hmm yesterday... I got some validation that my job does in fact have purpose its truly a sad and mindbreaking thing though, of course i stepped up to the challenge.
I actually saved some one's life yesterday...
I feel really bad for the guy it was his fiftieth birthday and someone had brought him some brownies, and well he ate one way too fast and a whole brownie got lodged in his throat. Me and Debbie another lifeguard tried to administer the heimlich manuever, and both of us were unsuccessful. I was giving my 10th thrust or so and the 400lb man passed out. In a feat of strength somehow I was able to lay him down without injuring myself or him. It was at this point I yelled to another guard on duty to call 911. Debbie was giving him stomach compressions and still nothing came up.I then gave 2 rescue breaths but nothing went in. It was at this point that my training didn't prepare me for the fact that when someone is still semi concious natural reflexs will kick in, well he took a chunk of skin off my knuckle as i swept some of the brownie free. He then turned the most sickening blue that you will ever see and we continued to give stomach compressions and a couple more rescue breaths and nothing happened so we checked for his pulse, me nor debbie could find a pulse on his carodid or brachial arteries. So we had to start cpr. The compressions on his ribcage were with enough force, some more got unlodged and came out. Finally we were able to get rescue breaths to go in and he started to get color back and started to heave on his own but by no means was it over. We continued to give rescue breathing and rolled him onto his side everytime he threw up. He went down at 1:00 and the paramedics arrived at 1:15. They were able to give him suction and he was doing much better by the time they had him on the gurney, he was able to form coherent sentances and he thanked me and Debbie. The paramedics removed a 3" x 2" chunk. And I had to clean up all the blood and vomit. Yay!!! All of my bodily fluids cleaned up for my head guard in training and I got to fill out an incident response form.
Looking back at it we did do somethings wrong but in the scope of things we were able to handle it very well. Some of the mistakes we made is that no one cleared the pool and deck, improper training to handle choking victims(thanks so my red cross, I'm gonna have to have a chat with my boss about that stuff). Staff leaders panicked(a head guard was unable to do anything it seemed, she just stood there and didn't help with any of the stuff such as clearing the crowd like we had asked)
and my biggest complaint is the improper debriefing after such a stressful event.
We had called the supervisor and she had said to keep the pool open needless to say I called my supervisor at another pool who reversed that order and we took the day off.
I was feeling like shit so I stopped off at my stepgrandparent's house (my dad and melissa were there cleaning house) after that we were all kind of burnt out and so we went to Gustav's for dinner, it was so nice that I was able to get a drink after such a crappy day. For some reason they thought I was 21 and I didn't get carded. It was a good ending to a shitty day. Plus there was a hot waitress that hit on me. Of course me being the chickenshit I am it never went anywhere.
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Off to do errands, most important being getting the shag chopped off. I also gotta drop a bunch of stuff over at the_cheat's house, and I've gotta cash some checks, oh and there's always father's day gift... SHIT! I'll be back much later
I actually saved some one's life yesterday...
I feel really bad for the guy it was his fiftieth birthday and someone had brought him some brownies, and well he ate one way too fast and a whole brownie got lodged in his throat. Me and Debbie another lifeguard tried to administer the heimlich manuever, and both of us were unsuccessful. I was giving my 10th thrust or so and the 400lb man passed out. In a feat of strength somehow I was able to lay him down without injuring myself or him. It was at this point I yelled to another guard on duty to call 911. Debbie was giving him stomach compressions and still nothing came up.I then gave 2 rescue breaths but nothing went in. It was at this point that my training didn't prepare me for the fact that when someone is still semi concious natural reflexs will kick in, well he took a chunk of skin off my knuckle as i swept some of the brownie free. He then turned the most sickening blue that you will ever see and we continued to give stomach compressions and a couple more rescue breaths and nothing happened so we checked for his pulse, me nor debbie could find a pulse on his carodid or brachial arteries. So we had to start cpr. The compressions on his ribcage were with enough force, some more got unlodged and came out. Finally we were able to get rescue breaths to go in and he started to get color back and started to heave on his own but by no means was it over. We continued to give rescue breathing and rolled him onto his side everytime he threw up. He went down at 1:00 and the paramedics arrived at 1:15. They were able to give him suction and he was doing much better by the time they had him on the gurney, he was able to form coherent sentances and he thanked me and Debbie. The paramedics removed a 3" x 2" chunk. And I had to clean up all the blood and vomit. Yay!!! All of my bodily fluids cleaned up for my head guard in training and I got to fill out an incident response form.
Looking back at it we did do somethings wrong but in the scope of things we were able to handle it very well. Some of the mistakes we made is that no one cleared the pool and deck, improper training to handle choking victims(thanks so my red cross, I'm gonna have to have a chat with my boss about that stuff). Staff leaders panicked(a head guard was unable to do anything it seemed, she just stood there and didn't help with any of the stuff such as clearing the crowd like we had asked)
and my biggest complaint is the improper debriefing after such a stressful event.
We had called the supervisor and she had said to keep the pool open needless to say I called my supervisor at another pool who reversed that order and we took the day off.
I was feeling like shit so I stopped off at my stepgrandparent's house (my dad and melissa were there cleaning house) after that we were all kind of burnt out and so we went to Gustav's for dinner, it was so nice that I was able to get a drink after such a crappy day. For some reason they thought I was 21 and I didn't get carded. It was a good ending to a shitty day. Plus there was a hot waitress that hit on me. Of course me being the chickenshit I am it never went anywhere.
**********************************
Off to do errands, most important being getting the shag chopped off. I also gotta drop a bunch of stuff over at the_cheat's house, and I've gotta cash some checks, oh and there's always father's day gift... SHIT! I'll be back much later
~T.C.