I took part in my first mass casualty incident (MCI) a couple of nights ago. I arrived at work early to leisurely eat dinner after being at school all day, and as soon as I sat down we got the call. Apparently it was a bus vs. minivan vs. car., where the driver of the minivan was drunk. 12 people in total were taken to area hospitals, and 4 of them (later 5) came to us.

The first one was the worst of all of those injured. She turned out to have a broken pelvis and a pretty messed up pinky. I *think* she was in the minivan, but I was too busy to gossip with the cops.

The driver of the minivan, the cause of the accident, was also one of our patients, but I didn't find this out until I read the newspaper article today and saw his name. I really don't remember what his or the other guy's injuries were.

A few hours later, we got a call from another area hospital saying that they had received a patient from txhe accident, but after doing CT scans they found that he had worse injuries than they could care for, so they were transferring him over.

We had to go "down" to incoming ambulance runs for a while afterward, because the trauma team was tied up, and we just didn't have any beds available.

When we did open back up to basic ambulance runs, though, we got a real winner. The call said 65 y/o Male with a 1/2 inch laceration to his testicle. When they brought him in, he was sitting on the gurney with no pants on cupping himself with both hands, telling the EMTs a joke that ended with, "so then he says, 'Hey, you're getting it all over my shoes!' "

OF COURSE they put this dude in the bed right next to the desk, so I have to listen to his "jokes" and banter the entire time he's there. Even better is that he's hard of hearing, so everything he said was basically yelled, and if you didn't answer him, he just kept yelling. At one point he accused us of stealing his backpack, which was right in front of him, and at another, we supposedly stole his sandals, which were again, right there. He took the opportunity to tell every nurse that walked passed that he cut his "ball", and when the doctor went to examine him, he said he was itching, and scratched too hard. After he realized he was bleeding, he took a kitchen knife and heated it on the stove, and attempted to "cauterize" himself, which apparently only made matters worse (not surprising). So the doc said he was fine, gave him some ointment, and told him to wait for his discharge paperworks. After wandering around and being asked to stay in his area several times, he started yelling at one of the techs and pointing his finger at him, saying, "You don't tell me what to do!!! I'm tired of sitting!!" Well, sir, if you didn't cut your ball, you wouldn't be in this situation. We almost called security to come and intimidate him into either calming down or flipping out enough to be escorted away, but his paperwork was finally ready, and we sent him home.

Great night....