The Funniest Thing Seen by an EMT or Paramedic
So often, people ask us what the worst thing is that we’ve seen – and we think that should be replaced by asking what the funniest thing is that we’ve seen.
So we did just that, we asked you what’s the funniest thing you’ve seen as an EMT or Paramedic.
No Customer Care
I was fresh into the field, out of EMT school ready to help those in need. Well one of my first calls was a psychiatric to a local college in my town. So, I’m running through my head about what I need to do such as check glucose as well as BP because it’s probably not psych. Well we get there, and the FD is carrying out this girl the same age as me half naked screaming about how the earth gravity does not hold her to the ground, then proceeds to go limp. FD had then lifted her up onto our gurney and as I’m restraining her to the gurney I had to dodge and grab a foot that attempted to make a 40-yard field goal on my head. Once she is loaded up into the ambulance, she then proceeds to talk about how much she loves rough sex. Then proceeds to look at me dead in the eyes and scream at me as I’m doing BP “Just Fuck me I don’t care if it hurts so what if I like it, its normal!” So, I try to keep my cool and a straight face for it being my first call all the while my FTO and his paramedic partner start to laugh at me. After pt care was transferred my FTO said I got a 0 on customer care because I did not cater to my pts needs. What a first call.
– Anonymous
You Know Too Much…
Got dispatched to an altered mental status pt. Get on scene. Pt was an 85 y/o female siting in the living room. Me and pt start talking had buttons in her and along with her meds in her hand. She kept saying they was trying to kill her. She knew too much… They were coming for her… After an hour we got the pt to get in the ambulance and started heading to hospital, she told me she was part of the secret service for Hoover, and if they see her talking to me that they would lock me up. Got her to a room at the hospital. She told me to be careful because she told me too much.
– Terry, EMT-I/TEMS
Pacemaker
Had a lady say her husband could not poop because he needed the battery changed in his pacemaker – he could not build up enough pressure to poop.
– Anonymous
Hide and Seek
One day I was on duty and a nearby company was dispatched for a call. I was listening to communications between county and the other crew on the station radio. Our coverage area was pretty rural and sat in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. Like in many places we often had to search for houses that were not clearly marked. This was the case in the current situation. County had dispatched with address information along the lines of “2 miles from the paved road” and the ambulance was having great difficulty finding the house in the middle of nowhere. After driving for some time on a dirty road on the side of the mountain, the clearly frustrated driver came across the radio saying “County, still no sign of the residence but I believe we found Amelia Earhart’s plane!”
– Sharon, EMT
40 seconds…
It was around the end of shift and hoping to get off the truck soon when we got an abdominal pain call over the radio. It was a bariatric patient…. when we get to the house, we were told not to laugh by the husband cause of his wife’s weight and how large she is. We simply said sir we do not laugh at work we are very serious when it comes to our profession. If only they knew what we have to put up with. When we get to the patient my eyes got huge because I don’t think the size of the women would fit in a normal width of my sight. She was a solid 475 or more. As soon as she locked eyes with us, she could see us sizing her up on how all this was going to go down. It’s one of the silent looks you give your partner and just know what or how you’re going about this without speaking. Needless to say, she was in pain and we were rolling her around to fit sheet under anything we could to get her on our stretcher. We start moving to her side of discomfort when all of a sudden, she lets out the longest fart I’ve ever witnessed in my life. If this fart was timed, I would have to say about 40sec. Now 40sec doesn’t seem long but when your elbows deep with 4 other guys rolling a 400+ person in a quiet house, its long as fuck. The smell was so putrid and when one guy let out a smirk and was trying to hold in his laugh, we all lost it, we were cry-laughing so hard. Finally got her to the truck and of course she felt much better. That was 10 years ago and still makes me belly laugh.
– Josh, EMT
Every 3 minutes
Got dispatched for ‘right arm pain. Arrived on the scene to find a 48 y/o female clutching her LEFT arm. I immediately started the chest pain questions, evaluated her vitals, all WNL, and ran an ECG, NSR. I asked her to rate her pain, on a 1-10 scale, 10 being the worst pain imaginable. She just looked at me with a blank expression on her face. ‘What do you mean?’, she asked. I said, ‘Well, 1 is no pain and 10 is the worst pain you’ve ever felt. What number would you give your chest pain?’. Now, there’s another woman in room in a long skirt and trucker’s hat who says, ‘I don’t believe she understands what you want’. I look over towards the living room and there are 6 children sitting on the couch. I asked if they were her children. She said yes. So, I said, ‘Well, most women would rate the pain of childbirth as a 10 on the scale. Now, with that in mind, what number would you rate your chest pain?’. She furrowed her brow and thought about it for about 30 seconds and replied, ‘I guess about every 3 minutes’. I have no idea how my partner and I did it, but we kept our composure and I asked her which hospital she wanted to go to. She advised, ‘Oh, I’m fine now. They prayed over me before you got here, and the pain is gone’. I advised her to seek medical attention if the pain returned and we loaded up and headed down the road. We got to a stop sign and my partner looks over and says, ‘About every 3 minutes?!’. We were laughing so hard that dispatch couldn’t understand what we were saying!!! That partner is no longer with us and that is one of my fondest memories of working with him!!
– Theresa, Paramedic
