Waste?

What pisses me off about the holidays is the absolute waste that we see. How many drunks cross our threshold? People that should have known better but chose not to make the decision to not drive, stay where they were or call a fucking cab. The saddest part are those that are victims because of the stupidity of others. Over the last week we have seen a rise in fatal accidents (no shit, right?). Unfortunately, many of the victims have been children. In just 24 hours there were 2 fatal accidents that killed three children ages 12 and younger. Parents either lost control or fell asleep and their unrestrained children paid the price.

There was also a young child (5, I think) that was struck my a lawnmower and lost a good portion of a hand and fingers. Where the hell was the supervision? I know I wasn't allowed in the backyard if dad was cutting the grass. In the car... we didn't move unless everyone had seat belts on.

I also had the pleasure of being in charge on the night of a million transfers. Seriously, we had about 15 patients transferred from all over the state. Some were traumas, there was a liver/anal cancer patient that was bleeding like fuck from esophageal varices (I so generously sent that one down the hall to the Green ED), many a drunk that slept it off out in the drunk tank and a code that had been down for over an hour, shocked 6 times and was PURPLE from the nipple line up (hello PE anyone?).

Oh yeah... and the interns are here. I taught one how to do an NG tube on a drunk with a BAC of 5800 (no shit there..... too bad we weren't betting). We taught another how to use a geezer squeezer and discussed at length what the appropriate dose of Motrin is in a BS drug seeker. Truth be told, I think this group will be pretty good once we break them in a bit.