narrowly missing my leg and hit a cubbord door instead. It looked like one of those plasma ball thingies going off. Apparently, I'd hit the garbage disposal instead of the light. The thing was so full of poo poo that it shorted itself out and threw electricity everywhere. I calmly put down my cleaning rag and backed out of the kitchen like 
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Feb 26, 2018 15:09
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How does one end up working in crime scene cleanup anyways? A few years ago I let my morbid curiosity off the leash and ordered "Mop Men: inside the world of crime scene cleaners" and it was a fascinating read lol
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Feb 26, 2018 15:12
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Papa Emeritus III posted:
P'zowned.
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Feb 26, 2018 15:13
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Colonel Cancer posted:How does one end up working in crime scene cleanup anyways? A few years ago I let my morbid curiosity off the leash and ordered "Mop Men: inside the world of crime scene cleaners" and it was a fascinating read lol I went to college for forensic science, actually. And while in the service, I was a firefighter but none of those years contained anything heroic; I handled dogs. My second dog was trained to locate methane and we use those to find bodies. I did a lot of that in New Orleans after Katrina hit. I have a few stories from that poo poo, too. After leaving the service, I only had that as my life experience. So, I found one company and spoke to the owner. At first she had no openings but then she called me out of the blue and asked me to join. I stayed with the company until the recession made the owner lay everyone off. I enjoyed it but I haaaated hoarding house clean outs. That was the roughest part of the job.
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Feb 26, 2018 15:20
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My first unattended was a lady who had been missing all day, never showed up to work. Someone eventually called in an unconscious/unresponsive at a park and ride on the Thruway. The lady must have died as soon as she started her car. Key in the ignition, empty tank of gas, one quite dead lady in the driver’s seat. This was in June, on a 95 degree day. She had been dead for probably 12 hours. Hoooo boy that stench was something. The medic still put the leads on to confirm asystole though.
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Feb 26, 2018 15:20
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There was a guy in ask/tell who had body pickup stories mixed in with some cleanup guys talking about their jobs. There was one about a guy who’d become fused to his computer chair by decomp and his teeth were embedded in the ceiling by the shotgun blast he used to kill himself. I might have gotten two stories mixed together, but I like to remember it that way.
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Feb 26, 2018 15:23
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Ugly In The Morning posted:My first unattended was a lady who had been missing all day, never showed up to work. Someone eventually called in an unconscious/unresponsive at a park and ride on the Thruway. Ugh. The heat is a horrible thing to add in. In FL, the bio suits add an extra 20 degrees easily. Meanwhile, the client is in advanced decomp because of the heat. Torquemada posted:There was a guy in ask/tell who had body pickup stories mixed in with some cleanup guys talking about their jobs. There was one about a guy who’d become fused to his computer chair by decomp and his teeth were embedded in the ceiling by the shotgun blast he used to kill himself. I might have gotten two stories mixed together, but I like to remember it that way. Oh wow. I had a few suicide calls and one murder/suicide with rifles. Brain matter will get up on the ceiling but then it hardens like silly putty left out overnight. It also will hook around corners somehow. It's a tricky thing to clean up.
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Feb 26, 2018 15:27
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Papa Emeritus III posted:I went to college for forensic science, actually. And while in the service, I was a firefighter but none of those years contained anything heroic; I handled dogs. My second dog was trained to locate methane and we use those to find bodies. I did a lot of that in New Orleans after Katrina hit. I have a few stories from that poo poo, too. That's pretty cool. You don't really hear a lot about these types of somewhat stigmatized but necessary jobs unless you fish for that kind of gruesome details.
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Feb 26, 2018 15:28
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Papa Emeritus III posted:If I were to set a hamster down on the floor next to the puddle this guy left, he'd be at a hamster beach. This is my favorite thing.
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Feb 26, 2018 16:26
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Some times I tell myself that committing suicide would be awful because someone would have to come clean me up after. Seems really rude.
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Feb 26, 2018 16:35
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ultimateforce posted:Some times I tell myself that committing suicide would be awful because someone would have to come clean me up after. Seems really rude. Most suicides are done in the bathtub because of this. Usually, they're naked too. The unattended death in the bathroom I mentioned earlier is common for cardiac victims. Something about pre-failure of the heart feeling like the need to process a bowel movement. Years ago, I could have told you the exact science of it all but I can't recall it now. On the topic of bariatric patients, we had a huge problem in New Orleans post Katrina with the hospital there. We couldn't get those people out and the hospital was running out of fuel with its second generator and FEMA wouldn't deliver any more. I wasn't involved in this part but there are documents of bariatric patients being euthanized instead of abandoned. I have a few broke brain PTSD issues from handling Katrina recovery but I'm dipping my toes in the water on talking about it all, so I may hop back in here to share some stuff. Das Boo posted:This is my favorite thing. This cheered me up.
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Feb 26, 2018 16:49
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Papa Emeritus III posted:
I'm not sure I got this right. The hospital couldnt operate so they killed fatties and left, what ?
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Feb 26, 2018 16:58
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ultimateforce posted:Some times I tell myself that committing suicide would be awful because someone would have to come clean me up after. Seems really rude. The body pickup thread had something on the best method to kill yourself (I think it was carbon monoxide poisoning) and how to lay your body out so it would be easiest for them.
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Feb 26, 2018 16:59
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unpacked robinhood posted:I'm not sure I got this right. The hospital couldnt operate so they killed fatties and left, what ? The hospital was being abandoned/people moved and like they had a ultra fatty on the 4th floor. There was no way to get ultra fatty down so the option was to either leave them there with no one, no lights, and no food/clean water or euthanize them. Really it was a hard choice for any doc to make probably running on 24+ hours with no sleep.
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Feb 26, 2018 17:01
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unpacked robinhood posted:I'm not sure I got this right. The hospital couldnt operate so they killed fatties and left, what ? Here's a blurb on it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/18/AR2006071800448.html
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Feb 26, 2018 17:05
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There’s a book about the Katrina hospital thing, it’s called five days at memorial. It’s pretty hosed up how there were a bunch of fuckups beforehand that led to one doctor going a bit loopy and deciding several patients were better off being euthanized, even when they probably *could* have been evacuated. Re: bathroom deaths, often times the strain of pooping when moderately constipated will put enough pressure to lead to a cardiac arrest, it’s why at the hospital we keep all our heart patients on stool softeners and tell them to avoid forcing out their poops.
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Feb 26, 2018 17:05
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