Rural Paramedic Stories
These are some rural paramedic stories that I’ve put together from my time posted out to a small outback town in Australia as a Rural Paramedic. So, if you’re soon to be posted to a rural area as a paramedic, these are some stories to get you ready for what you’re in for. At the end of the day, enjoy the experience, people are friendly and appreciate the work you do, get used to having your showers/baths interrupted (and your sleep) – many patients will even know where you live and turn up in the middle of the night if they have a problem. But, you’re generally well compensated for this both financially and by town respect/and appreciation/job satisfaction.
Anyway, these are some of my rural paramedic stories.
I live by myself on a farm-house on top of a hill with 360 degree views down the various fields and mountains… I share my land with some 300 head of cattle and a little over 2000 sheep (no comment there)… My house is an old, rustic place, with an outhouse (toilet) and a small axe next to the toilet because the snakes often come into the outhouse in search of water (or so they tell me)… It’s hot, really hot here… Yesterday, I had all the air conditioners on in the house… all night and then all day… at about 2pm I was sitting in my nice cool air conditioned house with a thermometer reading 38 degrees inside the house. I went for a swim last night and at 8pm the ambulance’s ambient temperature while parked under the shade of a large tree, read 41 degrees…(where the heck am I!!!) of course, early this morning the weather completely changed and I woke up at three am to the sound of hail plummeting down around the house.
Back to the house… it was fully furnished when I moved in with furniture which must all be antiques… and I’ve had some fun looking through the cupboards and finding interesting wood carvings and other odd things… Of course I opened one box a few days ago, which was delicately engraved with what appeared to be Latin writing… only to find that there were the remains of someone inside… that’s right, they left… someone’s urn in an antique box in my house… a little odd…. but not particularly out here…
We don’t have a garbage truck in town, so everyone just takes their rubbish down to the garbage tip (about 30kms out of town)…
Now, about the community…
I went to the general store on my 2nd day here to get some basic groceries. I asked when they’re open, and a nice lady explained to me that “we’re open every day of the week dear, from 10am to 1pm!” She boasts, “everyday except Tuesdays and Fridays…” I reply, “Wow, so you’re open on the weekends…” to which she says… “Oh no, of course not dear…”
I then end up meeting every single person in the store, who automatically recognises me as being the “new Ambulance driver” in town. Someone asked where I was living and after I explained where I was living… this total stranger who I had just met in the isle tells me “oh, it was so sad how the previous residents who lived up there died, wasn’t it?” and then a really sad story was explained to me that the previous residents of my house didn’t pay attention to the sign in town which says, in small letters on the side of the road, “please give way trains” and husband and wife were killed by the train that comes once every six months… I have now had that story retold to me by 12 completely different people who I have met around town… who all want to tell me about how sad it was…
The community people really are lovely… even if, at times, slightly different than what I’m used to. Everyone here knows everyone by name… I’ve made a list of people I know/have met, and have almost met the entire town. I got a membership at the swimming pool and was given a key to the door. My work partner and I went to the local (and only) café/newsagent/hardwarestore/ videostore/ restaurant in town. Its owned and run by two lovely people Paul and Marie (fictional names)… they’re lovely… but Paul’s… um … not the best café owner… we asked for a coffee yesterday at about1030… and Paul shook his head and said “My paper hasn’t arrived yet…” my partner replies… “bummer, say, can I get a coffee?” to which Paul replies crankily “I said I don’t have my paper yet… no one gets served until I get my paper in the morning…” to which his wife, looks over and says to my partner, “that’s right sweetie, you know how Paul is, no one gets anything until he’s had his morning paper…” we then come back at 1230 to find Paul at the counter… Paul shakes his head and tells us that his paper’s not here yet… at 1pm he calls to tell us that we can have a coffee now, because his paper’s arrived. We decide to eat lunch at the restaurant. I had a fantastic beef burger with THE LOT… my partner asked for a cheese sandwich without butter. She gets, a cheese sandwich with lots of butter. She asks Paul if there’s any butter on the sandwich. Paul says “yep, lots of butter…” she says “oh, Paul I really didn’t want any butter…” Paul says.. “I know, I’m not deaf, I heard you say that you didn’t want butter..” we both pause… okay… Sonya asks “next time I get a cheese sandwich can I get it without butter?” Paul says “No, gotta have butter…it’s a cheese sandwich and its gotta have butter… says so in the menu over there..” Sonya says, “right, but just for me, can you not butter the bread… just everything else the same, but leave out the butter… thanks” Paul replies shaking his head, “No, no, you’re not listening, the menu says butter on the bread, its gotta have butter…otherwise it would be a completely different sandwich, wouldn’t it?” He then walks off shaking his head…
How’s work? On my first shift, I didn’t get a single job until 3:50 when we got a emergency transfer for a patient from one of our local hospitals with abdominal (currently without any staff) through to Wagga Wagga Base (approx 500kms round trip). I got 6 ½ hours of over time for that one job. Then got a cardiac arrest while leaving Wagga Wagga… but we don’t actually have a map of Wagga Wagga (so that was a little difficult), but we fortunately found a highway patrol man to flag down and made him take us to the address… where our old man died in the middle of his grand final lawn bowls match….
Yesterday I did my first and only job in the town itself… it was in a pretty dodgy house… okay, a very dodgy house. I knew it was pretty dodgy when I saw that they had a wood/petrol fired cooker in the house… by this, I mean in the living room this guy had a 130 gallon iron drum filled with wood and was cooking meat in it in the living room of his shack… this guy (35y/o) was completely toothless, had underwear on and nothing else, and was complaining of R sided abdo pain. We took him to hospital and I recommended he get some clothes to take with him, and we’ll meet him out the front. He then meets us out the front of the house, still in only his underwear, but carrying clothes… Now keep in mind that this person doesn’t have a pension card… he apparently works somewhere down the road… and apart from his appearance is fairly pleasant and sociable… I’m driving and my partner’s treating. At the hospital we unlock the hospital with a key and then call the nurse from the phone there, who then drives to the hospital and meets us there in about half an hour. My partner then gives the following hand over to the nurse:
“This Mr ____ he’s 35, and is generally fit and healthy. Today has developed a sharp R sided pain to his abdomen. Nil rebound tenderness. C/o some nausea and vomiting. And Has been incontinent enroute.”
It was the incontinent enroute that made think what? This person’s totally normal otherwise, and has been stating NAD to passing urine/bowel movements, and now his incontinent to urine… that’s um, pretty weird. But then he get’s off our bed and I notice that my partner wasn’t talking about urine incontinence…. This man shat on our bed… he pulled down his underwear and shat on our bed! And then at the hospital was going to get on the hospital bed and the nurse said, “do you still want to go to the toilet” and he says, yeah, don’t worry about it, I’ll just do it in the bed… I’m not embarrassed… she recommends he walks to the toilet, which he eventually agrees to and then he says “You gotta pay phone around here… I gotta let the boss know I wont be in today…” that’s really weird, even by an ambulance view.