Recognize!

A few years ago, I took a lead fall while ice climbing. I was putting up the first line of the day near Frisco and cratered. I was too high above my highest screw, so it was actually a ground fall. But the ground didn’t hurt me. The icy knob about halfway down caught my right crampon, twisted my foot, flipped me so I landed on my back, and broke my ankle. It was so early in the day I didn’t want to mess up the trip for everyone else. I sat to the side, built up a spot to elevate my foot, and piled snow over my ankle. After a few hours, I hobbled my way out to my truck and drove myself to the emergency department. My pickup was an automatic – I could drive it with one good leg.

My big dilemma came when I arrived at the ED. What was the issue, you ask? Well, good question, gentle reader. Was the dilemma where to park near to the ED? Oh, no. Could it be that my quandary would be how to make my way from the parking lot to the ED with a broken ankle? Nope. One might guess that my issue would be how to use the “normal” entrance. That would be a good speculation, but a wrong one. Most medics don’t know where the “normal person ED entrance” is. They only know the ambulance entrance. And that wasn’t my problem.

My problem that day was that I didn’t have anything that noted me as being special. I didn’t have any paramedic markings.

A few years later, I had appendicitis. I was working in the paramedic office at the time and spent the morning at the doctors office trying to deal with the searing gas pain that had been bothering me for a week or two. He sent me to the CT, and afterwards I was getting lunch (stir fry) when my physician called and directed me to the ED. I had a hot appy and they would be waiting for me. I wasn’t worried about going to the ED that time. You know why? That’s right. I was in uniform.

I’ve heard stories from medics about putting on paramedic t-shirts in the middle of the night before taking their kids to the hospital. I’ve heard of medics leaving a shirt with the patches visible in case they get pulled over. I have a Division sticker on the back window of my car. Sometimes we try to hide our affiliation, but we definitely want to be marked as being on Team Emergency Worker when it suits us. The two primary times it suits us to be identified as paramedics is when we present to a hospital and when we are pulled over by the cops.

I wasn’t looking for anything special when I broke my ankle. I didn’t expect to be carried through the department on a litter with trumpeters preceding me, or anything. (It would have been nice, but I wasn't really expecting it...) I was just looking to avoid the normal waiting room intake process. I didn’t want to sit there in a molded plastic seat with my once and future patients and broken ankle.

Good news! The charge nurse knew who I was! Apparently I am more recognizable than I realized. Notoriety is sometimes a good thing. (Infamous. I'm in-famous. That means more than famous, right?) A short couple of hours later, I was diagnosed with a medial malleolus fracture, splinted, and taken care of without problems. I even turned down opiates – my leg wasn’t especially painful and I had to drive myself home. Later, I ignored the orthopedist’s advice, so that ankle has bothered me since, but light duty was not pleasant. The best piece of the story is that on the evening when I went to the ED, I didn’t want to have to go through a busy waiting room. Success!

Colorado rules, by the way.