Thanks to emsguy64 for pointing me in the direction of this. A superb and slick teaching aid to reinforce the learning of a sometimes confusing cardiac arrhythmia. After twenty years of dealing with heart blocks I am quite confident with the recognition and underlying pathophysiology of the various types. But in the early years it was a constant battle to keep upto speed with the old memory banks. I might go a whole year without seeing 3rd degree complete heart block or any of the other fascinating types.

Its always good to find things that help you remember rather than having to try and have it indelibly imprinted on your brain via laborious lectures. So I might start using these vids to help some of the newbies remember their heart blocks. Apart from the actual teaching element it is a good vid in its own right. Enjoy.

I first saw this some years ago at uni. It demonstrates the sequence of events during various cardiac episodes. It is the badgers nadgers!

The professor uses his arms to simulate the two top chambers of the heart…the Atria. He uses his legs to simulate the two lower chambers of the heart…the Ventricles.

So the atria contract together followed by the ventricles contracting together and blood is pumped around the body.

When seen on an ECG (electrocardiogram…EKG in the USA) the contractions of the heart are shown as the electrical impulses that generate the cardiac muscle to move. These are the different complexes shown on an ECG recording…normally the PQRST complex.

The vid is just over 4 minutes long but stay with it…all those other medical bods out there will see the correlation between the ‘dance’ and what it represents in the cardiac cycle. 

I wish all ECG stuff was this much fun!

I remember the ‘Road Safety’ adverts years ago on the old goggle box. I was having a look at Happy Toasts blog (brilliant and unique artist) and saw this vid. It made me smile in a rather strange sort of a way. Maybe the therapy has’nt kicked in yet!

Back home recovering and stretching out the old quads and hamstrings! I feel that I need to invest in some new winter gear as the kit I took with me was only just passable. I feel more overtime coming on!

Just a tad nippy!

The temperature ranged from a rather cool -11 to 27 degrees Celsius depending on the altitude and obviously time of day. Managed to get snow-burn on both arms.

A long walk home...!

 Anyone know where I’ve been? The first pic might be a bit of a give away. I will give the first person with the correct answer a box of spirit level bubbles. The runner up will get a tin of tartan paint of their choice.

Standing down from work for a while… 

Off abroad to get away from work for a while. Will be hopefully engaging in a spot of parascending/parapenting all being well. And will be drinking copious amounts of Guinness on the night. Well…you’ve got to hav’nt you?

Stay safe and remember…‘Even a pork pie can look at an oak tree!’

‘Heres Johnny!!!’

Another instance of the ever increasing dangers in my profession. It wont be too long before one of us is killed! We need better equipment and better training. Ideally TASER along with complete body armour and shields! Unfortunately these attacks make it difficult to let your guard down and you can find your self treating each patient with suspicion and distrust. As I’ve said before this is becoming all too common and sooner, rather than later, one of us will die!

click link Paramedics held hostage by knife man! 

Until then we will carry on without stab vests, radios that don’t work and non practical ‘crisis resolution training’.I personally don’t like going into blocks of flats as the potential for things to go very ‘Pete Tong’are great. On occasion I have had to dodge the odd TV or fridge being dropped from an upper floor balcony on approach to the lobby. Or the lifts don’t work, or there are gangs of ‘yoofs’ hanging around. All too often these flats are inhabited by drug dealers and users.

We should be issued with some kind of protection in addition to stab vests. CS gas would be a good start…it would at least give us a chance to run instead of having to defend ourselves with an O2 bag or blanket!

This article from Tom Reynolds of  ‘Random Acts…’  in 2007 (click on pic for story) reinforces my belief that things are getting worse. We need to protect our selves because it is not being taken seriously and that is why I can see one of my colleagues, or even myself, being killed whilst on duty. We have laws in place to protect us…but a piece of paper is not going to stop a knife, bullet or fist from hurting us. It needs sorting…NOW! 

Recovering from another hectic night shift! It was manic! We did 13 jobs in a 12 hour shift. It was the usual hotch potch mix of the weird and wonderful with a couple of real life threatening cases thrown in.

Starting at 1900 hours and 9 minutes into checking out the truck we got our first job…and that’s when the fun and games began!

• 20 year old male with…flu like symptoms. He had…Flu!
• 93 year old lady fallen from a chair…no injuries.
• 22 year old male confused…totally drunk!
• Male early twenties assaulted…minor head injury. Drink related.
• One of our regular callers, assaulted…he is a knob! Drink related. I would assault him!
• Male laid out in the street, aggressive…drunk!
• 8 year female, neck injury…fell off swing…c spine immobilisation to be on the safe side!
• 58 year old male, diabetic hypo…unconscious with a BM of 1.1! Recovered after injection of Glucagon.
• 18 year old female with abdo pain…query ectopic pregnancy.
• Female in twenties?…heroin overdose…respiratory arrest!
• Female age unknown, collapsed…drunk!
• 20 year old female…tampon stuck! (you know where!)…Drunk!
• 61 year old male, SOB (shortness of breath)…resps 40 per min, BP down, heart rate 140 per min!

Only seven jobs out of thirteen that were drink related! That was good going, usually its more so I count myself lucky that we only had seven alcohol based jobs!

The heroin overdose was full on. We were directed into a dingy downstairs room where we found her…unconscious, cyanosed and in respiratory arrest. She looked like she was too far gone at first but she had a good radial pulse of approx 100 per min. I bagged her with the BVM to get some O2 into her body while my crew mate drew up the NARCAN for me. After giving her two lots of 400 ‘mikes’ NARCAN I.M. she made a respiratory effort. It was assisted with the old ’sit up and yank’.

She finally started to breath for herself and then opened her eyes…I advised her to come with us to A/E as the NARCAN would wear off after a short while…with which she told us to ‘F**k off!’ We left advice with her ‘friend’ (who had been sharing a ‘pin’ (needle) with her that night but he said he did not know her…at all! Strange people some of these IV drug users! But…if he had not called us I’m pretty sure she would have died and become yet another statistic.

So…that was one lot of jobs for one crew on a typical night shift. And all the other crews were just as busy with similiar incidents. Some went to stabbings, others went to RTCs, a few went to serious assaults (where the patient eventually ended up in ICU) and one crew went to the classic…‘foreign object up rectum!’

‘Bimble on a Bulb’…

Driving ‘on the light’ with a sense of urgency but not in a fast manner. 

Just sorting out bits and pieces, catching up on admin and generally chewing the cud. Playing this at the moment to soothe me into the night shift.

During my night shifts…??? Probably change to ‘Twisted Fire Starter’ by the Prodigy as I’m contemplating smacking seven colours of **** out of some chav moron!!!  Whats your favourite piece to ease you into work and what would it change to (assuming you are in a different line of work to me?) 

I LOVE NIGHTS…!!!

I’ve been following this over the past few days. For any other emergency service or any other industry for that matter, this would be seen as a major embarrassment, a huge, cringe making, red faced absolutely full on decades worth of piss taking material.

Not for the Fire Brigade (Service) though. I have always envied their PR machine, it is second to none. Read any paper anywhere in the country and when the Fire Brigade are mentioned in relation to an incident you would think they were the only ones there and that the Ambulance and Police bods had not even attended.

That is because we, the Ambulance Service and the Police, are too busy to make sure the papers and reporters have got all the details of the incident attended. We have more important things to do. So, in the public eye, it is the Fire Brigade that does everything. Don’t get me wrong…when they do attend a serious incident they do really earn their money. 

So in the instance of the loss of several very expensive fire appliances, they still manage to knock out the usual spiel about how well they had done fighting the fire. If it was some disaster within the Ambulance Service or Police, even of a minor nature, there would be no mention of daring do and heroic deeds…it would be recrimination and calls for sackings.

This is not a side swipe at Trumpton (our colleagues in arms) but a view on their capacity to utilise the press to the best advantage. Have a look at some of the other papers that reported this and the comments from other fire chiefs will have you reaching for the vomit bowl! 

I remember watching Rainbow as a kid many moons ago. It was naff! I preferred watching Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and Joe 90. But I’ve just rediscovered this clip of Rainbow and it made me laugh until I thought my teeth were going to fall out!  I know its old but its a classic!

BEWARE…Adult content (but of a humour that would suit a ten year old!)

Click on Rainbow picture or here for the clip.