The Joys of the Sense of Smell

You know, it’s amazing.

I look back at my life and all that I have done and I’m amazed at everything I’ve been able to do. I’ve accomplished a lot, left a lot undone, and experienced things or a combination of that few others will be able to do in a lifetime.

Probably one of the most rewarding is being a part of EMS. I’ve been in the EMS field since 1988. Hard to imagine that I’ve been doing it for so long yet by industry standards I’m relatively young in age. I’ve seen a lot, done a lot, gotten puked on a lot, and sworn at a lot. The one constant is always, and will remain true, that every run is different. There will be similarities and likes but there will always be one glaring difference in the patient care, the signs / symptoms, incident background or scene, or patient outcome.

It used to be funny that I would be eating with friends or family and discuss some of the nastier parts of EMS and what we’ve seen / dealt with and still be able to eat our food without it making a return visit. I’ve lightened up a little on that respect but I still have no problem doing it. There are still those who don’t like those conversations, especially at the dinner table. I tend to be quite graphic in some of my story telling as I want to make sure the listener hears every minute detail of what it was I got to see or deal with.

Probably one of the funniest was a local trailer park call late at night for a drunk who was vomiting. I met the crew on the scene and they had the guy already loaded up on the cot and needed help bringing him down the steps from the trailer. This gentleman (term loosely used) was obviously inebriated and stated he was. Beer and whiskey were his toxins this night. As we were on the porch area he proceeded to remove all of his stomach contents over the side of the cot on to the porch. I was at the head of the cot as he did this.

One thing about EMS, it gives us another added sense or accentuates our already keen ones. Mine, at times, happens to be smell. At the time this guy urped up I caught a whiff of the pile he left on the porch. I knew exactly what it was. I smelled pizza from a local pizza joint. So I asked him, “You ate Pizza King pizza, didn’t you?” He gave me a quizzical look and nodded hi head before telling me he did. I couldn’t guess what kind it was as it was dark and I couldn’t see the pile, not that I really wanted to.

We get off the porch and are pushing the cot towards the ambulance. He lets loose a second time, yet not as forceful or with as much volume. And again I got a snout full of odor and it was different. Hot damn! I knew this smell too so I asked him again. “Before you had pizza you ate Cool Ranch Doritos, didn’t you?” It was just after I asked that I got slugged in my arm by one of the weak-stomached crew members and was told to stop asking such vile questions. I was told it was gross and that I needed to stop because I was making her sick.

The answer was, “yep, I shore did.”

It’s one of the “not so glamorous” parts of EMS. Being puked on, spat on, shat upon, peed on, or whatever on we sometimes have to deal with. Couple some of these wonderful instances with an occasional mechanical breakdown such as suction, air vent, air conditioning, or whatever and the situation becomes even more dire for both patient and caregiver.

Probably one of the worst was delivering a baby in the back of an ambulance in the middle of a hot, humid, terribly muggy night in south central Louisiana in a backup ambulance that had no air conditioning. Our primary unit had a/c problems and they switched us to this one for the night so they could fix it. These were type I trucks with only a pa to communicate between driver and attendant. No slide windows to easily talk to the driver which made it rougher. All I could do was tell my partner to “DRIVE FASTER!” It wasn’t because of the imminent delivery, it was because of the heat and stench in the back of that truck mixed with everything else that doesn’t smell good.

Stories? Smells? Got lots of them dating back to 1988. I’ll take a break from the nastier parts of it for now. Maybe I’ll hit some glamour later. Nah, we don’t do glamour. If you’re in EMS for glamour then you’re in it for the wrong reasons.