[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Been there done that and have 20 more years of seeing it.[/quote]
x2. Except a few more than 20 years.
[quote]Htowner wrote:
[quote]TheChosenOne17 wrote:
[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Been there done that and have 20 more years of seeing it.[/quote]
x2. Except a few more than 20 years.[/quote]
x3, and Ive got 32 years till I collect full penchant =P
Also, 1960 is one of the most worthless streets in the entire greater Houston area, right there with Westheimer, and just about all the major highways…[/quote]
Yeah 20 years takes me 60 years old. Unless I’m working at a chief level by then I don’t think I want to keep putting in time on the line past then
God bless all of you EMT’s, FF, and police. It takes a different state of mind to get through the trauma year after year.
I live in the city so i read about homicide every few days in the paper. I was driving down a busy street one afternoon and on the side of the parkway i saw a man laying on the curb with half of his torso and one of his legs blown off. Must have been from a shotgun or something. The police had just arrived on the seen. Absolutely terrifying. I had to block it out of my mind completely. had never even thought about it until now.
lanchefan1 wrote:
Been there done that and have 20 more years of seeing it.
x2. Except a few more than 20 years.
I been a firefighter/EMt for many years now. Before that I ran the streets of NYC pretty hard. There’s nothing I haven’t seen and none of it bothers me one bit. Except the kids. The children always get to the new jacks or the old heads. Especially when things could have been avoided like a parent not strapping the kid to a car seat or put on there seat belt or the abuse issues. More then anything it’s an angry issue at those kind of events.
[quote]Htowner wrote:
[quote]TheChosenOne17 wrote:
[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Been there done that and have 20 more years of seeing it.[/quote]
x2. Except a few more than 20 years.[/quote]
x3, and Ive got 32 years till I collect full penchant =P
Also, 1960 is one of the most worthless streets in the entire greater Houston area, right there with Westheimer, and just about all the major highways…[/quote]
Why do you say that? I mean,its not perfect but what other solution do we have?
Very compelling stories, for sure. This whole conversation brings up a lot of ghosts and stinging memories, for me at least.
For those of you all who are still in the Emergency Medicine/Response buisiness:
Has what you’ve wittnessed changed your views on the existence of a higher power/fate? I don’t want to turn this thread weird, and I’m sorry if I have. But I remember working on a patient, doing everything right, having everything work (intubations, IV’s, even defibs) and the victim still perishing, and on the flip side there have been patients that lost tons of blood volume, the O2 tank run out of gas, the ambulance stuck in traffic and we’re in the back feeling seconds pass like hours trying to get the person to the ER only to have them fight and make it.
It’s a humbling thing man, at least it always was/is to me. The only thing that made sense to me is that when it’s your time, it’s your time and there really isn’t anything that can be done about it.
It’s all realtive, it’s all an individual experience, no two are exactly the same… But believing the aforementioned definitely helped me get my head wrapped around what I experienced.
[quote]BradTGIF wrote:
Very compelling stories, for sure. This whole conversation brings up a lot of ghosts and stinging memories, for me at least.
For those of you all who are still in the Emergency Medicine/Response buisiness:
Has what you’ve wittnessed changed your views on the existence of a higher power/fate? I don’t want to turn this thread weird, and I’m sorry if I have. But I remember working on a patient, doing everything right, having everything work (intubations, IV’s, even defibs) and the victim still perishing, and on the flip side there have been patients that lost tons of blood volume, the O2 tank run out of gas, the ambulance stuck in traffic and we’re in the back feeling seconds pass like hours trying to get the person to the ER only to have them fight and make it.
It’s a humbling thing man, at least it always was/is to me. The only thing that made sense to me is that when it’s your time, it’s your time and there really isn’t anything that can be done about it.
It’s all realtive, it’s all an individual experience, no two are exactly the same… But believing the aforementioned definitely helped me get my head wrapped around what I experienced.[/quote]
Bringing the subject of a higher power regarding this particular subect, is far from wierd, Brad.
Really, how can you not think of it under the circumstances? It’s the biggest reality check you can have, in my opinion.
I think we all deal with trauma differently. When I was a kid I lived in Lancaster, Ca … there were a lot of gangs there and I didn’t live in the greatest of areas. Anyways, in the alley behind the apt we lived in I saw a guy get cut up and shot. It scared the shit outta me but I think it affected the way I perceive trauma now.
A few years ago I witnessed a guy get creamed by a bus. He seemed to be in a hurry or something but it reminded me of the scene when Jason Lee gets hit by a bus in Enemey of the State. It didn’t really bother me; I was in the military at the time and helped secure the area until the paramedics arrived (like 2 minutes later).
Needless to say it’s all traumatic but we all deal with it differently … I think a lot of it depends on what you’ve been exposed to and when
[quote]BradTGIF wrote:
Very compelling stories, for sure. This whole conversation brings up a lot of ghosts and stinging memories, for me at least.
For those of you all who are still in the Emergency Medicine/Response buisiness:
Has what you’ve wittnessed changed your views on the existence of a higher power/fate? I don’t want to turn this thread weird, and I’m sorry if I have. But I remember working on a patient, doing everything right, having everything work (intubations, IV’s, even defibs) and the victim still perishing, and on the flip side there have been patients that lost tons of blood volume, the O2 tank run out of gas, the ambulance stuck in traffic and we’re in the back feeling seconds pass like hours trying to get the person to the ER only to have them fight and make it.
It’s a humbling thing man, at least it always was/is to me. The only thing that made sense to me is that when it’s your time, it’s your time and there really isn’t anything that can be done about it.
It’s all realtive, it’s all an individual experience, no two are exactly the same… But believing the aforementioned definitely helped me get my head wrapped around what I experienced.[/quote]
^ This, I had almost went this way earlier but didnt want to turn this into a religous debate. As I have gotten older I have started looking back on life and my experience and have a different look at things.
[quote]JSMaxwell wrote:
[quote]Totenkopf wrote:
Freebirds on 1960? You live in Houston?
[/quote]
That would be NWish Houston by 249?
I have seen a few people die in my life, the first few may get to you but it fades quickly unless the person was close to you. If it is freaking you out then talk to someone about it.
[quote]Htowner wrote:
[quote]TheChosenOne17 wrote:
[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Also, 1960 is one of the most worthless streets in the entire greater Houston area, right there with Westheimer, and just about all the major highways…[/quote]
No shit man, I live and work on 1960, 7 miles apart, yet it takes me 30 mins to get to work in the morning and 45-55 mins to get home due to the retarded traffic lights.
Our spiritual beliefs in the presence or absence of a higher power is probably somewhat modulated by the intensity or frequency of the various experiences we have. I find it probable that below a certain degree of intensity or frequency your initial views are reinforced. Beyond that point they could, I imagine be shattered or reversed by some momentous experience.
For me, as I mentioned in a previous post was the feeling of understanding how people came to believe in the concept of the soul by seeing death and truly feeling that within an instant someone that was there, is not anymore.
As for my views, I believe that the existence or absence of God (or equivalent) cannot be known nor proven and is therefore somewhat irrelevant scientifically (metaphysically it is another matter). But I would further say that the concept of God is a non-necessary concept to explain our existence as our existence is based on the laws of physics which with enough time within the right condition can develop self-replicating molecules which can generate self-replicating organisms. I believe that the sole purpose of biological existence is the furthering of one’s genes, that the brain is a means of ensuring survival and reproduction of the gonads.
All that we have evolved socially and culturally are secondary to the biological imperative (whether they be adaptive or maladaptive). It doesn’t follow that I accept ‘‘amoral’’ behaviours (these can be define in many ways).
So going into the field of medicine I have seen things that seem to defy the odds but sadly things to happen as you expect they would: The 33 yo young mother of two will die of aggressive breast cancer but the 87 yo Alzheimer patient who’s on dialysis 3 times a week for 12 years will come in with septic shock spend a week in the ICU, get aspiration pneumonia treated with antibiotics,will get C.Diff colitis be treated the get a pulmonary emboli but in the end will get out after 3 months, as demented as before and will go back to his dialysis chair 3 times a week.
For me, it would be very difficult to even suspect the existence of God in what I see every day. But of course I am biased as are does who take into account the miracles few and far between and not the countless other times when very bad shit happens to good people, which is basically all the time.
In the end:
Rule 1: Gomers don t die.
Micheal Shem (The House of God)
Tis not always in a physician’s power to cure the sick; at times the disease is stronger than trained art. Ovid
AlexH