Bad technology

Some days are better than others and yesterday was not one of my better ones. I went to work feeling fine and then around 9 am my blood pressure went through the roof. Go figure... I was feeling dizzy and that is because the blood pressure was 181/110 and climbing. I had some slight chest pain and a small tightness in my chest but that only lasted for a couple of seconds. Co workers called Public Safety and they in turn called EMS. I can not tell you how embarrasing it was to be carted out of the building on a stretcher. Anyway, we get into the ambulance and that is when things get interesting. The EMS personnel were very courteous and professional however they ran into some technical glitches. Imagine lying on a stretcher feeling dizzy and listening to the paramedics talk about nothing is working right.

The first thing they did was to try and transfer the oxgyen from the bottle on the stretcher that they took into the building to the oxygen source in the ambulance. That did not work so they had to stick me back on the bottle. The next thing they had to do was try to figure out how to attach the leads to me for the EKG machine on the ambulance. I think that they knew how to attach the leads in the correct order but the EKG machine was not cooperating. I heard the paramedic say that he could not tranmit the telemetry correctly because it looked all messed up and was not right. At this point I am thanking Jesus that I was only a little dizzy and not really having a massive coronary event. The next thing that happened was that the person sitting behind me nearest the driver said that he could not contact the hospital ER because the radio did not work properly. I was starting to wonder if they would be able to get me to the hospital without the engine falling out of it.

Within an hour my BP went down to semi normal and after two hours I was starving and wanting to walk out of the ER and to Hardees for a thick burger. Just writing this makes me hungry enough to do that right now. LOL... Anyway, I was there about 2 hours and then they cut me loose. Katy drove me back to work so I could scoop up my laptop bag and truck keys. I stayed at work about 90 minutes to help out a co worker and then I went home and tried to get some rest before bowling.

I hope that the ambulance staff are able to work out the technical kinks that they were having so that if they really do have a heart attack victim or someone that is really ill that they will be able to provide a better service to them. Luckily for me I was only 5 minutes away from the hospital and did not have to depend on the technology at hand.



James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
http://moffittjc.blogharbor.com/blog
james.moffitt@comcast.net