Life Saved!

This weekend was very exciting for several reasons.

First, I had a pretty interesting EMS call. We were dispatched for a middle-aged woman, unresponsive, but breathing. We arrived and found a 300-lb, 37-year old woman lying unconscious on the ground, breathing quickly and foaming around the mouth. We (4 EMTs + 2 cops) got her in the ambulance, and she started screaming. We couldn't suction the excess liquid from her mouth because her jaw was clamped down.

Drugs? Stroke? No idea.

Two paramedics joined us and gave her 2 doses of Ativan to get her to stop screaming and flailing around. We learned from her sister, who'd been riding in the front of the truck, that she had been complaining of headaches and an ulcer, and that she'd been trying to exercise a lot more lately.

MI? Arrhythmia?

After she stopped screaming and kicking, we saw her heart rate was very fast. After a better exam, we noticed that her belly was swollen and distended, and her blood pressure was 90/60. Very low. It turned out that she was bleeding from a ruptured ulcer.

Altered mental status is a very late sign of hypovolemic shock, or shock from blood loss. It is very unlikely to find someone who has lost so much blood that they are altered, tachycardic (high heart rate), and hypotensive (low blood pressure) but that isn't dead yet. She probably got some surgery that night. I think we saved her life. I think an extra 10 or 30 or 60 minutes and she wouldn't have survived.

Friday turned into Saturday and I drove to Long Island to go wedding dress shopping. I wasn't ready to buy a dress. I just wanted to get a baseline so I could do some online shopping, and maybe find a dress in a few months. And everyone knows what happens when you walk into a store not ready to buy anything. After many dresses and many laughs (I do NOT look good in many things), we found the one. I didn't cry, but I was relieved. And I felt a little like a fairy princess.

On Sunday, I had the best race of my life. Details to follow soon.