Holy crap

That was what I thought when I walked in the front door of patient #1.

It was our first call of the day. Of course, we were only about 10 feet out of the parking lot when we got it. It was going to be a long day.... I could feel it.

After a while, I guess you can get a feel for a call just by what kind of call it is and where it's coming from. The crew chief I was riding along with immediately threw up the 'bullshit flag' when we heard this one come across. It was for a 'fall with injury' and it was coming from the other side of the tracks - so to speak. Well, let's just say that he wasn't that far off.

We pulled up to the small apartment building and were met by some firefighters that had queasy looks on their faces. They led us downstairs and into a small apartment, where we were immediately overcome by a horrible odor. It was an unmistakable odor.... it was poo.

Apparently, our 'fall with injury' was a 400-plus pound woman that had not gotten out of bed for about three or four days. And when I say she hadn't gotten out of bed, I mean she hadn't gotten out of bed... for ANYTHING. Her wonderful home health care aides had let her sit there in her own pee and poo for days. Combine that with the fact that she had been taking some type of diet pill that made her have to poo a lot and you've got yourself a bad situation.

So... we had to get her out of there and to the hospital.

It wasn't going to be an easy task. She couldn't move at all due to her size and the fact she had diabetes that had ruined her feet.

Of course, as the new guy, I had the glorious task of pre-move-poo-cleaner - meaning that I had to clean a lot off before we got her on our stretcher. Lucky me. To protect things, we had thrown a plastic-like sheet over our stretcher before we moved her over. Two medics and four firefighters later, we had her on our stretcher and ready to go.

Once we arrived at the hospital, we transferred her over to the ER staff and saw to it that Adult Protective Services was notified, to ensure that she gets the care she needs.

I figure that if I didn't run away screaming from this job after that, I'm ok.

After that call, the rest of the day went by pretty quickly. A couple more legitimate calls and a couple of bullshit calls. All in all, a normal day from what I've experienced thus far.