S1E6 Inspirational EMS Calls

In this season finale, Pat and Lee have fun discussing inspirational calls and experiences in EMS teaching. 

Thank you for listening.  We will be working on season two soon. 

Join Lee and Pat on Facebook

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're a first responder, you know the chaos that comes with answering the call. Join Lee and Pat now as they share another story of resilience, process the heavy burdens of profession, and rediscover the divine purpose behind the badge and the uniform. It's time to move beyond just surviving the shift. It's time to find peace in the pressure and faith in the chaos.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Welcome back to answering the call. Good afternoon, Pat. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 0:26

I'm doing finely.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Good, good. Another great day, huh?

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Yeah, we just went for a walk on your mountain, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Yeah, we took a few mile hike and um I was feeling my age today. Post surgery, though, right?

SPEAKER_03 0:38

How long has it been since you had your three months since the knee surgery, and now my hips bother me, so I just felt like an old man today.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

We've been discussing retirement. I mean, every old guy conversation always starts with their medical problems, right? It ends up there anyway. Yeah, we're gonna try to avoid that. This is a unique episode we're gonna do today. Um, a little bit different. Um, we're gonna be looking at um emergency medicine in maybe more inspirational light, um, and maybe have a it's a short discussion about what are some things that you found inspirational in in your career as a paramedic, and we'll even take it a step further. And is in your career as um as a professor of EMS and and the encounters that we had, because really, I mean, about the same uh effort has been put into both, probably first half of the career of street medics and the second half more.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Yeah, we spent equal amount of time on the street and uh in the classroom for sure. I think it might be a good idea in the future if we do some talks about maybe funny calls that people have had. Yeah. Have some guests in, maybe unexpected outcomes. Uh, but uh inspirational is a great place to start. Yeah. We did discuss that.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

We're not really willing to go down the route of war of stories, right? It's we're we're not looking at the negative stuff here.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Well, somebody always asks. It is something and every minute can relate to this, right? Yeah. What's the worst call you've ever been to? Yeah. I don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

I don't want to do that, right? So I mean that's usually the typical way that most people will approach it. Uh so maybe we just go a little bit against the the grain, maybe look at it from a more positive view. Because we have had some very inspirational and very unique experiences.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

And well, let's see where this goes. I mean, uh we can segue into other types of calls as well, but yeah, you know, you mentioned inspirational. Something that came to mind from me immediately when we first started chatting about this was a call I went on once um over in Durham. I was dispatched to an assisted living place, probably a nursing home, and my patient was to be a 102-year-old woman who was dying. She had DNR orders that were intact. She was completely comatose. I mean, not you know, you could do uh external rubbing, she didn't even didn't even move. I wasn't to do anything really except just take her to Duke. So I called Duke and told him we're bringing you someone who has DNR orders intact and we're just bringing her to you. Well, I just felt moved. You know, I always felt like we had a responsibility as medics to love our patients, treat them with compassion, and sometimes even to offer to pray with them. It's just something I always felt led to do. But this was a situation where I thought, this poor lady doesn't have a voice. You know, she's strapped to the stretcher, she's unconscious. What should I do? So I just kind of I prayed. And I said, you know, I just felt led, you know, yeah. And so what I did was I just whispered in her ear in the back of the truck, I said, I just want you to know that Jesus is here and he loves you. And Lee, a tear rolled out of her eye. And up to that point she had been entirely obtunded and and and comatose. But I I reached her somehow on a very spiritual, deep level. This lady was dying, and I said, you know what? This is incredible. Um we took her to Duke, went into the ER, I explained what we had. They said use room two. This is the old ER for your old medics in Durham. Took her in room two and put her on the gurney in there, and then my partner left. And I I called dispatch and said, This is medic, whatever I was, 51. I'm out of service. You're not supposed to do that in the middle of the shift, especially in a busy system like ours. But I said, I'm not leaving. Yeah. I stood by that gurney for the next 45 minutes with that lady and watched her cardiac monitor go down, down, down to zero, and flatline, and I watched her carbon dioxide levels go down, down, down to zero until she was gone. But mine was one of the last two voices she heard. The other one was one of the nurses that decided to stay in there with us. But it was inspirational for me in that I was able to share my faith with her, share the love of Christ with her, just in two simple words, you know, He loves you, He's here, three words. And she responded, which I know I reached her soul. Wow. I don't know where it goes from there. I may never know, but uh that was probably one of the most inspirational moments for me in EMS. It really impacted you to this day. That was 20 years ago. I just feel like it happened, you know, today.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

You know, um handling death and dying is a big part of a paramedic's job, you know. We have to inform family members of those who died, and and quite often they don't know that until they're we're we tell them and sit down. It's a big part. How has um how has um these issues of death and dying affected you personally? Has it changed how you view the dying process or your own mortality?

SPEAKER_03 5:49

Yes, it has, and I would approach that from two different uh points of view. As a Christian, I believe that everybody has eternal life. Uh the question is where where are you gonna spend it, with the Lord or without him? If Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except by me. So I believe that apart from Christ, we're gonna be separated from eternity from our Creator. From a human side, I started seeing death and dying as normal. You know, we're brought up thinking it's a terrible thing. But people die, they're supposed to die. And it's hard for those of us who are left. And sometimes it's hard the way people do die. But something I think most young people need to hear early is that it's okay. Dying is part of life, it's it's natural, you know, in this fallen world that we live in. Yeah. And um, again, I I think there's two sides to it. There's a spiritual side and there's a there's a human side.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

I think that part of the job to me is such a special part of what we do, is helping those in their final moments. And how many times have you you been with somebody in their last moments of life or their last words? That's an awesome responsibility for for us to have and to honor that and to respect and um and to be honest with people during that dying process and their family members too. I I you know it it is an area certainly within our our our field of study that can really make an impact on those around us.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

But how did you handle that? So you're working a code inside a home and the family's there, and uh you've done everything you can do, and the patient doesn't make it, and you know that we call the ER and we tell them we we ask for permission to call the code.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Yeah, well, you know, it was during our tenure of being paramedics that most of the services actually um um got the ability to do a discontinuation of a cardiac arrest on in the field prior to that, and it's been around for 20 years, but before that, we didn't have that option. We pretty much worked everybody unless they were obviously dead. So that was a fundamental change in EMS altogether, going from that direction.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Yeah, but when you had a patient who did die, how did you inform were you good at informing the patient's family?

SPEAKER_02 8:09

I found a sense of pride um of doing that. I that I knew I was good at um handling the situation, staying common. And what I learned really is one of the best things that you can do, one of the most meaningful things you can do is allow people to talk. Allow them to vent, allow them to express some of the grief that they have. And really, I think that's where we get kind of tie ourselves up is we think we can fix everything as medics. And we can't fix death, you know. We can certainly help transitions and help other people through that. And I think that's what kind of makes it a unique experience.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

And that's one of the things that you just can't be prepared for in the classroom. No. I mean, you know you're going to face death.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Well, I mean, you know, we would certainly try to mimic that through simulation, right? And um, and and we could get somewhat an experience, but it's one of those things you have to learn, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 9:01

Well, I learned it my first call. Yeah. My first call was a DOA. So the first time I ever went out on an ambulance, the patient I responded to was was already gone. Wow. And so that was it was like a hammer hitting me.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

So for me, the most inspirational calls and or call I've had is on the opposite side of it. It's at the birth. And um, as a paramedic in Durham County, I had the opportunity to deliver nine babies. Um, all of them successfully. There were I didn't really have any major complications on any of them. But it was the first one for me that I that was really for me um just so overwhelming. I mean, it was it was so dramatic and and scary and terrifying. It was um, I my my wife Kelly was pregnant at the time with our son Eli, and I had never seen a um a live birth before. And um I had I had this schooling and all that, and I knew what to do for the most part, but um never really quite prepared for the actual emergency. And it was a young woman, she's 19 years old, first pregnancy. Um she was at 40 weeks or thereabout. She had gone to the hospital, and the hospital said they didn't think she was in labor. And it was a couple hours later, 7 o'clock in the morning. Um, we got a late call. It was right at 7 o'clock, um, right before shift changed. I had to take the last call. And I was looking forward to it. I've been I was had been as a paramedic, I've been looking forward to the experience of delivering a baby. So I was already predisposed. Kelly was getting ready to deliver. Um, I was I was totally into it, ready for it. And um, we responded to um to this home where we had this young lady meet us, uh, come running outside, um kind of holding her stomach, um, obviously kind of waddling in distress, and um saying the baby's coming right now. And um, so we immediately just put on a stretcher, got into the back of the truck, and um did an exam on her, and what I I saw was the amniotic, intact amniotic sac coming out, protruding vaginally without the baby in it. And I and I know that we talked about that in class, you know, and um about how you might rupture the membranes, but I I just remember the terror of where's the baby at? I couldn't see it through the bag. And I asked my partner who had delivered a few, and she kind of looked at me like, let's roll with this. So we um we started heading down the Durham Freeway towards Duke University, and um, and we we didn't make it. We pulled over, and um, I was able to deliver the baby um intact in the bag. I was able to the rupture the membranes and then do a full delivery, um, a healthy little um a little girl. Uh it you know, there's there's lots of experiences as medics that we have that are very negative. But I know a lot of people are very fearful of delivering babies. I know a lot of paramedics who don't want to deliver babies, but that wasn't true for me. I I was really excited to bring life in as opposed to seeing it go away, yeah, to me was very inspirational.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

Childbirth can be scary since it's something we don't do every day, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:06

No, you know, I I used I was the guy who always had in the front of the kit, I had um uh all my personal protective equipment, the face, yeah. I remember the whole idea was because I I remember going into each of one of these calls, labor and delivery calls, and and most of the time they're they're not delivering, you know. I 99 times out of 100, they're not delivering. And but I always went in as if we're going to deliver. And and a lot of my partners thought I was like a little crazy, um, but it paid off. You know, that that other delivery I had, I was the only one with protective, and everybody else is being exposed to me and amniotic fluid. But that was very meaningful for me. And and a big part of my career that I like to talk about is I don't like to talk about the negative, I like to talk about the positive and the good things that really happen.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

Well, let me give you another positive, and this one could probably segue into the funny section. Um, I was one of those medics like you that had to be ready for the shift, had to have all my stuff ready to go. And um I pulled into to the Duke station, station three, at uh 6.45. Our shift started at 7. I always got there exactly 15 minutes early. And normally I would get my stethoscope and all my EMS gear and I'd go inside the station and get all set and start getting ready to check the truck. Well, as I was getting out of my car, my partner Andy was shouting at me, come on, Pat, we got a call. And the ambulance was already going. I said, Hang on, I gotta get my stuff. He says, You don't need your stuff. Let's go. We got a code. I said, Oh, great. So I slammed the trunk, jumped in the ambulance, buckled in, he takes off. I said, Dude, I don't have I don't have any of my tools. He says, You don't need them. And so we raced over to Jackson Street. It took us about five minutes to get there. Pulled up in front of this house, uh, looked up on the porch, and there's a bunch of old men in rocking chairs. I'd say 12 of them, you know, the cracker barrel rocking chair. And they're all rocking back and forth like this. And I grabbed the med box and the monitor, and Andy grabbed the airway kit and the oxygen, and we started up the steps, and we looked at him and says, Did y'all call us? Yeah, we called you. Well, why? What's going on? He came out as a cardiac arrest. Well, old Charlie ain't breathing. Well, where's Charlie? And everybody pointed over here at this guy. He's kind of slumped over. In the rocking chair. In a rocking chair. So I said, okay, I went over there and I rubbed his sternum real hard, you know, like we do, and check. I said, Andy, I think they're right. And I checked his pulse, no pulse, he's not breathing. So I uh Andy, he's he's not breathing, so I pulled him down into the middle of the porch. All this just men, old men just rocking, watching. Ripped open his shirt. Andy handed me the paddles. That was back in the old days before we used stickers. And uh, and I put the paddles on his chest and saw V Philb on the on the screen, that squiggly line. So I immediately charged it up. Clear, boom. Shocked him, his eyes opened, he sat up and he looked right at us and said, What's going on? He was in cardiac arrest. It's amazing at some of the how. He looks at his friends and they say, What happened, man? He says, uh, they say, Well, you were dead, Charlie. And so we took him to Duke and dropped him off just as happy as a clown. But it was funny. And it was such an unexpected outcome, you know. That never happens. It was so encouraging because you know, you saved a life, and all we really did was show up and I didn't need any tools. Yeah. I didn't need my stethoscope, didn't need a pulse sox, didn't need a glute sorry, a glucometer, any of that other stuff.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

I I tell we we could tell stories like this for days. Uh, you know, um maybe segue into our teaching aspect. I know for me, I probably some of my most inspirational things really happened in the classroom. I um for me, I I have one thought in my head. I I um I started years ago, was um it was a high school EMT class and taught it for years. I taught it for 13 years. Over 2,000 students went through an EMT class while they're in high school. I love this. Um it was so pro um emergency medical services. Most of these high schoolers are going on to be doctors and nurses, and um, but it gave them exposure to um EMS and it got them it got them an EMT certification while they're in high school. But I had this one experience. I had a young man getting ready to start his senior year. He had been accepted into the EMT program. He was exit very excited. There was a group of about a hundred of them coming in. Um, right before um the class started, I I saw in the news um that some kids got in trouble. They had broken into a um a local school, uh vandalized it, and stole some computers and just did some really dumb, stupid things. And um, they were arrested. And this one particular guy, young man, rising senior, 18 years old, is now looking at felony charges. And um, and we know, I mean, if if this if he's convicted, he's not gonna be able to many of the things he would like to do in life will be limited because of it, right? So um I had an idea, and um I I I could see that this kid needed some help. And I was really close to the the high school teacher, and I approached him and and and asked about this student, and um telling him that there the chances of becoming an EMT certified North Carolina with a conviction, a felony conviction, was probably highly unlikely, and it didn't make sense for him, but that he could still learn the material and get it as a a life experience, and that maybe that might help change him and maybe change his mind. A lot of things we had to do to to cross those hurdles, but he was accepted into the program. Into your program, into the high school EMT. So it's it's two semesters. In our college, 200 hours, contact hours. Um he was making a commitment to something he knew he couldn't actually achieve. And I I I like that. I thought that showed some character. He was willing to step up and do that. Well, long story short, um at the beginning of one of the classes, um, I had a student in the back of the uh class, a young lady, and she was eating her lunch, finishing up lunch before lecture started. And I saw it happen. She took a bite of her subway sandwich, stood up, the classic, hands around the throat. Can't breathe. Sign of choking, right? Choking, yeah. And not only that, but she comes running towards me in the front of the class with about 30 kids in the class, and um, and her friend sitting next to her was yelling, she's choking, she's choking. So immediately I grabbed her. Um, I got in position to do the hummock maneuver, and I just started doing the hummock, and it wouldn't come out. I mean, I was I mean, I've had to do this before, but um it was kind of unusual that this thing just wouldn't come out. It wasn't that easy. And I did it probably five or six times. She started starting a little bit psyanotic, a little weak in the knees. I told one of the students to to run and go get you. You were in a classroom giving a lecture across the hallway and with the instructions of bring the airway kit. We were looking for the McGills and the Laurentioscope. Sure. And uh I thought to myself, all right, well, um, she's getting a little weak because she's starting to lose consciousness. I'm gonna get her to ground, but I'm gonna give three more. And I went one, two, and she it came out and she just vomited all over the wall in the classroom. But here's a full classroom that just erupted into pumping fists and jumping up and down in in in um in celebration that um that I was able to relieve this foreign body obstruction. Well, um, this young man who was there under furlough um came up to me afterwards and said, Mr. Whitman, that was the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. I kind of got a chuckle out of that because it really wasn't cool to see a young girl vomiting in the classroom, but it made an impact on him. And um, this is where it comes cool is he successfully completed the course. He was one of the best students I had. He was motivated. Um, he asked great questions, he he was committed. And after we got done, we went back to the school and we and we told the school what he had accomplished, and they dropped all charges. Who dropped the charges? The community, the the school dropped the charges, and um and and the courts agreed to it. So everything was completely um erased from his record. And um So this experience did change. It changed them. And the judge, it took the judge talked to him and um and and told him that's wonderful. It's what you did here, and and it made him eligible to become a medic. He he didn't get his paramedic with us, but he went on to another school to get his paramedic. Hey, we can make a difference, right? Right. I mean, and and and it doesn't have to be in in necessarily in the street, but it could be in the classroom. We could there's so many ways we can make impacts on people in in our field.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

You know, I'm thinking we ought to have an episode frequently where we invite other people in to give um not war stories, but positive stories. Positive stories or or at least things that you can celebrate.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

Yeah, successes.

SPEAKER_03 20:40

Can I share one more with you? Absolutely. Dude, this is one of the most I'm gonna call it a miracle. Um by now the people that listen to this podcast know that I'm a man of faith and I believe in in the Lord, and um I do believe in miracles, and this was proof of one. It was uh 7 p.m. shift over in Durham, and we got called out to a choking. Since you mentioned choking, it came to mind. And we raced over there, and when we arrived on scene, there was a big crowd of people in the middle of the street. Uh ironically, I think it was Jackson Street again. But engine three was already on the scene because I could see their truck over there with the lights flashing, but I couldn't see the firefighters. It's such a big crowd. So we grabbed our equipment and we started running towards the middle. Move, move, everybody out of the way. And when we got in there, the the med the uh EMT firefighters are down there doing the Heimlich maneuver on this little kid. He's four years old. He's he's a little uh African American, but Lee, he's turning purple. And uh what happened? Well, he choked on something. He was running around with his sister and he got choked and fell down, and he's he's he's cyanodic. Uh and you're doing the highlight? How many long you been doing the Himlik? Man, we've been doing it for you know a couple of minutes. We can't clear it. I said, Well, somebody hand me a laryngoscope and let me look down at his throat. So somebody handed me the larynxoscope and I saw his vocal cords. So I said, hand me a tube, you know. So they handed me an endoscopy. Tracheal tube and I tried to put it through his cords, but it wouldn't go. I said it won't go. Try the Hamlet again. Tried it again. I tried to intubate him again. It wouldn't go in. Finally, I said, Man, we gotta go. So we snatched him up. And you get this kid hasn't breathed in 10 minutes, probably. So you never saw the obstruction in it? No. Must have got down into his trachea. It was somewhere in his trach. And I'm thinking, this this child is dying in our care. He's gonna die. So I scooped him up my arms and I ran for the ambulance. And my partner Larry jumped in the back with me, and somebody from engine three drove us, engine five, drove us in. I remember. And we're flying down the street, and uh lights and sirens going, and and Larry's doing the Heimlich, and I'm trying to innovate him again. We can't make any progress at all. And Lee, I said, this child is dying right before our eyes. And so I just called out. I just said, Jesus help me. That's all I said. And I promise you this is true. The truck hit this huge pothole in the street. The truck jumped up and came down real hard like that. And when it did, whatever was in his mouth popped out. It was a grape. It was about the size of a super ball. And Larry picks it up and goes, Here it is. And I bagged this kid. I put the resuscitator, you know, uh the BVM over his mouth and bagged him all the way to Duke. And by the time we got him to Duke, he was starting to pink up. And 10 minutes after I dropped him off, by the time we um got our paperwork done and came back to the room, he was sitting up talking to his parents. Wow. They were thanking me. Oh, gossip, thank you so much. This is what keeps us going, right? It was it was inspirational, it was encouraging. It was like this is why we do this. Yeah, so great.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Wow, it really is. I got one more I'll share with you, and um and I think this was fantastic. This was a bystander that did this, and um it was um it was an evening, it was in a community pool, no one else was there, and this young girl, uh 17 years old, went for a swim. She shouldn't have been up there alone. But when she got there, she looked into the pool and there was uh another teenager at the bottom of the pool. Oh no. And so she jumped in, got that got the kid out of the water, brought her up by herself, was able to get him out of the water, and where he she pushed him over onto the edge of the of the side of the pool, she got out. There was a sign on how to do CPR in a sign form on the right next to her. Yeah. So she went and did CPR. She followed the instructions, saved the life of the kid. When we got there, he had just started breathing, he had aspirated a lot of pool water. He he was had an upward road, he never really gained reconsciousness, but he had a full recovery. And I know that because the news got a hold of the story and celebrated this teenager for saving a life. I just thought that was a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

You know, we need to hear more of these positive stories. I'm thinking uh, you know, this is a new podcast, and we're not sure exactly how it's all gonna go yet. But maybe if people email us and let us know they'd like to be a uh uh a guest on this, we can have people in.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

You know, um join us on on Facebook, and um we have a Facebook site uh called Answering the Call. And um, we'd love for you to join us, make comments, check out some of the pictures that I'll make reference to some of these um stories that we have. We'll have the Africa stuff.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

I'm gonna sell a book real quick.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Go for her.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

I never do this, man, but uh I wrote a book called Answering the Call years ago. You're familiar with it. It's a series of about 30 devotionals written uh entirely for uh first responders, paramedics, EMTs, firefighters, police officers, even some military. And um it's they're just inspirational stories like these.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Kind of like chicken soup for the soul, yeah, but the EMS version of it, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:38

It's my Christian version of yeah, yeah, the soup for the soul thing. Yeah, but yeah, we would like to have some guests in here to talk, and and we want this to be a fun thing. We don't want ever to be heavy, want to want it to be light in it. We'd love to invite others to join us as well.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

And um and and we would. We'd love for you to kind of try to reach out and to touch us and and um yeah, join us on Facebook and take a look at it, and we can um we can answer some of any of your questions you might have in the future.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

All right, Pat. Thanks, man. Have another great day. It's been good. All right, have a blessed day. You too.

unknown 26:10

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Thank you for listening to Answering the Call Podcast, Finding Faith in the Chaos. Please join Pat and Lee for future episodes and engage with them and other listeners on Facebook and other platforms. Be sure to like and subscribe so you don't miss what's next. This episode may elicit strong emotions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, and suicidal ideation. We are not mental health professionals, and the stories or advice shared here should not replace professional medical help. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out for help. You can call or text the 988-Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 in the US and Canada, or contact your local emergency services.