Check It, Fool

One of the most important lessons I learned early on was to check your gear before your shift begins. Always. ALWAYS.

I had only been on with a partner for a week when this became one of those hard-way lessons. The crew we were relieving had just come back from a call and we immediately got another one. Literally - they hit the button to show that the unit was available in quarters and the gong went off. They said the gear in the back was fine, nothing really needed to be replenished, "just get in the rig and go!" So off we went with our only information on our MCT being, "ALOC, 54yo male, (address)."

We get to a convenience store where our 54-year-old male is walking in circles with a combination angry/confused expression on his face and his wife is sitting in the car with the door open. There are three cops. One is trying to talk to our patient to no avail. One officer tells us they're about to take him to jail, they're just waiting for "sarge" to show up.

Thirty seconds with the man's wife tells us all we need to know. He's diabetic. He had begun to act strangely early in the day and had progressively gotten worse. She also said he'd been urinating like a race horse all day, but no amount of cajoling had convinced him to check his blood sugar. Without a word, I jog back to the rig for our blood glucometer and immediately stop short.

We have no lancets. None. The little compartment we keep them in doesn't need to be opened because I can see that it's empty. Feeling more than just a little sheepish, I grab a butterfly needle and the glucometer and trot back out to my partner, who looks at me with his head cocked to one side the way a dog would acknowledge a strange noise.

"No lancets," I mutter through pursed lips.

Sure enough, his blood sugar is way too high. He certainly didn't want to go anywhere with us, but with a little help from the cops we get him strapped down and we start moving.

What did I learn from this? Even if you see "GSW" on your rig's computer screen, if you haven't checked your gear you can at least take sixty seconds to hop in the back and make sure every compartment has something in it before you go to a call. Murphy has a cruel sense of humor.