Strike one...Strike two...Strike three...And I'm out.

I've just gotten home from a long 48 hours. I have now figured out the four overtime shifts in a pay period (two weeks) is just too many. I can only take some much rudeness and stupidity before I lose all compassion. Now I will say the first 12 hours of the 48 was very nice one call. And it was actually somebody who needed an ambulance. I can't remember what it was, just that they were sick. Its been too much after that to recall the details of your first call of almost 20. People can however be extremely rude to EMSers, especially at 0330 in the am. Called to a 25 y/o pregnant woman at 330 in the morning, who by the way is one her SEVENTH pregnancy, for contractions. Now she called us because of the labor pains. The girl had already been to L & D once that day. She left AMA earlier because she was afraid they were not going to feed her. SO she came home instead of waiting. Now one...The L&D staff would not let her go hungry and two...I guess she forgot, SHE CALLED US. There is no need to be a nasty rude bitch to the paramedics. She refused to answer any of our questions, she just sucked her teeth at us. Look here bitch, I know your pregnant, I know your tired, but we have to know what the fuck is going on so that we can help you. YOU CALLED US, we didn't;t just decide to show up on your doorstep at o'dark thirty for our fucking health. Oh...And she had about seven Medicaid cards belonging to her six children and herself. Instead of just finding hers, she just threw the whole stack at us, saying "It's in here, you need it, you find it."

So that was strike one.

Strike two came at 2230 last night when the police called us for a psych at the Huddle House. The man was acting erratically, eating off of other patrons plates and refusing to speak. So with the assistance of the police and one of our street supervisors we were able to get him into the truck, restrain him, and transport. Now everything was fine until we encoded the hospital. The patient had an old hospital ID bracelet in his pocket, so he thought just to take him back to the hospital he came from. Well apparently that's not how it works, at least according to the hospital. Now EMS policy states that if the pt has no preference to take the patient to the nearest facility, however the ID bracelet clued us in to the fact he was a a patron of a certain hospital, so we took him there. When the MD answered the radio, he questioned why the patient was in restraints, why the police were no longer with us and why the patient was coming there. I answered all of the questions and when I asked it there was any orders I got dead air for like 5 min. They were ignoring me. And the longer they were silent the more angry I got. After asking several times if they had any more questions/ orders, they finally came back and bitched me out over the radio. And then again at the hospital. The only thing I said was "If you have a problem I can give you my superviors cell number and you can speak to him" to which I got the response "What the hell will that fix?"
Well not a damn thing tonight, but atleast it will go on record as being a problem that we bring patients to your hospital. As a side note the ER staff and security reconized him as a frequent flyer to that particular hospital. Even my mother who has been an RN at that hospital a short time, coming from the city's pediatric ER, knew who he was.

So strike two...

Now strike three was a thirty year old crack whore with CHF and on dialysis, She smoked $200 worth of crack rock and then became short of breath...Well DUH. However she was nice and polite so only the fact she is just stupid, and I had already had had enough for just two days is the reason she made my list.

Strike three and I'm out.

So now I'm going to crawl into my bed and sleep until 4 o'clock in the afternoon.