Standing By

14 March, 2010. 1228.

Last night, when I went to the office to get the gear for the standby, I was well into mentally preparing myself for the night ahead. I had vomit bags in my back pockets, ready to be pulled out, two sets of gloves in my front pockets, a little notebook in my other pocket with a pen, so I could take down patient information on the go, I had a snack in my jacket, tic-tacs for if the smell of drunk partygoer vomit got too intense—I was ready for a long night of introducing myself over the music and attempting to get the minimum of information before we transport (name, age/birthday, meds, allergies. A set of vitals if we can).

Instead, I spent the next four hours sitting at a table in the lobby, bonding with the secondary, dance-attacking the primary and supervisor with said secondary and telling people that, no, they couldn’t leave their coats at the BEMCo table. We needed the space to, you know, care for patients.

Our one patient was not even that—we gave them band-aids and an alcohol swab.

My duty, as the sole female on the crew, was to periodically patrol the women’s room and make sure that no one was slumped over on the toilet/sink/floor/dividing wall. The first time I did this, I received the response of, “Hey, you’re a man—never mind.”

I’m well aware of the fact that I often appear less than female. With short hair and a uniform that still manages to be too large on me, it’s understandable. I ought to use this little talent for my own benefit—evading long women’s room lines sounds like a good plan.

Now, the reason for our lack of patients was not that people decided to be responsible and not consume a week’s worth of alcohol in one evening—no, they were just leaving and going to their rooms before they went to us. The main crew split to three calls at one point, there were more, I think. Meanwhile, the three of us sat at a table and bounced around condom balloons.

After it ended (four hours later, technically five with the time change) the three of us went to CVS to get some food and returned to our places of residence. I crashed, rather unexpectedly, after removing my completely drenched clothing. To the crew that’s still on now—I hope you are managing to stay somewhat dry.

I’m a little disappointed at our lack of people—I was hoping to get some decent experience out of this. But you know, getting paid to hang out with friends for four hours isn’t too bad.