The Aftermath of a 911 Call: Navigating Post-Emergency Challenges

Welcome to the last episode of our 3-Part 911 series! Have you ever stood, heart racing, as an ambulance fades into the distance with someone you love inside? Our final installment in the 911 series tackles that harrowing moment and what comes next. The adrenaline rush of crisis gives way to a quieter, but no less important, kind of bravery: the resilience to care for yourself and navigate the aftermath. We unpack the essentials you'll need at the hospital, from insurance details to comfort items, and provide strategies for when someone close to you refuses medical aid. 

Turning the lens inward, we also explore the inner battles of our first responder heroes. Jimmy shares his own story of finding balance after the storm of urgent calls and the façade of invincibility. We shine a light on the mental health struggles unique to these heroes, and the people who can help those that help us, like author and podcast host Travis Howze. We underscore the vital need for community and partnership in supporting those who live in service to others. So, join us as we honor the courage behind the uniform and the journey toward healing—both for those we love and the ones who rush to their side.

Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 After 911
• 15:06 Supporting First Responders Mental Health

Transcript

Jimmy: 0:23

What's happening. It's your boy, jimmy. With another Life and Safety Podcast, we're going to finish off our three-part series of 911 calls the when, the during and now the after. So with this podcast I guess we really want to kind of get along, get across what happens after 911 leaves and when they get there and how it ends and that kind of a thing. So I guess we'll just kind of get into it. Unless, meg, do you have any specific questions? You want me to hit on this one?

Megan: 1:06

Yeah, sure direct, specific questions. You want me to hit on this one, I know. Yeah, sure, um. What should? Let's say that, um, their loved one gets put in the ambulance and taken to the hospital. What should be that person's next step?

Jimmy: 1:19

right then, well that person's next step. If, if your loved one goes someplace, the first thing you should do is take care of yourself and make sure you're good, you're able to drive right. I would say nine and a half out of ten times, depending on the situation, the ambulance is not going to let you ride with them. It just doesn't usually happen. It's not like that in movies. They don't know ambulance is not going to let you ride with them. It just doesn't usually happen. It's not like that in movies. They don't know how you're going to act in the back of an ambulance, like in the last episode where Megan was talking about intubating somebody or putting a tube in them or whatever happens. You might be triggered by it and think that they're trying to hurt that person or they're trying to help them, and it's a very tight small spot and it gets a little crowded and the medic needs to move around and do things. So what happens in the shows doesn't always happen in real life. I've seen it and I've transported people. I mean, if it's a kid, it's a small child and the parent or mom or dad or whoever wants to go with them. That's definitely something to make exceptions for, but in general, it doesn't actually happen.

Jimmy: 2:41

So the first thing you should do is gather yourself and then make sure the rest of the family is okay, depending on's with you, who's around you, give them hugs, all right, just like we take. We teach in the class. Take care of yourself first and then your team, and at that point your, your family's, your team, hug them, kiss them, whatever you need to do, be there for them at that moment. And then go and find the nearest hospital. Know where they're asking. You know, know where your loved one's being taken and ask hey, what hospital are you going to? Don't make the assumption it's the closest one. They may not be the best hospital for the situation. There are certain stroke centers. There's are certain heart attack places. There are certain hospitals that are just better that way. So you know, ask, ask what's going on, where they're going.

Jimmy: 3:36

Gather yourself, make sure you can drive. Don't be stressed out or freaked out or upset. Get in the car and cause an accident. That's not going to help anybody. If you feel distraught, ask a loved. That's not going to help anybody. If you feel distraught, ask a loved one to take you to the hospital maybe Uber, who knows? But take care of yourself. Take care of yourself and then your family before you try to do anything else. And then, when you get to the hospital, if you have insurance cards, if you have, the paramedics didn't take the list of medicines with them, things like that. Prepare some of that stuff, that way you can answer questions Um just to jump in here as somebody who's had my fair share of hospital stays sure.

Megan: 4:21

Um, you might want to bring some things for your loved one If you know they're going to be there for a while A phone charger, a change of clothes. Depending on if they can eat or not, you might want to bring them their favorite snack, because I do not like hospital food. It does not taste good in my opinion. Sometimes it's okay, but for the most part, you know a nice little once the person can eat a nice little snack from home is always nice. Can eat a nice little snack from home is always nice. Maybe you know if they have like something they like to do, like if they knit. You know there's a lot of downtime in the hospital. Maybe you can bring them something like that and get some food yourself before you head over, you know.

Jimmy: 5:05

Yeah, sure, I mean, I think that's a super valid point right there. You know, that's that's about taking care of yourself, taking care of your teammates, and then getting there and taking care of that person. And you know, uh, a book is always nice, you know, um, I think makes point to the phone charger is really good. Yeah, maybe the person's air buds or headphones, whatever it is they're gonna need, definitely helpful, definitely helpful. Maybe, um know, a blanket that they like from home, something like that, something comforting, something comforting, yeah, so afterwards I see you have another question over there what else do you got?

Megan: 5:44

Yeah, so we talked about what to do if the patient is transported to the hospital. What if they don't is transported to the hospital? What if they don't get transported to the hospital, and I think our first episode we talked about an AMA or an Against Medical Advice release form. What if they, you know, tell the ambulance hey, I don't want to go. What's your next step as their loved one?

Jimmy: 6:03

Well, for whatever reason why they didn't want to go, it's whatever reason. It is what it is, but at the end of the day, you called 911 because there was something wrong. So you need a follow-up. That follow-up could be let's go to the urgent care clinic, let's drive into 911, into the emergency room and do that. Let's do something of that nature so we can then, you know, get this person some help. You don't know what you don't know.

Jimmy: 6:36

So if you person's not feeling well or not doing well, let's get this person some help, right, and not just ignore it Again. Urgent care, maybe their primary doctor, maybe the emergency room, but don't ignore it. Just don't be like, oh cool, the ambulance is here. They said you should go to the hospital. You change your mind and sign that waiver, because that first line on that waiver says if you die or your symptoms become worse, you cannot sue us. So that's a big deal. That's a big deal. So don't just assume that you're gonna be okay after they checked you out. It's not. They're not gonna spring fairy dust on you and tell you you're good. It's because you're not coming to the hospital, right. So get checked out, get taken care of or start figuring it out. I know it's not as easy as just snapping your fingers and having things done for you. Start Start figuring things out. Yeah, yeah, all right.

Megan: 7:35

What else you got, megs? How do I clean up? What if you know there was vomit, blood, other bodily fluids?

Jimmy: 7:43

Well, I think that's just going to be kind of situation-based. But if it's a really large thing of blood or bodily fluids, things like that, there are services out there you can call Crime City, cleanup places, things like that, and they'll come and clean up those things for you. If it's a major deal, if it's throw up or blood or something like that, at home mean, use your best judgment, you know. Maybe you know like a five-in-one bleach solution, like so, five parts water, one part bleach, you know something like that to clean up.

Jimmy: 8:18

Um if you can throw it away yeah, sure, I mean, if it's a mattress or something like that, you may not be able to throw it away. Don't cut a hole out of it, you know, but you may want to try to clean it, and I do know for a hole out of it. You know, but you may want to try to clean it, and I do know for a fact there are some carpet cleaning services, things like that will come out and clean those things for you your mattresses and stuff like that, after they've been soiled. That way, you know, as far as cleaning things up, that's pretty vague. If you're at the office, your janitorial crew, maybe your ERT team, your janitorial crew, maybe your ERT team, your emergency response team will clean that up, depending on what your bloodborne pathogens plan is, and that's usually in your IIPP injury illness prevention program that every company should have and if you don't know what it is, go, take this opportunity to go find out what it is.

Jimmy: 9:09

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Megan: 9:12

The worst thing you can do is, in an emergency, not know what to do.

Jimmy: 9:16

Yeah, yeah. So as far as cleanup goes, I think that's pretty vague. I mean, I think it's a good question, but it really just kind of depends on the situation. You know, again, large blood they're going to do that. I think it's really interesting, like when I first started on the fire engine after traffic accidents we used to take the fire hose and hose like all the glass and everything down to the storm, drain All the blood, everything, all the oil. We just hose it down and now you know they absorb a lot of the materials and they, you know, sweep up a lot of the glass and things of that nature. But for the most part that's good. It's changed. It's changed the environment. So at home, again, like we mentioned, clean it up the best you can, what you feel comfortable with, and at the office, make sure you know your plan. Get the emergency response team or the janitorial service, if they're trained to do so, have them clean it up.

Megan: 10:13

I think a good point you brought up was the bleach solution or a germicide or something like that, because there's a lot of blood-borne pathogens and you don't want that sticking around. There are some where even if you clean it up like, say, you were to clean it up with just a paper towel and water that's not ideal, and so if you were to then touch that surface, even up to seven days later, that can still be transmitted to you. So you want to make sure that you're using some sort of thing to kill the germs and other things if possible, Sure?

Jimmy: 10:48

absolutely Sorry, I just got a good one.

Jimmy: 10:51

Wash your hands with soap and water, yeah if you're the responder, make sure you wash your hands with soap and water, especially if you, you know, even if you did wear gloves, you know. So I was going to kind of start getting into a little bit of the. What about the responders? What do they do after 911 calls Right? So I think this is one of the things that where firefighters really have a leg up on police officers. In this scenario, firefighters and this is a double-edged sword, I'll get into both sides have people who lived it with them and they're going to go back to a house and they're going to be able to talk about it with those two or three other people who saw it right. So they're going to have the opportunity to talk about it. That's one side of it and that's kind of more. A lot of things. A lot of newer folks are talking about that. We we're old school Kind of the generation I kind of grew up with. They didn't talk about it.

Jimmy: 11:54

You had to be a tough guy and that's what it was to you. It wasn't a tough person, it was a tough guy. You had to be a tough guy. You had to suck that up, swallow it and go off and you know, keep going, you know, whereas the police officer, they get an incident, they go to an incident, they go to an incident. They go to an incident. They go to an incident, they go to an incident. Starbucks, stop, go to an incident, go to incident, don't it stop? Incident. You know, it's a thing, it's a thing. They can't, they don't get a chance to talk about it yeah.

Jimmy: 12:33

And if they do, there's almost always some jerk walking up going. What are you guys standing around for? How come you guys aren't chasing crime, like they're not allowed to get breaks? There was a really cool cop TV show called Southland and there was a great scene where a couple officers are in the ice cream shop it's in LA and it's like 100 degrees and these guys decide on their break. They're going to get ice cream and there's a lady you know giving them a hard time about that and the line that was great was the police officer turned back and said lady, did you get a break on your job? He goes cause we were 12 hours. We have all this stuff on. We get breaks too.

Megan: 13:11

Yeah.

Jimmy: 13:13

You know, and I'm summarizing it obviously, um, but it's a great point. They get breaks too, and I'm summarizing it, obviously, but it's a great point. They get breaks too and they deserve breaks. They deserve that time to catch their breath, do their paperwork, whatever they need to do, and just kind of process what's happening, so that way they're not going home and taking it out on their wives and their kids and all the responders I don't remember what the stat is and all responders I don't remember what the stat is.

Jimmy: 13:41

It's not as bad as veterans, but the suicide rate, infidelity, things like that is really high for these guys because they're always trying to process. I think it's better, but it's not good enough. For these people that respond to 911 calls. They're not doing great. So I always cut them a little slack in the sense that they might be going through something you don't know and they don't like to open up because they don't feel like you can right where I'm looking for. You can show sympathy and empathy to it, but you don't really you can't fix it and it's hard for them to say that because they're processing it and they don't want to burden their loved ones with something that's going on.

Megan: 14:36

Right.

Jimmy: 14:37

It's going on Right, it's really hard. So you kind of got to take that with a grain of salt. You got to love that person and you got to understand. But that person responding also has to understand that that person loves you and that they want to help you and they want to care about you and they want to be there for you. So you have to be able to find that dialogue where that works and that's something that I'm not going to lie.

Jimmy: 15:07

You know I have a hard time with, sometimes still to this day. I've been off the street for some time now but I still have a hard time with processing things like that. And I'm lucky that I just have the most amazing wife in the whole world that is willing to stick through that crap with me. I don't know how she does it, um, cause I'm not that handsome and I'm not that rich, but I guess I'm pretty funny, so I guess that's why it keeps her around. But, uh, yeah, that's so. That's kind of what happens. You know, love those responders and understand that they're going through something and they don't want to burden you with it. They don't want to burden you with it because they feel like they're the heroes. They have to have their cape on all the time. They have to take care of everybody, and that's not the case. That's something that I am working on and hopefully this touches somebody.

Jimmy: 16:04

If you want to get some really good stuff, there's a person out of South Carolina God, I hope it's South Carolina, I might mess this up Travis House. He's absolutely amazing. Listen to his podcast. Read his book His second book, I believe, just dropped. He's just a super awesome guy and just really speaks from the heart and it's really good stuff. So make sure you hit that guy up if you have more questions as far as mental, things with first responders, because I'm definitely not the guy for that. Things with first responders, because I'm definitely not the guy for that. But after 911 calls, take care of yourself, take care of your family and then be there for the patient, your loved one. That's all I got on that, megs, do you have any other questions for me?

Megan: 16:48

No, we covered it all.

Jimmy: 16:50

All right, be safe out there, team, and we'll catch you on the next one.

Megan: 16:54

If you know or love a responder, go check in on them.

Jimmy: 16:57

Always check in on them.