Unfortunately, I am only working two shifts this week, I think 5-6 the following weeks.  Today I had the 10-6 shift with another girl from our group.  When we got to the station, we were paired with Amos the Nahag (Driver).  Nahags are always the most senior member of the group.  It was Amos, Isabel, an Israeli volunteer, and me on the rig.  Due to my experiences of being an EMT in the states I was put as second in charge and got to ride in the front seat.  Amos basically let me do everything that day, which was pretty cool.  Our first couple of calls were pretty coring including a gentleman with chest pains and a clinically insane woman the began shouting at us as soon as we got there.  She complained about chest pains, but twice held her breasts to show where the pain was.  I wish I could understand hebrew better because she was yelling and cursing the entire ride.  She also told us to sheket (shut up) as we were trying to help her.  

 

After that call we responded to an unconscious patient.  She was an elderly woman and when we arrived it was clear that she had been dead for some time.  However, due to protocols over here, we had to continue to do CPR until the rofeh (doctor) arrived to announce time of death.  She was lying on the bed at first, so we needed to take her off and put her onto the floor. However, when we did that, her unknown catheter bag caught on the corner of the bed and ripped open.  About half of a bag of urine spilt on the floor.  Now, with her on the floor, we began chest compressions.  We tried to insert an oropharyngeal airway but her jaw was locked, a sign of “very” dead woman.  We continued with chest compressions, although it was evident what was coming and it was kind of disgusting pumping the chest of a dead woman.  When the ICU ambulance arrived with the doctor, they tried to insert an IV, but the blood was quite thick at this point.  She was declared dead shortly after.  The womans family was in the room the entire time, which made the experience a bit more emotional.  We went back to the ambulance and received our next and last call of the day.

 

Dispatch:Bicycle Accident.

 

We arrived at the scene of the accident, which happened to be in Tel Aviv not Bat Yam.  When we got there, we learned that the woman did not want to wait for us, so she hailed a taxi cab.  We turned around the ambulance and on the other side of the highway was a taxi waiving us down.  We got out to find that the cabbie did not want blood in his car and therefore kicked the woman out.  She was about 65 years old on a trip with her husband from Mexico City.  It was their second day in Israel.  They only spoke English so I got to lead the call.  The nahag barely spoke any english.  Her arm was covered up with her husbands shirt and we carefully took it off.  Here I saw that about half of her arm was cut off.  There was an 8 inch slice right across her inside of the elbow and she was bleeding pretty profusely.  Also, she was a bit on the heavier side, and her layer of fat was coming out.  It looked with yellow yogurt mixed with cheese curds.  Anyways, I got to put on a personal bandage and then when that wasn’t sufficent I used a triangle bandage to increase the pressure.  We brought her to Wolfson-the nearby hospital. It was a good sign that she still had a pulse in her hand and could move her fingers.

We went back to the station and our shift was over.  Look forward to working next week.

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