An ambulance going to Baptist East (one of four participating hospitals taking patients), was used to transport me and one other critical patient, as well as one yellow-tagged sitting-up patient. The yellow patient with arm issues sat upright, the other critical patient was like on the floor part of it which I think is normal, and then I was on some kind of ledge that was higher up, against a wall. The guy in the ambulance was also very nice, but flat-out admitted he really didn’t know what he was supposed to do with us in terms of simulations. Our vitals were already on our cards so he didn’t see a reason to re-take vitals. He did take the blood pressure of the woman on the floor part who he could most easily reach. Now, I’m still on a strapped-in stretcher while in the ambulance on this ledge thing, but I’m still sliding, this time to the right, off the ledge. My arms are dangling, and my entire body, with straps against my wounded stomach and legs, was being held from falling primarily by straps…ie I wasn’t flat on the stretcher, I was hanging halfway off it. I’m assuming that had I started screaming he would have re-positioned me quicker, but as it was, I pretty much had to say something before he noticed. Plus, my hair was stuck in the velcro part of the stretcher, which was quite painful.

We were basically out of character the entire way there since our guy didn’t know what he was supposed to do, including where exactly at Baptist East to drop us off, and such. He was commenting on how he had never had so many people in an ambulance and could see how overwhelming and hard it would be in a real accident. He also said something about how they were normally just a transport ambulance that didn’t do emergencies. I’m kind of unclear on what exactly was going on. Anyway, he did verbally, when he saw my card, state out loud how he would have treated hypovolemic shock/fracture, by like putting pressure on something, IVs, stuff like that. He was probably right, I wouldn’t know though. He also was like wow, you should have been the one on the floor here, you are by far the most critical. Well, thanks. LOL.

The sirens were going, the lights were on, the ambulance was speeding, and there I was stuck to the stretcher in a neck brace, hoping that we wouldn’t get into an accident as the ultimate irony. We finally got there and the floor patient was taken, the walking girl got out I think (i’m fuzzy), and then finally, I got taken out. I was wheeled in and immediately had a bunch of Baptist people peering down at me, asking me questions. I told them I was cold and that my legs and stomach hurt and that I wanted my sister. The registration lady got my basic information, although I claimed I had forgotten my address, and had to think hard to know my phone number. They were very kind. They slid me onto a flat bed and verbally stated what they would have done, based on the card vitals and stuff, including oxygen, IVs, blah blah. I asked for a blanket and was given one. After a while, they came in to take me off the backboard, although they left the neck brace on. My hair was stuck so tight to that velcro that it was VERY painful getting it off. I know most people sick enough to be in an ambulance are hurting enough that getting their hair stuck in Velcro is not their biggest issue, but c’mon – is it that hard to do something to ensure the added pain?

Once they had assessed me, put an ID tag on me, then left a green piece of paper on me, I was left alone, lying flat on my back, in the little trauma curtained area I had. I kept listening to the lady next to me hack and hack, hoping she wasn’t truly sick. She eventually pulled the curtain and I saw her face was covered with fake smoke/blood from smoke inhalation. She coughed and coughed and they were all like, um, are you kidding or is that for real? She said she was faking it until she did it so much she actually had to do some coughing for real, lol. She is a retired RN and as we compared experiences, she was appalled at all the errors.

I was getting bored/tired/uncomfortable with the neck brace and lying on my back, so I looked at my watch. Which wasn’t there. Long story short, it turns out it broke off me in the field due to how my arm was rubbing against the stretcher/rocks. Nice. They did find it though so I’ll be getting it back soon it sounds like. But my watch is like my security blanket so I was like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO lol.

I would occasionally raise my neck up to see what was going on, watching stretcher after stretcher get wheeled in. I wasn’t sure why I was just lying there for so long. At some point I think I heard one of them say something about how I should be in ICU. A few minutes later a man came in and took off my neck collar so I could go, the drill was over for me.

I (not on purpose) left grass and fake blood all over the place, it actually looked pretty realistic when I glanced back and saw the bed. The man handed me a certificate for the cafeteria and walked me to the elevator. He explained that after I went up stairs I’d see where to go, could get, food and then I could ::blahblahblah:: to meet up with everyone. I nodded but had no idea what he said and figured I’d be able to find it. I started wandering down, looking around, when a nurse intercepted me and was like, Can I help you? I was like um, I’m one of the plane crash victims and I was told I could go to the cafeteria but I’m not really hungry, I’d rather just go to the meet-up place to get back on the bus. So she was like Oh, I’ll help you get to the bus. I was like awesome. She was not specifically a part of the drill but knew it was going on and thought maybe it was a test, seeing if the hospital would be so overwhelmed there’d be victims just wandering the hall. Interesting possibility. I did have massive fake injury so it was obvious I wasn’t a normal patient. She walked me to the bus, which was wonderful of her, and she was great and it was smart of her to make sure I got in the right place. The problem is, that wasn’t technically the right place had I still been playing victim – so nobody would have known where I was. I guess because I said it was over she figured it was fine to go straight to the bus.

I found out the drill eventually got canceled because of weather getting bad, but it was pretty late by then so it wouldn’t have to be re-done. There won’t be another one for three years. Boo. I’ve decided I want to be a professional disaster simulator and always be a belligerent head injury because I’m amazingly good at that. 🙂 I was jealous of my new friend Leslie who got to be all nutty.

So overall, it was a well-executed/coordinated experience overall, all coordinators, makeup artists, support staff, everyone, was very kind and gentle. The problem was, at least in my personal experience, many of the emergency people weren’t quite sure what was going on. I had at least three different times they could have killed me had I truly been suffering. And I didn’t expect riding on a backboard to be so incredibly painful on my head, or for it to be so easy to slide off! I now have more faith that the Memphis Health care Community is caring, and I met a lot of neat nursing students, but I hope that in three years they’ve addressed all the feedback they got from this survey, so that people like me don’t die in a real crash!!

I enjoyed the experience even though I didn’t end up getting home until after 9pm, and even taking a shower didn’t get all the dark blood off my arm, so I look kind of dirty, but oh well. It also gave me a better idea of how emergencies work in general, and a greater appreciation of how hard it is to coordinate/communicate on a wide scale in a catastrophe. Even though as an OT I’ll never be directly doing things like giving IVs and prioritizing for ambulances, it was still good to see how it works, since every event that happens affects future care. Ok.
The End.

We drove to the grassy field next to the airport in large buses. Several buses lined up together to look like the fuselage (?) and they had a torn-up wing there too. There were explosives set up all over the place. We all walked out far into the field to be away from the explosives and scattered ourselves around appropriately. They couldn’t make the call into all the emergency places until we were all staged and ready for them.

After a while, as we sat there in the grass waiting, they started setting off some initial explosions, to get the smoke going. The wind luckily blew the smoke away from us, so everything was still really clear. A few minutes later, we started hearing the sounds of sirens…many, many sirens, nearing. None of us victims were sure when the acting was supposed to truly begin. The firefighters showed up and started fake-battling the plane explosion stuff. We just watched. The coordinators had a guy in a white suit who was on fire, waving his arms. A firefighter saw him, ran at him, and tackled him. IT WAS AWESOME! Everyone was shouting things like “Stop Drop and Roll!” ahahahaha.

Finally firefighters started coming to us victims for initial assessment. A nursing student named Leslie and I had been hanging out together and she was near me, so she started staggering around looking drunk as her head injury required, and I lay down, unable to sit or walk, with extreme lethargy and complains of coldness due to being in hypovolemic shock. Leslie and I decided we should be sisters and would make that part of our acting.

An initial firefighter finally got to me, and while I thought I’d have to do acting (I complained I wanted a blanket), he almost immediately just flipped over the card I was wearing with my diagnosis and vital signs. He put a yellow ribbon next to me (Error #1) and assured me he’d find my sister, then moved on. He told my staggering friend Leslie, who had very prominent Battle’s sign (pooling of blood under the eyes and sign of serious injury), to walk towards the safety area. She would agree, then veer elsewhere. The firefighter would help someone else and if nearby, direct her again. She kept staggering around, confused and belligerent.

After quite a while, more firefighters came with stretchers, prioritizing victims (there were 150 of us or so in the field although many were walking wounded) based on the initial firefighters tagging of those of us who couldn’t walk. My yellow ribbon (which should have been red because I was critical) kept them from getting to me as quickly. When they did finally come to me, the firefighters were very nice and sweet, getting me a blanket, assuring me they’d keep an eye out for my sister, etc. One of the men was calling me “baby” as in “It’s ok, baby. We’ll find your sister.” but it was in a kind gentle voice and perfectly appropriate in that context. They slid me onto a stretcher and a neck brace.

Unfortunately, their kindness did not make up for the fact I probably would have died right around then, since they didn’t put me into the stretcher very securely. I’m sure they were overwhelmed/nervous/etc, but still. I kept sliding down the stretcher until my nose had a strap on it, my feet and arms were hanging out, my head was way low…they’d stop to fix it (they were carrying me on the board, no wheels yet), but to fix it they’d slide me back up, so I’d moan in pain since I was supposed to anytime they touched my legs/stomach. They had to fix it again and again, and at one point one of the evaluators or coordinators even said sharply, “You need to get her back on that stretcher”. My legs and arms were dragging against the sides of the stretcher and against the rocky parts of the grass field. It felt like I was being dragged by one person, but it was impossible to tell in my position. My head was banging violently against the stretcher because the ride was so bumpy and I was in pain from that. I almost asked them to stop because it hurt, but decided I’d survive. They took me as a yellow person (not as critical) and put me down. I was next to a yellow tag girl sitting up and I kept lethargically smacking at her, asking her for a blanket. It was fun. I was starting to realize how tags worked based on what I could hear, and realized I should have been red-tagged, as even my card said that was the case. The emergency people were trying to figure out who would go in which ambulance and to which place based on priority. They were talking about red tags/yellow tags and one of them even flat-out asked me if I was a yellow. I said, I’m pretty sure I was supposed to be a red. They looked at my tag and made me a critical at that point. It was clear most of them weren’t trying that hard to act.

Considering how many times I had been violently bumped/slipped on the stretcher, and that I had been tagged wrong/lay there a long time, I probably would have already been dead from all the internal bleeding. Anyway, they were finally ready for me to be in an ambulance…

See Part 3 for the ambulance ride and hospital visit!

I took my friend Sarah, who just turned 18, to Nashville this weekend to visit some good friends, my ex-roommate Suzanne and her husband Arnie. We were going to leave Friday but weather prevented that. We left Saturday morning, got there in time to meet them for lunch, and then shopped at like thrift stores. The highlight of our road trip was a rest stop in Bucksnort, Tennessee…I ended up with a t-shirt. Because seriously. Everyone needs a T-shirt with a buck on it that says Bucksnort, Tennessee. Especially a Californian girl.

Anyway, Arnie made us a yummy dinner that night while I tried not to fall asleep on everyone!! I’m old and tired.

Sunday, Sarah and I worked on projects and then we all headed downtown to the Farmer’s Market. About 50 miles outside of Memphis on the way home, my check engine light came on, FUN. Luckily nothing bad happened and I’ll have it checked out tomorrow. Sarah is a smart cookie and she reads my blog and she walks around saying crap like “Don’t be so orally/tactilely defensive.” She is going into biomedical engineering but I think she has a career as an OT since she picks up the talk so easily!

We are both currently obsessed with sugar gliders since well, what’s better than the Australian version of an emo flying squirrel?!!?!! Nothing? Exactly my point.

We got to see the edited 10 minute version of the Miss OTPF pageant on Friday at the beginning of famed Orli’s Low Vision presentation, which was interesting. There is apparently a lot of controversy and problems in the world of low vision in terms of education and insurance reimbursement.

We don’t have a lot of classes left…just working on professional development evaluations, and the research presentation/poster, and stuff like that. And I bought Murderball and look forward to seeing it.

I want to write a post soon about the Terri Schiavo case…the more I read about it in preparation for tomorrow’s presentation, the more concerned I am about how it all played out, the role of rehab, and how it could have/should have played a much more significant role than it did in the trials. Occupational therapy is brought up quite a bit but only in a certain way and well I will save my rants for another post. Like after I give tomorrow’s presentation.

I am just kind of typing out all the random things in my head..letting the trapped words flutter away so I can have some peace…I had a good time with everyone in Nashville but also glad to be back in Memphis. Have lots of stuff planned to keep me busy and things are mostly looking up! The sun is emerging, at least in a figurative sense considering it’s 10:30pm and if the sun were to come out now it would probably mean the end of the world had come, in which case a Left Behind scenario might play out and that would kinda suck. A lot.

One more exceptionally random thing…I’ve spent a lot of time the last two days at www.freerice.com, which is not your typical hoax page….you answer vocabulary multiple choice questions and they donate free rice to people. It’s win-win since well, I’m a freak when it comes to vocabulary. I love it a little too much. But my recall these days is horrific, so mostly it’s a matter of recognition and I’m like WOW I AM GOOD! Go check it out and beat my personal all-time level high of 41.

Pretty soon I’ll be like Flowers for Algernon or whatever where I’m the dude Charlie who becomes a genius vocab-wise due to a crazy experiment, and then I’ll stop playing it because it’s so easy and then I’ll forget everything because the experiment fails, and be cognitively challenged again but know enough to know what I’ve lost, so I’ll be unhappy and that’s sad. Kinda like how I was all like, hooty-tooty right before GREs with all my vocab flash cards (I knew INSANE!!! words!!!!), and now I just remember that I used to be kinda smart!

I’m totally going to bed now. This post was soporific. Sorry.

I found your blog a few weeks ago and I’ve enjoyed reading
it. I’m starting OT school at the University of BLANK in the fall
(I’m so excited!) and I love hearing about the types of things you do.

About
the emergency drills – I’ve done a couple of these and I’ve actually
really enjoyed them. I mean, obviously if it was a real situation it
wouldn’t be good, but to me, it kind of felt like being in a movie (all
the make, lights, smoke machines, etc.) and it was fun. I don’t know
exactly how one in an airport would work because it seems that there
would be a lot of security and stuff that might change things (I went
to one at a school and one in a big office park) but I’ll give you some
tips based on my experience. First, all the victims arrive early, and
are assigned injuries. I discovered that it’s best to get there as
early as possible so you can get the “best” (aka most fun to act out)
injury. Also, you should wear clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty
(fake blood, make up, latex). I think a tank top is best (depending on
the weather), because it’s a lot easier to put on the make up for
chest and arm injuries than if you were wearing a long sleeved shirt.
It takes awhile to do all the victims’ make up, so I would bring a book
or something for this part. After everyone’s in makeup you’ll probably
be assigned a place to be. When I was at the school, they put several
people in each classroom. At the office park we were in the cafeteria
and it was supposed to be lunchtime (everyone getting food/ eating).
Once they start the drill, the lights will probably be turned out, and
they may have smoke machines, etc. I actually found this part scary and
somewhat realistic-feeling. Everyone’s generally moaning and
screaming, and then the firemen/ other emergency people run in. They do
a triage and try to get people who can walk to walk out, then carry
those who can’t. The dead people are the last to be brought out (try
not to be a dead person – you’ll just lay there forever). Generally
once people are brought out they’re separated into groups based on the
severity of their injuries, and then depending on how far your drill
goes, people may be taken to the hospital. I hope this helps you know
what to expect. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me and I’ll
do my best to answer.

Thanks for the blog and keep up it up! I love reading it.