After reading Motorcop's post on Supreme Court Double Dog Dares, I was inspired to write this...
As George Bernard Shaw once said, "youth is wasted on the young." While Mr. Shaw probably wasn't talking about new public servants, I think the idea carries over to our new guys, many of whom are likely to start puberty within the next 6 months.
Everybody knows the new guy. We all call them something different - rookie, rook, boot, probie, new guy, FNG (F'n new guy), greenhorn, etc - but they're all talking about the same guy. He's probably young and thinks he knows everything. He probably takes himself WAY too seriously. And your newest pair of boots is probably older than him.
While many of our "new guys" are actually not guys at all, some of our new men and women have a highly charming combination of entitlement, arrogance and self-importance.
To be fair, most of our probationary employees are good employees, but there are always folks that aren't yet living up to their full potential. This post, however, isn't about them specifically. Instead, it's about the rites of initiation we can put them through.
Now, don't mistake me here. There have been many high-profile incidents in the media over the last few years that make us all look terrible. Hazing and all other kinds of bullying are serious problems, and there's no place for it. Hazing and bullying can cause all kinds of physical, psychological or mental harm to the victim, and expose the tormentors and their agencies/employers to serious civil and criminal liabilities. If you're hazing someone, stop reading this blog and figure out where you screwed up in life. Many of the hazers out there were hazed themselves and feel the need to perpetuate this vicious cycle, and this is decidedly not okay. If you're jeopardizing anyone's health and safety, wasting department resources, delaying emergency response or in any other way acting unprofessionally, you're doing it wrong.
I'm talking about team building exercises that help the rookie learn to take themselves less seriously and quicken their transition into public safety. I'm talking about station pranks.
Shenanigans.
To paraphrase, shenanigans are cheeky and fun. If your shenanigans are cruel and tragic, you're probably Farva, and you're probably hazing someone.
Proper shenanigans help the rookie relax a little and, ideally, help them learn. One of the easiest (and most common) things to do is to send them on a fool's errand.
Done right, this involves the rookie wandering all over the station, often for quite some time, looking for something. Aside from entertaining the rest of the house, it teaches the rookie to ask questions and clarify orders. Some of the typical tasks include finding:
#7 Fallopian tubes
Strobe rotator grease
Ladder stretchers
Sky hooks
Electrode chargers
Helicopter landing gear
Neck tourniquets
Tubes of elbow grease
Water hammers
They can also be sent to rotate the air in the tires of the backup rig, shake all the IV bags to preserve freshness, replace the squad's spark plugs or even sent to fill out the ID-10T (idiot) form.
While rookies are fun to tease, the whole point here is to bring them into the family. If you're making them feel like an outsider, you're screwin' up. So make sure that the rookie isn't singled out. The shenanigans should extend to the other members of the crew, too. You've also gotta make sure that your timing is appropriate, and that the victim's got a good sense of humor. Also, if you aren't able to take it, you better not dish it.
A can't-miss crowd pleaser is to switch the victim's mattress and box spring and remake the bed like nothing has happened. The great thing about this one is that it won't typically be discovered until bed time.
Another good one is to buy a universal remote and program it to work on the station's TV. If you select your victim carefully and only use your remote sparingly, you can torture him for months. If you can pass the remote around to other crews, he won't know who to suspect, and if it only happens every week or so he'll slowly go crazy as the channels randomly change on him.
If your rig is equipped with a field programmable keyless entry (most Fords), pick a spare one up off eBay. Program it to work on the vehicle, and if you do it right you can convince the new guy that the doors are voice activated and programmed by saying a specific (and embarrassingly goofy) phrase. When he speaks the phrase, you lock or unlock the doors. When it stops working, have him fill out the proper equipment repair forms. Works even better if the Chief is in on it, and best if the 'programming phrase' is insulting to the Chief -- but only if he's in on it...
Traumatic License - a peek inside the crazy world of pre-hospital medicine in Fairview, USA
Friday, May 27, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Unable To Locate...?
It's the middle of the night, and I'm fast asleep when the alarm rudely jolts me awake. The dispatcher sends us off on what sounds like a wild goose chase.
Non-specific location + "possible" traffic collision + 3rd party caller that didn't bother to check on the occupants + 3 in the morning = wild goose chase (at least 99.2% of the time)
So we drive the whole 5 mile stretch of roadway that our ever-so-helpful reporting party thought the wreck might've been near without finding a single thing. My partner keys up the mic to tell the dispatchers that we've driven the freeway and can't find the wreck when I happen to see that there's a darker patch of black against the night sky than there's supposed to be. It's another mile north of us, and completely outside our jurisdiction, but we decide to check it out just to be on the safe side.
We round a bend a minute later and see a fully engulfed vehicle burning furiously on the shoulder on the southbound side of the expressway. There are no agencies on scene, and we're the only emergency crew in sight, so we advise dispatch of the situation and our intentions. We approach the carbeque and prepare to pass it, separated by just a couple of lanes and the center wall. There doesn't appear to be any significant damage to the vehicle, and I attempt to update dispatch with the exact location and absence of obvious damage as we pass the car.
At that moment, however, the vehicle decided to explode.
Like full on, Jerry Bruckheimer-Michael Bay-Bruce Willis EXPLODE. The driver's door blew off the frame of the car, the hood went flying, and I'm pretty sure both my partner and I needed fresh underwear.
I think the radio traffic went like this:
"Medic 31, this incident will be southbound, just north of HOLY BLEEP! (from me) BLEEP ME!" (from the partner)
We beat feet to reaccess the southbound lanes, hoping and praying that the car is unoccupied. As we prepare to turn left on to the onramp, a state trooper flies by us. We arrive on scene and the trooper gives us the all clear signal. We make a quick face-to-face, and he informs us that this was a mechanical issue that resulted in a vehicle fire. The occupant of the vehicle was safely off the roadway at an all-night diner, where he had called the police. Somehow we never got the message that it was a simple vehicle fire, but oh well.
We decided to hang out and roast marshmallows (I kid, I kid) til the engine company got on scene, then get back to bed. If it hadn't been the middle of the night, our outbursts probably would've gotten us a quick trip to the chief's office to explain ourselves, but fortunately it was, and it didn't. We did have a good laugh about it with him the next morning, though...
Non-specific location + "possible" traffic collision + 3rd party caller that didn't bother to check on the occupants + 3 in the morning = wild goose chase (at least 99.2% of the time)
So we drive the whole 5 mile stretch of roadway that our ever-so-helpful reporting party thought the wreck might've been near without finding a single thing. My partner keys up the mic to tell the dispatchers that we've driven the freeway and can't find the wreck when I happen to see that there's a darker patch of black against the night sky than there's supposed to be. It's another mile north of us, and completely outside our jurisdiction, but we decide to check it out just to be on the safe side.
We round a bend a minute later and see a fully engulfed vehicle burning furiously on the shoulder on the southbound side of the expressway. There are no agencies on scene, and we're the only emergency crew in sight, so we advise dispatch of the situation and our intentions. We approach the carbeque and prepare to pass it, separated by just a couple of lanes and the center wall. There doesn't appear to be any significant damage to the vehicle, and I attempt to update dispatch with the exact location and absence of obvious damage as we pass the car.
At that moment, however, the vehicle decided to explode.
Like full on, Jerry Bruckheimer-Michael Bay-Bruce Willis EXPLODE. The driver's door blew off the frame of the car, the hood went flying, and I'm pretty sure both my partner and I needed fresh underwear.
I think the radio traffic went like this:
"Medic 31, this incident will be southbound, just north of HOLY BLEEP! (from me) BLEEP ME!" (from the partner)
We beat feet to reaccess the southbound lanes, hoping and praying that the car is unoccupied. As we prepare to turn left on to the onramp, a state trooper flies by us. We arrive on scene and the trooper gives us the all clear signal. We make a quick face-to-face, and he informs us that this was a mechanical issue that resulted in a vehicle fire. The occupant of the vehicle was safely off the roadway at an all-night diner, where he had called the police. Somehow we never got the message that it was a simple vehicle fire, but oh well.
We decided to hang out and roast marshmallows (I kid, I kid) til the engine company got on scene, then get back to bed. If it hadn't been the middle of the night, our outbursts probably would've gotten us a quick trip to the chief's office to explain ourselves, but fortunately it was, and it didn't. We did have a good laugh about it with him the next morning, though...
Happy Mother's Day?
It's Saturday night, the day before Mother's Day. We're getting ready to go grab some dinner when the radio goes off.
Sigh.
We get dispatched to a residential address in south Fairview for convulsions. After an uneventful response, we arrive on scene. The engine company that should have beat us is nowhere in sight. A family member frantically waves and yells for us to hurry. Now this isn't the typical panicked and overly dramatic waving that I've become so accustomed to over the years -- this is a distinguished looking Latino gentleman in his mid-60s in a soaking wet suit and tie. Different to say the least.
We walk in to a small but very well kept home and find the living room packed with misty-eyed adults and scared children. Our waver escorts us to the bathroom, where we find a woman trying to console our patient, a woman in her early 60s who is laying on the floor in a puddle of water and covered with a towel and a robe. The patient is altered and postictal, and keeps saying "My eye!" over and over. We ask the woman to move out of the way so we can assess the patient, and the horror of the situation becomes evident. Her left eye has been ripped from its socket and rests upon her cheek, and the trauma to the eyeball itself is devastating.
My partner and I share a silent "Holy bleep!" look and start to ask questions. The patient's daughter and husband tell us that the family was going out for an early Mother's Day dinner, and the patient was taking a shower. They heard a crash, and hurried into the bathroom to find that the patient had apparently had a seizure and fallen out the shower. As she fell out of the shower, she fell into the empty toilet paper holder, which looked a lot like this:
We carried the backboarded patient out to the living room and put her on the gurney. Between the oxygen and the passage of time, her mental status had improved to normal, aside from no memory of our arrival. She knew where she was, and knew that she had hurt her eye, and she just wanted to say goodbye to her grandkids, who were all very scared. As we loaded her into the ambulance, the engine company FINALLY showed up. Apparently they had been tied up with a small kitchen fire. Sigh.
We took off for U-Med, and after transporting across the city in light Saturday evening traffic left her in their very capable hands. They already had an ophthalmologist on the way for a consultation, and, while they don't expect to be able to save the eye, I'm confident she's in the best place possible for her injury.
Sigh.
We get dispatched to a residential address in south Fairview for convulsions. After an uneventful response, we arrive on scene. The engine company that should have beat us is nowhere in sight. A family member frantically waves and yells for us to hurry. Now this isn't the typical panicked and overly dramatic waving that I've become so accustomed to over the years -- this is a distinguished looking Latino gentleman in his mid-60s in a soaking wet suit and tie. Different to say the least.
We walk in to a small but very well kept home and find the living room packed with misty-eyed adults and scared children. Our waver escorts us to the bathroom, where we find a woman trying to console our patient, a woman in her early 60s who is laying on the floor in a puddle of water and covered with a towel and a robe. The patient is altered and postictal, and keeps saying "My eye!" over and over. We ask the woman to move out of the way so we can assess the patient, and the horror of the situation becomes evident. Her left eye has been ripped from its socket and rests upon her cheek, and the trauma to the eyeball itself is devastating.
My partner and I share a silent "Holy bleep!" look and start to ask questions. The patient's daughter and husband tell us that the family was going out for an early Mother's Day dinner, and the patient was taking a shower. They heard a crash, and hurried into the bathroom to find that the patient had apparently had a seizure and fallen out the shower. As she fell out of the shower, she fell into the empty toilet paper holder, which looked a lot like this:
Unfortunately, as she fell her face hit the fixture, and the hook caught her eye, causing the horrific damage. The damage itself would be a relatively easy injury to manage, at least in the prehospital setting, but her altered mental status complicated matters quite a bit.
Due to the fall, we have to place the patient in full spinal precautions, and while her altered level of consciousness is probably a result of the seizure, it could very well be masking a further head injury from her fall. She also kept trying to hold her eye and put it back in place, and we obviously couldn't have that.
Did I mention that this is all taking place in the smallest bathroom EVER? Or that the engine company is STILL not on scene?
Just for reference, the bathroom layout was somewhat similar to this one:
The shower would be where the window is in this picture, and the bathroom door opened directly to a single sink vanity, but you get the idea. The patient was laying between the toilet and the vanity, under the toilet paper holder.
With a lot of help from the family, we were able to c-spine the patient and gently restrain her hands. We covered the left eye with a moist sterile dressing and covered the right eye as well, which seemed to calm the patient somewhat.
We carried the backboarded patient out to the living room and put her on the gurney. Between the oxygen and the passage of time, her mental status had improved to normal, aside from no memory of our arrival. She knew where she was, and knew that she had hurt her eye, and she just wanted to say goodbye to her grandkids, who were all very scared. As we loaded her into the ambulance, the engine company FINALLY showed up. Apparently they had been tied up with a small kitchen fire. Sigh.
We took off for U-Med, and after transporting across the city in light Saturday evening traffic left her in their very capable hands. They already had an ophthalmologist on the way for a consultation, and, while they don't expect to be able to save the eye, I'm confident she's in the best place possible for her injury.
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