This happened the other night.
I met a couple of my Tae Kwon Do friends for dinner at the local FruityBees. One hasn't been coming to class lately because she's working a temporary 2nd job, and the other's been out due to a back injury. So we were catching up. We had a great dinner, dessert, a couple of hours worth of good gossip when this woman starts screaming.
I look over in her direction and see a woman is screaming, "He's not breathing! He's not breathing!"
My first thought is the man is choking, so I bolt out of my chair and through the crowd that is starting to collect around that booth yelling, "I'm a nurse, let me through!" Fortunately, the crowd lets me through, and the wife slides out of the booth to give me access to her husband, who is slumping over to the side, looking very pale.
Me: Sir! Sir! Can you hear me? [I'm looking to see if he is actually trying to breathe, and I catch his head and shoulders to support his neck as he slumps towards me]
Then this woman grabs me by the arm shouting, "I work in a doctor's office! Let me in!"
Uh. Yeah. Sorry, dumb ass, but nurse trumps office worker. I ignored her and continued my assessment. I was just starting to think I might need to slide him onto the floor to try the Heimlich (he wasn't breathing) when suddenly the man woke up with a gasp and sat up. Meanwhile Dumb Bitch in a huff says, "well, I'm calling 911." Which is fine since that's actually the right thing to do.
I talk to the man, who is a bit slow to respond and still very pale looking. He says he's fine but admits to being dizzy. He's able to answer questions appropriately. The wife says he had turned blue (I didn't see that, but I believe her) and that his "fingers got really stiff."
It's hard to know what really happened. He could have swallowed a food bolus and irritated his vagus nerve; that can cause people to pass out. He could have an undiagnosed heart problem (he's a young guy and denied any medical history when I asked him). Or he could have had a seizure (I'm leaning towards that).
The woman who called 911 said she had them on the phone and they were on the way.
Me: Let me talk to them. [woman handed me her phone]
I updated the dispatcher on what was going on, and what my thoughts were. After, I told the wife that even if her husband refused to go to the ER (which he was saying he would do) he should not drive tonight. I encouraged the man to let the medics check him out. The store manager was there and he said he was a combat medic, so I left the patient with him so I could talk to EMS out of earshot as they arrived right then.
After that I backed off and let the medics do their thing.
My friend C was with me last summer when we stopped at a wreck. She said, "Why is it whenever we go out we do something like this? If you hadn't been here, I wouldn't get involved!" C. is a vet, great with animals freely admits she knows little about people.
Well, we decide we're all caught up on our gossip, and we've already paid our tabs, so we decide to take off. The medics are still evaluating the man, but they don't need me anymore. As we leave, my friend S. says, "You at least could have asked for a free meal out of it, since you kept a customer from dying in the restaurant." [note to CS readers: S. wasn't serious.]
I swear, I heard Evil Empryss talking
I met a couple of my Tae Kwon Do friends for dinner at the local FruityBees. One hasn't been coming to class lately because she's working a temporary 2nd job, and the other's been out due to a back injury. So we were catching up. We had a great dinner, dessert, a couple of hours worth of good gossip when this woman starts screaming.
I look over in her direction and see a woman is screaming, "He's not breathing! He's not breathing!"
My first thought is the man is choking, so I bolt out of my chair and through the crowd that is starting to collect around that booth yelling, "I'm a nurse, let me through!" Fortunately, the crowd lets me through, and the wife slides out of the booth to give me access to her husband, who is slumping over to the side, looking very pale.
Me: Sir! Sir! Can you hear me? [I'm looking to see if he is actually trying to breathe, and I catch his head and shoulders to support his neck as he slumps towards me]
Then this woman grabs me by the arm shouting, "I work in a doctor's office! Let me in!"
Uh. Yeah. Sorry, dumb ass, but nurse trumps office worker. I ignored her and continued my assessment. I was just starting to think I might need to slide him onto the floor to try the Heimlich (he wasn't breathing) when suddenly the man woke up with a gasp and sat up. Meanwhile Dumb Bitch in a huff says, "well, I'm calling 911." Which is fine since that's actually the right thing to do.
I talk to the man, who is a bit slow to respond and still very pale looking. He says he's fine but admits to being dizzy. He's able to answer questions appropriately. The wife says he had turned blue (I didn't see that, but I believe her) and that his "fingers got really stiff."
It's hard to know what really happened. He could have swallowed a food bolus and irritated his vagus nerve; that can cause people to pass out. He could have an undiagnosed heart problem (he's a young guy and denied any medical history when I asked him). Or he could have had a seizure (I'm leaning towards that).
The woman who called 911 said she had them on the phone and they were on the way.
Me: Let me talk to them. [woman handed me her phone]
I updated the dispatcher on what was going on, and what my thoughts were. After, I told the wife that even if her husband refused to go to the ER (which he was saying he would do) he should not drive tonight. I encouraged the man to let the medics check him out. The store manager was there and he said he was a combat medic, so I left the patient with him so I could talk to EMS out of earshot as they arrived right then.
After that I backed off and let the medics do their thing.
My friend C was with me last summer when we stopped at a wreck. She said, "Why is it whenever we go out we do something like this? If you hadn't been here, I wouldn't get involved!" C. is a vet, great with animals freely admits she knows little about people.
Well, we decide we're all caught up on our gossip, and we've already paid our tabs, so we decide to take off. The medics are still evaluating the man, but they don't need me anymore. As we leave, my friend S. says, "You at least could have asked for a free meal out of it, since you kept a customer from dying in the restaurant." [note to CS readers: S. wasn't serious.]
I swear, I heard Evil Empryss talking
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