Accidental Discharge
I've been stuck as the RTO for the remainder of my extended deployment. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard our entrance point call up that there was an injured Iraqi coming towards our gate. I threw on my gear and hopped into my ambulance. I drove up on an Iraqi pick-up truck and my guys had already moved the patient out of the truck to get him in the ambulance.
The Iraqi Policeman had been shot in the upper right back. There were two small punctures
and no exit wound. After I cut off his shirt, I found that his collar bone had been pushed forward. I was worried that his lung had been punctured and that he was going to go down fast. He had stable vitals but he was in immense pain so I decided to give him so morphine.
----
My morphine comes in a 10mg auto-injector with a safety cap and the whole thing is in a plastic wrapper. I was issued three and I'd taped them together so that I would not lose any.
----
I pulled out my pack and pulled the top off of one of the wrappers. I struggled to pull the injector out of the wrapping. I'd taped them together too tightly. So I started pushing the injector up through the bottom.
Can you see where this is going?
I pulled some more and got the safety cap. My left index finger was still pushing on the injector trigger. A long needle pushed its way into the fleshy part of my fingertip and shot a bit of morphine in. I felt a sharp jolt of pain so I quickly pulled out the needle. The injector continued to spray up the wall of the ambulance wall. My finger swelled and went numb... for five hours.
I was able to remove the next auto-injector pretty easily and give it to the Iraqi. A supporting unit showed up and took the patient to the CSH.
----
I had to go to the aid station at the end of shift and fill out my own paperwork. This covers me if I have to do another urine-analysis/drug test.
The funniest part of the whole story is that I had given one of my Joes a really hard time for doing something similar. He had pulled the safety then accidentally dropped the injector. He picked up the injector and pushed the tip into the soft fleshy side of the patient. He then felt the sting in his thumb because he had the injector upside down. He said, "it felt like I hit the bone".
I dogged him about it for about a week.
That's karma, I guess.
The Iraqi Policeman had been shot in the upper right back. There were two small punctures
and no exit wound. After I cut off his shirt, I found that his collar bone had been pushed forward. I was worried that his lung had been punctured and that he was going to go down fast. He had stable vitals but he was in immense pain so I decided to give him so morphine.----
My morphine comes in a 10mg auto-injector with a safety cap and the whole thing is in a plastic wrapper. I was issued three and I'd taped them together so that I would not lose any.
----
I pulled out my pack and pulled the top off of one of the wrappers. I struggled to pull the injector out of the wrapping. I'd taped them together too tightly. So I started pushing the injector up through the bottom.
Can you see where this is going?
I pulled some more and got the safety cap. My left index finger was still pushing on the injector trigger. A long needle pushed its way into the fleshy part of my fingertip and shot a bit of morphine in. I felt a sharp jolt of pain so I quickly pulled out the needle. The injector continued to spray up the wall of the ambulance wall. My finger swelled and went numb... for five hours.
I was able to remove the next auto-injector pretty easily and give it to the Iraqi. A supporting unit showed up and took the patient to the CSH.
----
I had to go to the aid station at the end of shift and fill out my own paperwork. This covers me if I have to do another urine-analysis/drug test.
The funniest part of the whole story is that I had given one of my Joes a really hard time for doing something similar. He had pulled the safety then accidentally dropped the injector. He picked up the injector and pushed the tip into the soft fleshy side of the patient. He then felt the sting in his thumb because he had the injector upside down. He said, "it felt like I hit the bone".
I dogged him about it for about a week.
That's karma, I guess.
posted by SGT Dock at 22:54
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