Originally posted by Jeff698
So, there I was, a tired paramedic with an hour left in my shift when I get paged to my favorite nursing home for an 'unknown, unconscious' patient.
For once, we were actually met by a "nurse" at the door who started describing why we were there. It seems this 80-ish woman is normally perfectly functional with no cognitive deficits at all. She was pushing another resident down the hall in a wheelchair while munching happilly away on a PB&J sandwich.
Apparently, mid-munch, she stops pushing the wheelchair, looks anxious, puts her hands around her throat in the universal sign for choking (not that I've ever seen it before but still). The nurse tells me she watched this for awhile before the patient 'turned blue' and then fell to the floor, hitting her head, and then had a seizure.
The nurse then picks up the patient, puts her back in her bed and calls her private doctor. Brilliant doc then tells the nurse to call the local ED; the one with no in-house coverage (this was back in the late 80s). The nurse at the ED chats with the nice nurse from the NH and, eventually, they decide it might be a good idea to call EMS.
Seemingly months later, we arrive. Needless to say, my patient has coded. We start CPR and I get my first look in her oropharynx...full of PB&J! What a suprise.
The nurse continues to tell me something (I quit listening) as I started digging my way through the PB&J with forceps, flicking as much of it as I could onto the nurse's leg (not that I have passive-aggressive issues or anything). As soon as I get a tube in and a little epi, our asystolic patient gets a rhythm and pulse back.
Ah, the memories of nursing homes. Certainly that's one thing I won't miss from my EMS days.
Take care,
Jeff