IDIOTS IN THE SNOW.
IDIOTS IN THE SNOW
I love winter, and everything that it entails. I love snow, I love shoveling, I love hurtling down a snow covered mountain on a thin piece of plastic. I love hockey, I love skating, and I love the twinkle of snowflakes as they fall past a sunburnt orange streetlight.
Snow also provides for really amazing stories. People go CRAZY with snow - and when you're dealing with people who are already working with half a deck of cards, things only get better.
A couple of years ago, the area that I was in was absolutely crushed by a blizzard. We had just experienced snow like the East Coast hadn't seen for decades. Overnight, the area that I was in received 32 inches of snow - THIRTY TWO. Overnight.
A State of Emergency was declared.
Highways were closed for days, with people stranded in their cars for hours, requiring helicopters to fly them out.
Public transit was shut down - all of it. No taxis, no buses, no train, no subways.
A man who had attempted suicide by jumping out of a ninth story window was saved when he landed on a huge pile of garbage that had accumulated during the blizzard.
People died because emergency help was not readily available to everybody who needed it.
The world came to a standstill. For most people.
After spending two and half hours shoveling and praying, I made it into work. I used the not as of yet plowed highways, I passed the stranded snow plows, and I actually made it into work on time. There weren't many others that could claim the same, and the hospital was a veritable ghost town.
We had about 15% of the regular staff, and all of the immediate roadways surrounding the hospital were an absolute mess. Ambulances, not the most nimble of vehicles to begin with, didn't have a chance in hell of making it to the ambulance bay. But those gung ho paramedics, God bless them, were doing everything they could to get the sick to the ER. Some were carrying patients in from over a mile away. And amidst the struggle, with everybody coming together in a time of hardship to provide the best emergency care possible - this happened:
One of my senior physicians approached a young female of 18 years who had come into the emergency room with a special female problem that day. BY AMBULANCE.
DoctorPeds: Hi. I'm DoctorPeds. I understand you came into the hospital today because you're having an abnormal discharge. And it started three days ago. Is that right?
Patient: Yeah.
DoctorPeds: And you called the ambulance?
Patient: Yeah. So what?
DoctorPeds: The state has declared an emergency. People have been stranded in their cars for hours and are being airlifted to safety. There are elderly people dying from heart attacks in their homes, and we can't get to them because of the snow. And you took one of the very few ambulances that we have on the road, and abused it for a vaginal discharge that you've been experiencing for three days? What were you thinking?
Patient: *sucks teeth* Well, my vagina be just as important to me as my heart is.
You need a license to drive a car, but not to have a baby. This person is going to procreate.
