Day 7 - Day 2 on the Cruz Verde Norte Ambulancia

 Today I worked 17 hours starting at 10am and finishing at 3am. Throughout the day we attended 16 calls, of which 6 were hoaxes. The first call of the day was almost immediately as I started, we attended a elderly female suffering from a CVE (stroke) or EVC as they call it in mexico. A motorcycle paramedic was already in attendance and it more or less was a grab and run job. She had cyanosis to the left hand and foot as well as left sided weakness, including facial droop. On arrival at one of the larger hospitals we waited around for about an hour before being able to get the stretcher back due to the lack of beds.

Shortly after this we attended several motorcycle accidents, mostly minor injuries and all but one was treated on scene without the need of hospitalisation.

We then took a patient from the emergency department for a reduced level of consciousness due to a head injury for a scan (Image above) at one of the larger and better equipped hospitals in the area. Once this was complete, we brought him back to the ED.

We had a call to a car that rolled over at speed with four occupants, including a 9 year old and amazingly they all walked away with minor lacerations to the knees and elbows. (image below)

During the night we attended a couple more motorcycle crashes, again with minor injuries, shortly followed by a call to a respiratory arrest as a result of bronchospasm. The patient was intubated and ventilated using a BVM and in a convoy (police truck followed by two ambulances) we rapidly transferred the patient to the emergency department. (note the patient re-gained consciousness in the resus rooms several hours later but was then put into an induced coma)

The final call of the night for me was by far the most interesting, we were called to a motorcycle crash involving four traumatic head injuries. Two of the patients were intubated on scene whilst the other two maintained their own airways. Again it was very much a scoop and run job, cannulating and doing obs in the back of the ambulance at 100kmph.

At three o'clock in the morning I decided to call it a night, until I start again tomorrow... I mean today.