When Professionalism Meets Silliness, Tongue Bleeding Moments

In the world of EMS not every call is tragic, many calls are routine, and some are almost too funny for words. I want to give you a look at some of the funny things we get to see. I have to point out that details will be limited due to privacy laws, but hopefully you will see the humor in these little anecdotes. For the most part the people were good people and were literally just having a bad moment or a bad day. On occasion we are presented with a call that has us biting our tongue, and at times to the point of bleeding because what we are seeing is absolutely hilarious, but for the person in that moment is a very real concern. This level of professionalism that we maintain is necessary because we are in a place of trust. We are not there to judge people, and we are definitely not there to belittle people. We are there to help people and if the situation has gotten to the point that EMS needed to be called then we will show up and we will treat you with the utmost in dignity and professionalism.

To start off the anecdotes I must tell you about one winter evening where we were dispatched to a person laying in a bus shelter. It was quite cold out, and the buses had stopped running for the night. When we arrived at the scene we met a very pleasantly intoxicated homeless gentleman who was waiting for the bus to get back to the homeless shelter. Two problems with this though, it was well past the times for the buses to be running and he was at a South Bound bus stop and the shelter was north. So after a thorough assessment it was determined the individual was ok and he wanted to be taken to the homeless shelter. On the way to the shelter my partner had our gentleman singing a very pleasant tune to pass the time. It was great to have a patient that was pleasant and not trying to assault us because he was drinking. It was also nice to hear something different emanating from the back of the ambulance than the usual hustle and bustle involved in caring for seriously injured people.

In the world of EMS we discover people who find all kinds of new and inventive ways to hurt themselves. I can't share details about this as most are graphic. I have one story from several years ago though, this was more a hospital story than an EMS story. An individual had driven him self to the hospital as he was too embarrassed to call 911. The individual had lodged a paper towel holder into his rectum. The circumstances of how it got there are unimportant. The relevant data is that it was there, and it was protruding approximately 4 inches outside of his rectum. My question has always been... How did he drive? Anyway, at the end of the day surgery was required to remove said paper towel holder. Surprisingly the end of it had a condom on it, again the circumstances of how that got there are also unimportant! Let me be clear; you as an individual have the right to put things where ever you like. You also have the right to wrap things with what ever you like. Keep in mind though, when things go wrong and you get hurt, you will have to explain the entire situation to the paramedics and then again to the doctors and nurses in the emergency department.

This career is not always going from tragedy to tragedy, a lot of the time we get to meet really nice people that are having a bad day. I have found many people are just having trouble coping with their situations and it feels good to be called upon to help them through it. At times we get to see humor in our calls and in the right context that humor helps the calls flow well. In some cases we are surprised by the incredibly creative ways people hurt themselves but as long as people keep doing it we will have jobs and stories to tell. I encourage you to remember a small piece of philosophy I heard recently, "Don't do anything you wouldn't want to explain to a paramedic". Solid advice, but honestly you have the right to do what you like, and when it goes wrong, we will be there to help you.