Whether sad, funny or heroic, poignant or just ridiculous, we’ve all had some memorable calls this year. We asked our Facebook fans to share their stories of the calls they’ll most remember from 2012. Here’s a selection of their responses.
1.2012 was my first year as a medic and I’d have to say a young 20-year-ld with severe ICP and then my first rt. sided MI w/ a great outcome. – Marcus Diaz
2.Drunk buddies hanging out at the cliffs when one dude goes to take a leak and falls of it. – Carl Redhouse
3.Responded to a bicycle vs. pedestrian call and all the bystanders wouldn’t let me do my duty. They kept saying “We got this, we called someone.” The bicyclist’s nose was bleeding like a waterfall, and the pedestrian was about to pass out. I managed to raise my voice and get through that I’m an EMT and get everyone away and moving along. I’ve never been to a call where the called rescuer was neglected... – Kevin Tang
4.Full resuscitation of a family friend. She was in PEA and fully revived with no neurological deficit or organ failure. I now see her able to continue enjoying her family as well as life. Although I’ve ran many codes, this was my most memorable as well as one of the most memorable of my career. One other one would definitely be my partner and I delivering our first baby in the back of the rig. – Ernest Abeyta
5.In August, 9-yr boy fell from a rope swing into a small lake at a conservation area. Two km’s back in the woods. Landed head first on rocks. Reports of CPR in progress. Arrived with fire and police, walked almost 10 minutes in. Found him responsive but concussed and combative. Low angle rope rescue and a long walk out. He did OK in the end! – John Bryan
6.High speed RTC - vehicle rollover and wrapped around a tree. Four pts. severely entrapped. Driver (mother) and 3 children - 6, 4 & 18 months. Three critical. Extrication time over 40 minutes. 25 km. from town as a single officer response. Landed two evac helos at the hospital. All survived. Pretty happy with how it went but my arse was hanging out that day. – Peter Solomon
7.Me having a stroke and being on the stretcher for the first time as a patient. – John Conte
8.My most memorable was the call that I didn’t go on. It was four miles outside my town’s response area. They toned us for a second ambo. Since I wasn’t on call, I didn’t respond. They stood down my town’s ambo because there was one refusal and one DOA. That was the night I lost my mom. – Tonya Roden Strothman
9.Stopped at a MVA with one patient that was ejected out of the passenger window and thrown approx 20 feet. I was the first one with any training on scene. Now we are friends. Makes for an interesting story. – Amber N Smith
10.I took one person to the hospital that actually needed to go! – Jake Adams
What about you? Share your most memorable calls of the year below.