We were dispatched for the ubiquitous “difficulty breathing” call. Not to be confused with “difficulty breeding”, which none of our patients seem to have a problem with. The comments were 25 year old female with history of Asthma, no relief from inhaler. It was also noted that she was on the first floor. Cool, sick people don’t live on the first floor, we all know that. We figured a cancellation by the BLS unit was in order. Only it didn’t come. We arrived to find a family member standing at the front door pointing into the house. Not a good sign. So, we walked in the pointed direction and I became concerned. An exception to the sick people don’t live on the first floor rule is that if they are sick they go to the furthest point in the building from you. Still, it was a first floor, so it couldn’t be tooooooo bad, could it. Oh, what an optimist I am. Or fool. Take your pick.

We got to the back of the house and found not a room, but stairs. Down. Narrow stairs, definitely not up to code. Great. So, we trudged down the, about 12 steps, flight of stairs. Did I mention that they ended in a 90 degree turn to the left and down two more stairs? No? Well, I have now.

You know what’s coming, don’t you? Well, if you’ve been in EMS for more than a week you do.

Shamu.

A very sick Shamu. All 350 pounds of her. I hopefully asked if there was a back door or some other way to get to the street other than the narrow, steep stairs. Dream on TOTWTYTR, dream on.

We gave her a Combivent and put her in the stair chair. Then we had to figure out how to defy the laws of gravity and get her up those damned stairs. Sadly, we couldn’t do what we normally would, which is put two people at the top of the chair and two at the bottom. So, one person got on the top, one on the bottom, and I got behind the guy on the top. Who, for the record, is built like Barney Fife. So, by lifting up one step at a time we started up the stairs. Then EMT Barney lost his balance and sat back on the stairs. Which caused the chair containing the morbidly obese patient to tilt back on him. For a moment I thought he was going to squished like a squirrel run over by a Mack truck. Only without the bushy tail of course.

We got the chair upright, extracted Barney, checked him for crush injuries, and continued up the stairs. We finally made it up without hernias, blown out discs, knees, ankles, or in my case, hips. After that it was relatively easy to get the patient into the ambulance and proceed to the hospital. She actually did OK although the four of us on the call were a bit worse for wear.

Later on in the night we were sent to a diabetic with “dizzyness” with the same crew. Elderly lady, who weighs about 90 pounds and lives on the third floor of a building. With an elevator. And wide stairs, in case the elevator didn’t work. And a handicapped ramp too. Who wasn’t sick at all, just a bit hypoglycemic. Alert oriented enough that we gave her some Graham Crackers and juice and took her to the hospital.

There is just no explanation for why sick people are morbidly obese and live in the most inaccessible places while not so sick people live in accessible places with elevators.

There is just no justice in EMS.