pediatrics

I had an interesting call the other day involving a pediatric.

Was dispatched for a 4 1/2 month old with breathing difficulty. The call was in the northern part of the county and I knew it would take me close to 15 or 20 minutes to get there but that the ambulance would get there much sooner. As dispatch kept updating me, it seemed the pt was getting worse. I pre-alrted and engaged a medevac prior to reaching the pt. Once arriving on scene I found a very sick, 9lb, 4 1/2 month old baby boy who had seen better days (I had hoped anywyas...). He had experienced quite a few problems in his short life span, to include some trachea and esophagus defects as well as some heart defects. (I learned a few new ten-dollar-words that day) Today he was having trouble simply breathing. Mom told me he had stopped breathing and she had to give him a few breaths to get him started again prior to calling 911. I can not even tell you the worries and thoughts racing through my mind. After assesing the baby I knew I had made the right decision calling for the medevac. It seemed like an eternity waiting for them about a mile from the pt house, although it was only about 12 minutes. While waiting the only thing I could do for this little guy was give him some oxygen and a couple breathing treatments to help him out a bit. I set out my infant BVM and intubation kit to ward of the evil spirits, which, thank goodness, worked.

Looking back I just had this feeling that maybe there was something more I could have or should have done, or that I should have donemore, faster. Im confident now I did all I could for him. The most disturbing thoughts are 1) This family lived so far away from the hospital with such a sick baby, and 2) I called to check on him the next day and they had not been able to figure out what caused him to stop breathing, all the tests had come back normal so far....