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Had to call 911 today - impressed by paramedics

A

Argo

Lifer
Today, as I was exiting an underground bus tunnel through a rather long escalator (about 2-3 stories high) an elderly gentlemen lost his balance and tumbled down the stairs. He fell about 20-30 steps and when we got him up he was bleeding a lot through a gash in his head.

I immediately called 911. It was kinda cool - they didn't even ask me any questions. The only question she asked was how old the gentlemen was and if we was moving. After, that she dispatched the paramedics. From the moment I dialed 911 to the time paramedics arived probably less than 2 minutes passed which was pretty impressive. They immediately jumped in and started taking care of the poor fella.

So here's a :beer: to all you who work for fire departments or other first response units
 
WTG medics! I volunteered and rode a medic unit for 3 years. If you've never done it, consider volunteering. It was a great experience!
 
Originally posted by: Goosemaster
EMTs and Firepeoples always deserve a free :beer:
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:beer: to first responders in any uniform - or lack there of. Good on you for stopping to help, Argo. I'm sure there was no question of not stopping in your mind, just as I'm sure many kept on walking.
 
Yes, this country's emergency response system is top-notch.

My aunt was telling me a story the other day about her experience with 911 on one particularly rainy day.

She was driving home late at night, and the rain was coming down in TORRENTS. As she passed a curve, she saw the whole bank start to slide. She gunned it, and sped past just as tons of rock and dirt fell down onto the road behind her. So she pulls over, and calls 911. "Hello, I was driving along and I saw a landslide just cover the road. I've lit a flare, and I'll stay here until you guys arrive." So she does, they take over, and she keeps driving. A couple miles down, she turns a corner to see that a set of mailboxes is on fire. She pulls over, calls 911. "Hi, me again. Yeah, there's some mailboxes on fire over here. I've lit a flare, I'll wait here until you guys show up." The fire department comes a few minutes later, puts out the fire, and thanks her, and she drives on. Still tons of wind, blowing rain, branches waving. She gets a few miles further, and CRACK! She sees a tree start to fall. She guns it, sweeps past just as the tree crashes down behind her, scraping the back of the car. Pulls over, dials 911. Operator: "You're calling me to tell me that you made it home, right?" "Nope...tree fell down. I've lit a flare, I'll wait here until you guys arrive. Same drill, she keeps driving. A few more corners, a few more curves, and there are some power lines that have blown down over the road, and are sparking and popping and writhing everywhere. She pulls over, calls 911. Operator: "OK, now you've got to be home." "No...there are some power lines down on the road. I'm out of flares, but I'll wait here for you guys to arrive..." Operator: "Thank you. Someone's being dispatched as we speak. Be sure to give me a call when you finally make it home." She gets on the road AGAIN after they come, hoping that she's seen the last of it! Then, after putting a few miles down, she descends a hill to find that the entire road is flooded, up to the car doors. Once again a call. "You made it home?" "Err....not as such. The road is flooded, I'll wait here for you guys to show up..."

Luckily that was the last of it. Talk about a crazy night! And those were just the 911 incidents that SHE filed that night! I can't imagine how busy they must have been.
 
:beer: :beer: First responders deserve this. They saved my grandpas life and saved our house when our generator exploded. My dad had put the generator in our wood shed about 10 ft feet from our house (great idea right?). My mom noticed my dad was out at the generator for a while and the dog was barking. My mom went out to see what it was and 20 ft flames were coming out of the woodshed. I had to call 911 on our cell phone because the land lines were down but right after I got the dispatcher and started telling her what was happening I lost the signal and it took me 5 minutes to get it again. Meanwhile both of our fire extingushers were duds and didn't do anything(no foam at all) and my dad was bucketing water off the pool cover. The fire truck showed up about 15 minutes later( amazing since we live 15minutes out of town on narrow country roads) and had managed to cut several downed trees. They put the fire out almost immeadiatly with their heavy duty extigushers and hualed out the 200 lbs burnt generator and hosed down the shed which amazingly hadn't caught fire. They left in about 30mins after talking to my mom (shes one of the local docs and knows all the paramedics and firefighters even works with a few volunteers in her practice).
 
I'm glad you guys got good experiences. I called 911 two times in my lifetime. Both times I waited at least 5 minutes for someone on the other end to finally pick up the damn phone. One of those two calls, it was ringing for about 10+ minutes.

Good thing both times no one's life was in danger.

The 10+ minute one was a pretty major car accident where I was a passenger. I called 911 immediately after the accident (dialed just as I was coming out of the wrecked vehicle) as I feared that anyone involved may be seriously hurt. Police came about 15 minutes after (total time of about ~25 minutes to time of accident). :roll:

the 5+ minute wait was when my little brother made a super nasty fall and I heard a huge crack and dislocation. He was in obvious pain. I was about 10 or 11 years of age, so I naturally called 911. My bro was crying for about 30 minutes from the time of his fall to when the medics finally arrived.

I guess dispatchers and the south/eastern LA county area sheriff/fire dept just really suck (diamond bar/walnut area...57/60 freeways).

In retrospect, I hope they really fixed the system there. I was super ultra unbelievably quite furiously pissed off at both dispatchers.

EDIT:
oh that reminds me of a friend of mine who got fired as a dispatcher. She lead the ambulance to the wrong part of town. She called her boss a "meanie" for yelling and firing her on the spot. UMMM. As much as a close friend she is, I had absolutely no sympathy for that mistake. :roll:

EDIT2:
oh when my grandpa got ran over by the LA metro bus, the bus driver didn't call 911, nor did she stay at the scene. The ones who did call 911 had their cell phone calls rerouted to their local area code dispatchers, who then had to call the area dispatchers to finally get an ambulance to come. (LA is a huge sprawl w/ multiple area codes).

Authorities arrived too late to save the lives of 3 elderly people who got ran over by this bus (ran red light). My grandpa was living for about 30 minutes before he passed.

LA sprawling traffic FTMFL.

EDIT3:
A similar incident (cell phone/area code thing) occured in UCSD about a few years ago. Two people witnessed a person fall from the top floor of the parking structure. Both called 911. Both had cell phones from their hometown which were hundred+ miles away. Their cell phones called their hometown dispatchers. They couldn't do anything. Ambulance arrived too late.
 
I just wanted to say I hate all Firefighters and other first response units. They all suck! BOO!

😉

Being a firefighter would probably be a cool job, but, I'm probably not in good enough shape to be hired.
 
Originally posted by: DanTMWTMP
I'm glad you guys got good experiences. I called 911 two times in my lifetime. Both times I waited at least 5 minutes for someone on the other end to finally pick up the damn phone. One of those two calls, it was ringing for about 10+ minutes.

Good thing both times no one's life was in danger.

The 10+ minute one was a pretty major car accident where I was a passenger. I called 911 immediately after the accident (dialed just as I was coming out of the wrecked vehicle) as I feared that anyone involved may be seriously hurt. Police came about 15 minutes after (total time of about ~25 minutes to time of accident). :roll:

the 5+ minute wait was when my little brother made a super nasty fall and I heard a huge crack and dislocation. He was in obvious pain. I was about 10 or 11 years of age, so I naturally called 911. My bro was crying for about 30 minutes from the time of his fall to when the medics finally arrived.

I guess dispatchers and the south/eastern LA county area sheriff/fire dept just really suck (diamond bar/walnut area...57/60 freeways).

In retrospect, I hope they really fixed the system there. I was super ultra unbelievably quite furiously pissed off at both dispatchers.

EDIT:
oh that reminds me of a friend of mine who got fired as a dispatcher. She lead the ambulance to the wrong part of town. She called her boss a "meanie" for yelling and firing her on the spot. UMMM. As much as a close friend she is, I had absolutely no sympathy for that mistake. :roll:

EDIT2:
oh when my grandpa got ran over by the LA metro bus, the bus driver didn't call 911, nor did she stay at the scene. The ones who did call 911 had their cell phone calls rerouted to their local area code dispatchers, who then had to call the area dispatchers to finally get an ambulance to come. (LA is a huge sprawl w/ multiple area codes).

Authorities arrived too late to save the lives of 3 elderly people who got ran over by this bus (ran red light). My grandpa was living for about 30 minutes before he passed.

LA sprawling traffic FTMFL.

EDIT3:
A similar incident (cell phone/area code thing) occured in UCSD about a few years ago. Two people witnessed a person fall from the top floor of the parking structure. Both called 911. Both had cell phones from their hometown which were hundred+ miles away. Their cell phones called their hometown dispatchers. They couldn't do anything. Ambulance arrived too late.
Click to expand...

so i guess I should be saving the local PD's phone #s on my phone huh?
 
Originally posted by: DanTMWTMP
EDIT3:
A similar incident (cell phone/area code thing) occured in UCSD about a few years ago. Two people witnessed a person fall from the top floor of the parking structure. Both called 911. Both had cell phones from their hometown which were hundred+ miles away. Their cell phones called their hometown dispatchers. They couldn't do anything. Ambulance arrived too late.
Click to expand...

Hrm. I live 180 miles away from where my cell phone area code is. When I called 911 last year, the dispatch up here answered and paramedics were there within 5 minutes.
 
I recently participated in a training project for EMT/Paramedics and got to do ride along and even play a "patient" in a training video. It amazed me how fun loving and yet professional all of them were. It was funny how when playing the patient all the way up until the camera was rolling they would be cracking jokes and we thought there was no way we'd get it done in one take as they weren't pro actors, but when the said action immediately they went into paramedic mode and i was impressed that even though i wasn't in trouble, if i was be glad to know they were there. Same thing went for the ride along. In the ambulance going to the scenes it was all jokes and jabs but once on the seen and riding with the patient nothing but professional and everything was done to help the patients and families by every means possible.

Even got to go to dinner and club hopping with the guys after filming one night - I gotta say nobody gets chicks like a fireman who is also a paramedic 😉

:beer: and :heart: for all those EMT/Paramedics out there who do their best every day on the job
 
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