Rotting Skin Man

One call will stick in my brain for eternity. Those of us on the call still talk about it now and then and refer to the poor gentleman as "Rotting Skin Man". I have already forewarned you that we are a sick and twisted bunch of folks so try not to be offended by that.

It started off as any other day. I had a different partner than normal. A gal who just started working with us and had a huge chip on her shoulder about the fact that we treated like a newbie even though she had been in the field before. My paramedic student was a great guy who learned quickly and I really enjoyed having around.

We got called to a neighboring district because they were out of ambulances. We haul ass thirty minutes away with second hand info that the police in that county had gone on a welfare check and need an ambulance immediately.

Fortunately, I used to work in that county and knew my way around and we got there in decent time. As we approached the scene, I recognized the place. I had been there before. Last time I had been to this place, the guy had busted his head open and it had taken myself, my partner, two firemen and two cops to hold him down long enough to sedate him to get him to the hospital. Try not to be surprised that alcohol was involved! 

We approach the house and see two officers outside the house. I approach one and he says "Its bad". Never a good sign coming from a cop. We venture inside where there are two volunteer firefighters and another police officer standing over the naked, face down, obese body of a man, his head wedged between the toilet and the wall. The stench is awful. There is discoloration in the carpet all around him and the oozing poo coming from him let he know he had been there a few days before he died. Horrible way to go.

I ask the policeman for the guys info and he stares at me. "Aren't you gonna do anything?" he asks. Huh?
"Uh, like what?" I I look a little closer and see soem movement between his should blades. "Holy Crap! He is alive?" All three of them nod thier heads enthusiastically at me.

Now the fun begins. It had been five days since anyone had talked to or seen him so we assume that is how long he has been lying there. His right arm is above his head and has gone through the sheetrock. We cannot simply pull him out, he is seriously stuck. His skin is moist with sweat and I don't even want to delve into what else.

I go outside the bathroom to the connecting bedroom and decided to rip apart the wall from the other side in hopes of freeing his arm and head. I kneel down. Squish!! EW!!!!!!
The carpet on the other side of the wall was soaked with feces and urine too! This is one of the few calls I lost it on. I did not actually vomit but I did runoutside gagging and gulping fresh air. My only consolation is so did EVERY other person there at some point.

So anyway, work work work, tear down wall, sawzall two by fours, and wahlah! He is free. Now to remove him. His long shoulder length gray hair is saoked and matted and I actually had to grab my trauma shears and cut the toilet brush out of his hair.
Plan A is to grab his arms and pull him out of the space between the toilet and wall into the main part of the bathroom where we can better asses him. I grab one arm and my student grabbed teh other. 1, 2, 3 we pull.

A layer of skin just came off in my hand. Back out side dry heaving I go. My student followed  me, wiping his hand on the couch on the way out. I yell into the house for them to put oxygen on him and then my student, myself and one of the officers discuss what to do.

There really are realatively few choices. We will not be able to get him out of there and stay clean ourselfs. We m ay cause him soem injury in the process. Finally we go in and just do it. I grap under one armpit, he grabs another and one of the firefighters goes for the torso. We pull tug and twist and get him free.

He is now an unconscious, naked, obese man laying on his back, no longer stuck, but still lying in poop covered squishy carpet. We roll him onto a blanket, hoist him onto our bed, and rollhim outside. Chunks of flesh are hanging off his arms. Where his one arme was locked above his head against the 2x4, the impression of the beam is still visible. In fact, it never resumes its normal shape. We race him to the hospital and the first attemot to get an IV just lands more rotten flesh in my hand. I get up and move towards the tiny exhaust fan that is supposed to help but does nothing. I tell my student that an IV is most likly impossable and we need to do an IO. An IO isn an Inerosseous Infusion that constitutes a very large, thick needle being put into the leg bone. We used to just do them on children, but at this point we had just recieved a handheld drill type thingy that would allow us to use them on adults as well.

My student gleefully got out the drill and even did a practice "vroom vroom" in the air and then poised the needle over his leg. He pulled teh trigger and the needle spun and spun but did not penatrate the bone. Push harder, I tell him, Like when you are putting a srew into a post. He stood up and leaned his weight into it. The needle bent. BENT! I have never, to this day seen such a thing. I pick the needle up and look at it. Ummm, i don't thinkwe can fix this. Try again. Same thing happens. Now we only have two IO needles for an adult on the entire ambulance. We are hosed.

I look at his feet and am thankfull they are niether poop covered or decaying in front of me. Together we manage to get a tiny IV in his foot. Intubate him to help hiim breathe and pray our driver gets us there quickly. The stench is unbearable.

We deliver him alive and take over an hour cleaning our ambulance. Already the story of how we bent two IO needles is being cirulated and we are mercillessly made fun of. I can only assume he had a metal plate in his leg. Two hours and three showers later we are ready to hit the road again. The man made it out of the hospital to a nursing home but died within a week.

It was a true testiment to what the human body can withstand though. 5 days with no food, no water, in a cramped position, covered in so much urine that your skin is disolving, yet he was still alive. Perhaps had he been younger or healthier he may have even walked away.

God gave me 200lbs...

So teh other night I was with a group of friends and one asks for my best story. Well that is always a toss up. Some people want to heat some parts of what I do and some get grossed out. They want to hear about car wrecks and trauma but not about puke and poop. I have to say though, most of my favorite stories involve crazy people.

Let me start with saying, I do feel real compassion for people with mental disabilities and disorders. These are not the people I am talking about. I am talking about drug and alcohol induced psychosis. These people are unpredicable and usally being out the "other" side of us helathcare professionals.

It was late at night or early in the morning. In anycase, it was dark. We get sent to a local motel that rents by the week. Three cop cars are in the parking lot and there are people outside thier doors watching the live episode of Cops. I walk up to a young man in his 20's who is lying on his back, hands handcuffed in front of him.
"He is unconscious," I am told by one of the officers. The half smile on his face tells me he thinks otherwise. I reach down and pull open his eye. He looks away from me.

"Wow," I say. "I have never seen an unconsious person move thier eyes like that before." My patient's eyes flash open and he stares at me with obvious hatred.

"Do you feel special now?" he asks?

I simply smile and say, "Why yes I do!" I turn and tell the cops to put him on my gurney. They gladly hoist him up and toss him none to gently on my bed. I cringe a little at the borderline inappropiate behavior but I can also tell by the sweat and looks they fought this guy for a while. True to my suspicians, they tell me they were called to an out of control male and the minute they got there, he started fighting them until they pinned him and he went "unconscious". Got it. Crazy man.

Before I can even get the patients seat belts on so we can put him in the ambulance he spits at me and hits me in the face. Thank goodness for my poor eyesight because my glasses caught most if it. Two cops pounced on him immediately and put a spit mask on him. They are really quite attractive.

So I buckle him up and put him in th ambulance. A quick check of his vitals shows slightly elevated Heart rate and blood pressure but that is not surprising due to the recent physical activity and it is not at critical levels. I give my partner the nod and he starts to drive. The patient has decided the hateful tactic did not scare me so he will try being nice now. He asks some questions about my day, how I like my job etc. etc., then asks if I will take the spit mask off. My momma didn't raise no fool! "Hell no" was my answer. He started to siggle around and finally got a foot loose of the seatbelts where he tried to kick me. I didged him and fought him while my partner lurched the ambo to a stop and called the cops. Within seconds they opened the two back doors and one side one and took over the restraint of the guy. As they tied him down he screamed over and over, "F- you, f- you". He probably siad it four or five times before he realized the female officer at his head poiting a taser at him was politely answering each time, "No thankyou, I don't like men. No thank you I don't like men." I was dying laughing at this which got me another menacing glare.

So the cops leave and its just me and him again. The police are following us to the hospital. The patient has once again calmed down and is staring silently out the window when he realizes something. "Hey!" he says to me. "Will I be out of the hospital in time to go to work in the morning?" Well at least he is a responsible crazy.

"I have no idea," I say.
"Let me out now!" He yells, which oddly enough was the first time he had asked to be let go. Well this guy must have learned from Houdini or something because before I know it, his dang legs are free again. My partner goes to stop again and I yell for him to keep going. I have my elbow in this guys chest but his feet keep flailing. Finally I look at him and yell "You know what? God gave me 200lbs and a big ass and I know how to use it!"

I promptly sat down on his knees. The attempts to kick ended pretty quick after that. I moved up a little so I was sitting on his thighs because I really have no intent to hurt people. I also held on to the bar on the ceiling so not all of my wieght was in him. Then, .... he passed out. Again.

I sat staring at him wondering if I should be concerned or not. I mean sometimes when these people have a drug induced psychosis, they do indeed hit a point when thier system fails. He was still breathing though. We are not too far from the hospital now, but  oooh what to do. Just as I was about to abandon my seat on his legs I saw it. He opened his eyes a slit to see if I was watching. Gotcha!! I am not going anywhere!!

After about another minute, he opened his eyes and all nice like says, "Whoa! what happened? Did I pass out again? Sometimes I get a little crazy when that happens. I am all better now though." This guy reallydid think I was a moron apparently.

"Yep," I say. "you passed out and I am not moving." You know what that crazy little piece of crap did then? He peed himself. On purpose. To get me. I bolted off his legs so quick and he laughed this maniacal laugh that I found rather creepy.
No worries though, We were pulling into the ER and there was a cop behind us, one in front and two security guards waiting for us. I opened the back doors, pulled out the gurney and happily tranfered another happy customer to the hospital.

Pyschos!!