Daphne
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I do. So this was when I first started. It was within my first couple of weeks working as an EMT. So I was pretty green. Also, for a little bit of context, when you first start, at least at the company I worked at, there's such a hierarchy. When you're new, you're doing all the work nobody wants to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
So all like cleaning up the GI bleed, picking up the heavy parts of the patient, changing diapers, like all the crazy stuff that people who've been there longer don't want to do. That's entirely on you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Mine was a little bit untraditional. I actually majored in philosophy, but my college job, I was an outdoor trip leader. So I had to get a wilderness first responder certification and just really fell in love with it. Oh, amazing. So after college, I tried a couple of jobs and nothing really stuck and I ended up going back. to get my EMT because I just loved my first cert so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I would say so. Working in emergency, you kind of have to be, but at the same time, it also tames it a little bit because you see all the crazy shit that can happen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I'm like a moderate adrenaline junkie, I'd say. Are you watching The Pit? No, but I've heard it's good. You're going to love it. And pretty accurate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Yeah, I mean, it's a great show. So the partner who I was paired up with, you could tell that he had one foot out of the door, was ready to retire and go to Bogota. and spent all his money gambling years ago.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I was told that their turnaround rate is like six months. Wow. So it's pretty quick. Also, the place where I worked, it was a lot of people who they were starting as an EMT, but they wanted to go to med school or PA school or nursing school. This was kind of like the first step to get some experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
So we get a call and the call is super vague. It was just for a sick person. And that was also a red flag because usually the more vague the chief complaint is, the more unhinged it is when you actually get there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
We go to the apartment. The elevator going up is teeny tiny like it barely fits my partner and i and the stretcher in there we get all the way up knock on the door introduce ourselves walk in and immediately when i open the door i'm hit with this wave of just a blinding smell oh and a smell that i had never smelled before up until this point oh never smelled it my god
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
And it smelled like a mix of hay, like from a horse, poop, sulfur. Oh. And burnt anything. Okay. Oh, hey.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Oh. taken that over what happened oh no so all of a sudden we see the patient he stands up he has a walker he's walking over i could tell he's walking a little funny like his gait is a little off but nothing too crazy and he's wearing what i thought were black compression socks and the lower part of his legs looked a little different from the rest of his body but who am i to judge sure
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Yeah, he's wearing, like, basketball shorts. And also, as he's walking over, the smell is getting stronger, and I hear this kind of squishing sound with each footstep.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
He's squishing his way over. And then I go over to help him. I want to give him a hand. When I get over, I look down and I realize, oh, those aren't compression socks. That's completely necrotic tissue from the knee down.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
They're gone. Oh. And that squishing sound was them sloughing off with each step, like tissue coming off. No! No!
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
The top 75% of his body was a normal average Joe. The bottom half was some shit out of The Walking Dead. Okay, I have to be honest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Yes. It looked like a mudslide. Every shade of yellow, red, brown that you can imagine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
No, you're too young to have seen something like that. I keep my cool. I'm not here to judge anybody. I'm just here to get you to the hospital safely. So I take him to the stretcher and my partner looks at me and he's like, I'm not touching that. And I was like, okay, I'm not surprised. So I held him into the stretcher and he obviously needs help getting his lower half up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I'm trying to think of the most gentle way to go about this. You know, I don't want to cause any more damage. So I go down by his ankles and lift his legs up. And as I do, I feel my fingers squish into him. It felt like jam. No!
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
of course preserves is there bone the bone's not out yet but it doesn't look like it's that far away so we get back to the elevator my partner doesn't get into the elevator he's like i'm taking the next one you got this this guy's a real piece of shit a fucking 21 year old girl he's like deal with it i'm in boca I'm already in Boca. Yeah, so I'm squished between him and the elevator wall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
He was in a great mood. He was chatting it up with me. I'm trying to banter with him a little bit, but it's so thick and literally blinding. Like I was having a hard time opening my eyes. Of course.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Verbatim, he said, oh, it's just a little leg pain. No big deal. We get into the ambulance. It's a hot summer day. And also this ambulance has no air conditioning, no ventilation, nothing. And my partner, of course, has me sit in the back with him and closes the only window between the front and the back. Oh boy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I'm trying to bandage this up, trying to do anything to make him more comfortable, but it's just soaking through. Nothing's working. He needs extensive wound care. We just need to get on the road and get him to a hospital and Of course, he wants the one that's the farthest away from where we are. And in the ambulance ride over, ambulances have no suspension at all. And we're going on the highway.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
And this is oozing. The amount of liquid that's coming out was insane. So I'm just being jostled around. It's splashing everywhere. Like it felt like being at a water park. Stop. I did not sign up for. Oh, my God. And can you wear a hazmat suit? Looking back, I probably should have. But at that point, I don't think I even knew where those were in the ambulance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Yeah, it's just every body fluid you can imagine, plus chunks of tissue. Oh! Don't say chunks! I'm trying all the tricks for the smell too. At that point, the smell was the least of it, but I was sticking alcohol pads in my mask and rubbing hand sanitizer on the outside.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Just trying to do anything while also still trying to be discreet because I'm not trying to make this guy feel bad about himself. He's already going through it. I'm just like, okay, this is my life for the next...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I wish we could. But I think at that point, it technically would have been like medical kidnapping or something like that. I feel like take them where they don't want to go. OK. So we get to the hospital finally and we roll him in and we're doing the handoff report to the nurses. We're talking to them. My partner finally comes in, like puffing his chest, giving a report like he did everything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
As he's giving a report, I notice he's starting to pause between words. And then his face is starting to get really red. And then he starts going... He runs into the hallway and vomits everywhere. And completely misses the trash can.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
We do the handoff. That's done. I walk into the hallway. there's vomit everywhere and there's tracks from the wheels of our stretcher like bits of leg oh and blood and this is like saw or something wow do you ever get any follow-up on what happens to these people like do you see the er people a month later and go like what happened yeah I didn't do that with this guy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I have, however, seen patients in the wild before after I've taken care of them. And that's always crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I don't say hi. But there was this one guy who had his throat slit and he didn't want to go to the hospital. And he was bleeding out of his eyes, ears, nose. And I was like, you have to go. But he refused. And he was his own person mentally. So there's nothing he could do. And I saw him biking like three weeks later. Oh, so he made the right call.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
They call that AMA against medical advice.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Yeah. Yeah. You have to sign a form. It's very official. But I spent the next three hours cleaning out the hallway. You had to clean it? I wasn't going to leave it. You're a good person. Oh, you're an angel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Yes. And then with the ambulance, there was no equipment or anything for me to use. So I was just wiping that up with paper towel, disinfectant wipes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I came close. I thought about it. But you kind of know what you're getting into.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I've seen a wine bottle. Okay. Wow. With the cork or without?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
Maybe that's what they like. Yeah, it's kind of a two-for-one deal.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
We had them on their side. Face down technically is like a airway issue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I feel like people either really overcompensate for it and try to say like, I was cleaning and I tripped and I fell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
They're just silent because they know that you know. That's best.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
No. So I'm still doing it now. So I work in an emergency room and I started nursing school this fall.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I can't wait for you to watch The Pit.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I'm so glad. Well, thank you so much for your time and for having me. Can I give a quick shout out?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
I just want to shout out Caroline, Tate, and Emily, my three favorite people I
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Anonymous: First Responder
love them so much and to you guys i just want to say that sometimes when you work in this field the drive home can be kind of tough if you have a bad day that's kind of when you start like reflecting and things can feel a little heavy so whenever that happens i always put on armchair and it makes you feel so much better so i just want to thank you guys for bringing some levity to that i can't take that in knowing what you've done for the world
Giggly Squad
Giggling about minding our business, the patriarchy, and peeing at the plaza
No, truly.
Giggly Squad
Giggling about minding our business, the patriarchy, and peeing at the plaza
Harriet, fix the Wi-Fi.
Giggly Squad
Giggling about minding our business, the patriarchy, and peeing at the plaza
We can't be managed. I mean, the day just got away from me.