Link Up Fail

So after last Wednesday's "Wondrous Words" link up by Bermuda Onion, I was all excited to do it again this Wednesday. I picked up King Lear and put it in my bag for work with all sorts of good intentions. Well, I didn't completely flake out on the reading, I DID read...a little...ok maybe like three pages. Unfortunately, there were no new words on those three pages so I have nothing to contribute to the link up. :/ Shame on me. I thought about going to dictionary.com and looking up some  bizzare words to make it look like I was reading something super smarty pants worthy, but I resisted the deception. Instead, I'm falling back on an old standby and providing snippets from the ambulance.

Background info: Pt calls 911, they talk to dispatch, dispatch sends us on the call. First they push this really annoying button that sends out a high pitched call tone and then they give the basic info like "Medic 10, 10Delta2 chest pain, at *address*, Medic 10." We respond in service, they repeat the info, we then respond in route and they give us the trip number (for our charts) and our times (time call was received, time it was dispatched, time we're enroute) and then they give pt descriptors and the chief complaint (cc or c/o for "complaining of") All dispatch radio traffic is public domain, you can go to your local dispatch center and listen to it for kicks and giggles, here are a few of my favorites from the past few days.

Dispatch: "Pt smoked crack today and is sad now."

Dispatch: "Pt complaining of extreme itchiness" (This pt put toothpaste on bug bites with no relief)

Dispatch: "Pt complaining of insomnia"

Dispatch: "Medic 10, cancel the call, pt has removed item from his ear. No further assistance needed." (Item was an, ahem, adult toy...no idea what it was doing near his ear.)

Dispatch: "It's a finger stabbing, stage for SO." (Sherriff's Office) We had two finger stabbings in a row that night.

Dispatch: "Respond to a 29D2 (car crash), pt struck a utility pole...." "...pt is EtOH" (Drunk) ..."Pt ran into the pole on foot..." (wow. Drunk drivers take out utility poles all the time, but without the car? Impressive)

Hope you enjoyed :) Maybe next Wednesday I won't have been such a slacker.