She Is Fire and EMS

So this is happening!! The Board approved my application to go before the general membership (next week) and apply for reinstatement pending recertification! And I found out I can do coursework online with Saturday skills training through the community college in the next county over!

                                                                                  Posted by Dove Designs on 17 March, 2016                                                          |                                      

1. If they are even within 20 minutes of the station, they will always leave you to go on a call.  No matter the circumstances, if you have a fireman on your hands, he will jet to the car and be on his way.

2. Meeting nights are not something you try and fight with them about. They are going to leave and you do not have to like it because it wasn’t up to you anyway. I have learned that these nights are not optional. Yes other people miss them, but not my firefighter.

3. No matter where you are or what you’re doing the minute they hear a firetrucks horn, they’re looking for it and hoping they’re not missing anything good. You will learn the lingo. Structures, fully involved (the good stuff) smoke alarms, cat in a tree (ehh I mean they are fireman soooo still good stuff).

4. They know the exact difference between an ambulance, cop, and, of course, a fire truck siren.  Which means that you will have to learn, too.

5. You’ll have to accept that when he has to do hall rental cleanup, you’re going with to help. You fold the chairs and he stacks them:) And I’m talking at like 12 a.m.,1 a.m.

6. When you come around the firehouse, there will be jokes made and they’ll mess with him about you or even you about him. Honestly it’s a giant bromance going on and they prey on this kinda stuff.

7. At first, you won’t really have a name to the fire guys. Until you’re around long enough. You’ll just be Boyfriend’s name girlfriend.

8. The fire pager goes where he goes.  Next to the bed, in the car, next to your bed, your living room, EVERYWHERE. And even if it’s not the real pager, it’s the dog app that I can never remember the name of so dog app it is. (Say that really fast to get the full effect).

9. They will probably wear their station shirt / apparel at least 4-5 days a week. AT LEAST.

10. If you’ve got a good one, you’re always put first. The list will always go “You, the firehouse, me, everyone else.” But secretly they always want to put the firehouse first.

11. You will learn and know more stations, trucks, members, and chiefs than you will ever want to admit.  Unbelievably true.

12. When you’re driving and you see a fire station, you’ll have to look at it. If its an amazing building, you’ll have to remember the name. And then you’ll have to tell him about it. And then you’ve just proved number 11 correct. Add it to your list.

13. Never make plans while he’s on a call. You can never know when he’ll be back. Even if the calls are short, they could stay at least another hour washing the trucks and being boys, of course.

14. In case you didn’t understand the severity of the first one, if you are on the phone and you hear the pager go off in the background, just tell him you love him and hang up.  Because if you don’t, he will. “Got a call, Love you, bye.” Mid-sentence is always what you want to hear.

15. You’ll never want to watch “Ladder 49” again. You will cry like a baby and then want to make him quit.

16. Outside of the stations, fireman tend to forget that fire isn’t a toy and it’s pretty damn hot.  Playing with the lighter fluid or burning things on the stove* “No it’s alright, I’m a firefighter.”

17. You will start your own station shirt collection.  From NYFD memorial shirts, a station from where you’re vacationing, even acquired old shirts of his, you will have started your own pile of station shirts.

18. You can’t get angry or upset when he is unavailable because he’s going to go to the firehouse for the fifth time that week, or if there’s another fire prevention thing to do. You can’t be mad because he’s doing what he loves and also because a man in a uniform isn’t too shabby?

There are a lot more things to know before dating a fireman, but the rest you’ll just have to learn along the way :)

Something my partner told me last night, standing in a hospital elevator after dropping off a patient. I almost cried because I knew deep down he was right.

I feel like someone else might need to see it.

Here’s something I was completely unaware of until just a few years ago. A number of 9-1-1 calls (quite a few, I am told) are made, not for injury or illness, but because the caller needs help getting back into bed, chair, etc. It is also common that prehospital providers are frequently called back to the same location for the same problem, or a more serious one, within hours or days.

Yet another study from Yale looked at the details of lift-assist calls in one city in Connecticut (population 29,000) during a 6 year period. The town has a fire department based EMS system with both basic and advanced life support, and they respond to 4,000 EMS calls per year.

Here are the factoids:

Average crew time was about 20 minutes

10% of cases required additional fire department equipment, either for forced entry or for assistance with bariatric patients

About 5% of all calls were for lift-assist, involving 535 addresses

Two thirds of all calls went to one third of those addresses (174 addresses)

There were 563 return calls to the same address within 30 days (usual age ~ 80)

Return calls were for another lift-assist (39%), a fall (8%), or an illness (47%)

Bottom line: It looks to me that we are not doing our elderly patients any favors by picking them up and putting them back in their chair/bed. Lift-assist calls are really a sentinel event for someone that is getting sick or who has crossed the threshold from being able to live independently to someone who needs a little more help (assisted living, etc). Prehospital personnel should systematically look at and report the home environment, and communities should automatically involve social services to help ensure the health and well being of the elder. And a second call to the same location should mandate a medical evaluation in an ED before return to the home.