A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #69 Crashing “Overall, though, it’s the bigness of the car that counts the most. Because when something bad happens in a really big car – accidentally speeding through the middle of a gang of unruly young people who have been taunting you in […]
Hal Newman
146 posts
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #68 CSB Syndrome The first time it happened I freaked out. I’d never seen anything like it. One moment she was walking across the porch. The next she was down on her side taking slow breaths, eyes partially closed, and looking like she […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #67 Hurricanes happen On my way back home after working on the ground as part of the NOD’s SNAKE [The Special Needs Assessment 4 Katrina Evacuees] team immediately post-Katrina, I stayed overnight with some friends-of-friends in the Florida panhandle. I was standing in […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #66 Codes Code 99, Code Blue or just Code. Shorthand for cardiac arrest. An absence of life signs. No respirations. No pulse. Seldom as simple or as clean as the previous description. Often comes as a surprise to both the patient and the […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #65 Hark the herald angels sing We live in the country. The only traffic lights in our town are the ones at the Canada-U.S. border stations advising you whether or not it’s your turn to pull up and chat with the agent. You […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #64 Look for the clues A long time ago, I worked with a paramedic named Mike ‘Elwood’ Crowley. I loved that I was The Jake* of the team. While we called ourselves The Blues Brothers, we were known to the cops as The […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #63 Be the human in the loop I just came back inside from picking blackberries. Here on our property, we’ve got hundreds of blackberry plants and for a few weeks in August, tens of thousands of blackberries all become ripe for picking at […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #62 Stay focused or else Concentrate on the task at hand. Keep your eyes on the prize. Whoever said that must have been familiar with handling horses. When Di and the girls started their whole horse love affair I decided to take horse […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #61 Sometimes hungry is a state of mind Late in the afternoon on a bone-chillingly cold and snowy day last November Matt paused while sawing wood for the new chicken coop and said, “Hey, is that one of your cats on the stoop?” […]
A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #60 Mutual respect runs deep It started with an after-hours knock on the door at The EMS House. I was working part of an evening shift because the scheduled medic/driver was going to pull double-duty and roll through the overnight providing us with […]