Caller: "Send me an emergency doctor!"
Dispatch: "What did happen?"
C: "I can't sleep!"
D: "Well, you might need the regular doctor on duty, but that wouldn't
help much, since he will give you an receipt you could get some
pills for - tomorrow, when drugstores open again... you see?"
C: "But it's worse!"
D: "Ok, I'll see - the on-duty doctor is on his tour and might come in
1 or 2 hours"
C: "But...I'm sleeping then!"
D: slap on the head...
"Don't panic. Leave it to us, we're the professionals!" - Paramedic
"How did that happen??" - Paramedic (over 30 years!) to pregnant women
"Do you have this regularly?" - Paramedic to traffic accident victim
"Sure he dies...in about 80 years..." - Paramedic to annoying bystander
"The dog really is fixed????" - A specific Paramedic's regular initial first assessment question
"Dispatch, victim is a 5 YO female little boy...." - Paramedic
"He can wait, she can wait, she can wait...let's wait, too" - RN in emergency dept. after several ambulances bringing broken legs at same time
"Dispatch, can't receive you...please change location!!" - anon. Paramedic
"Dispatch, patient is unconscious, wishes to go to city hospital." - anon.
"Dispatch, there are 4 victims...oh, another one...hold it, there comes the next...6 victims...hm, well, let's say 8." - Paramedic at a very dynamic scene (finally we had 9 patients, partly hidden between bystanders)
"Hello, New York!!" - Paramedic arriving at above rather chaotic scene [after a tagline of one of the Ghostbusters arriving at a haunted building]
"Have you had that pulsing on your wrist ever before?" - Paramedic on taking a pulse...[after a tagline of Dr.Hawkeye Pierce of MASH (TV-Serial)]
"Ladder angle is thirty degrees, 25 minutes and 7 seconds local time" -- Firefighter
"It's only a test" - unknown Firefighter to a women, assuming she is just a bystander....only she was the owner of the burning house, just coming home.
"Come on, hurry up, [insert some harsh words here]!!!"
- Emergency physician,
holding patient's broken leg straight aside the road.
"Well, I can't
move unless you fixed the leg and I'm standing in a thistle", blushing Dr.
after some asking looks by the Paramedics (patient was in stable condition, no
obvious need for a hurry...).
"Well, here are the AV-blocks you requested" - silly EMT-student to teacher, dropping him a (heavy) couple of paper blocks on the desk...beeing fooled by his fellow class members.
"You have nothing to laugh, you're the patient" - young EMT on his first run
"Dispatch, I'm spelling the name: Yankee, Oscar, Uniform, Alfa, Sierra, Sierra, Hotel, Oscar, Lima, Echo" - Paramedic after beeing fooled by a very incompetent dispatcher numerous times that day (he even wrote those letters completely down before understanding...).
"Ambulance from Police, be careful on scene, it's rather icy - I just slipped and smashed straight on my face..." - police officer mumbling via radio, beeing more injured than the original patient.
"Oh, you're spelling! And I thought that guy has so many names..." - dispatcher, requesting the patients name (in germany, the alphabetical codes mostly are common fore-names).
" --- " (imagine open mouth) - Person called dispatch "My old father doesn't say
anything, I need a doctor" and hung up, then complained about the fast response
team and an ambulance arriving with full lights and sirens (assuming a code). He,
after first insulting the crew for over-reacting, immedeately stopped
complaining after he notified the EMS-helicopter approaching his house.
The patient, an 80 year old man, said nothing for 3 days, because he
didn't want to talk to anyone...!
(BTW: we had a training with the full medical disaster response platoon near
this house a week later...and we almost couldn't resist to show up there with
more than 50 people and 14 emergency vehicles...just to say hello :)