All of my shifts, I was stationed in a sub-station in Ramat Gan called "Nafcha". It's a bitter sweet type of a place, but a lot of blech parts (which makes it kinda fun). Basically, Nafcha is the first floor of a broken down four story building. The door to the one room is basically in shambles, couches are ratty (used to be brown but are now black), floor is dirty, but there is a really nice TV and awesome conditioning. The interesting thing about Nafcha is that it is in the super religious ultra orthodox neighborhood of Ramat Gan.
Sunday afternoon shift (3pm to 11pm):
Was able to squeeze my way onto the Natan (the advanced life support ambulance with paramedics). There were two paramedics, an actual medic in the army, and me. The medic's name is Idan, and he was an awesome awesome awesome person to work with. He worked so efficiently and so quickly that it was hard to keep up with him. He has been working with Magen David Adom for 3 and a half months, and after this month is over he will be a paramedic in the army.
There were three cancels that were canceled in a row because for all three of them the location was impossible to find. It was like being on a wild goose chase, even though I've never been on a wild goose chase, I feel like it would be the same type of situation.
Next, an emergency call came in for a two month old baby with respiratory difficulties. We arrived on scene to this adorable baby who was breathing extremely fast (around 50 breaths per minute). He was very very weak, and we had to hold the oxygen mask in front of his face because it wouldn't fit right. While the medic was carrying him to the oxygen, I had to hold the baby's head so it didn't flop backwards because A) he was still young B) his breathing and also heart rhythm was screwed up. The father was this really nice, orthodox man whom would do whatever we asked him to do. Whether it was help put the sticky pads for the EKG or hold the mask over the baby's face. Sheer terror though was over his face, it wasn't a very fun call. We transported lights and sirens to the hospital, also another time where I saw how emotion will obviously push a driver to drive extremely quickly and very reckless.
2nd call was for an 85 year old woman with a really slow heart beat (32 beats per minute, and normal is 60-80 give or take). We transported lights and sirens, after the paramedics put some IV's in and some other drugs that I have no idea what the name was.
3nd call. Another respiratory distress, but for a 2 week old girl. She wasn't in too bad of shape though, and the parents didn't want us to bring her to the hospital because it happened last week and the doctor said it was nothing. Then why call the ambulance? No idea, doesn't really make any sense at all. I was really angry at that because it wouldn't hurt to at least go check it out a second time with a different doctor. Anyways, the house was really retro and a very nice room on the 10th floor over looking the beach in Tel Aviv. I learned later that the mom was a famous model in Israel, and the dad was an agent. There was another guy there and he was the manager for her and a bunch of other famous celebrities in Israel.
Shift done
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Next shift was the next morning shift (7am to 3pm). I have to wakeup at 5:15 to be able to make it to the bus stop at 5:45am to get there at 6:45 AM. Tel Aviv is actually really nice in the morning, for some reason there aren't too many crazies out at that time and the weather is always divine.
Natan, again! I was so happy because I was told that as a volunteer you MIGHT be able to volunteer on a natan in like the 3rd or 4th week. We only got one call, but it was awesome.
Received a call at 11:15am for a possible blockage of an artery. We arrived on scene and my friend Per was there! He was working on the Lavan (BLS ambulance) that called us in. The driver for him was a paramedic, and there were two paramedics and a medic on my natan so we literally had nothing to do. But that's ok because the best part came at the hospital.
This was an actual emergency, not just a normal elderly person call. If we had gotten there 10-20 minutes later one of his main arteries could have been blocked completely and could have had a myocardial infarction (heart attack), which could obviously lead to death.
We rushed him to the hospital and they were going to use an angiogram to see inside his cardiovascular area with a camera and open the clogged artery. The medic I was with, asked if I could go in and they said yes! It was so cool seeing it done basically right in front of me. Looking at the screen and seeing the heart pumping and the lungs and the spine, it was such an awesome experience. The man was also British, and when the wife came I was able to calm her down and make her laugh because she was not that good in Hebrew yet. Hooray for English!
I will put the update of my shift today and other fun stuff in the coming days.
Till later,
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