Divemedic

My son began his career as a paramedic firefighter. When he was 20 years old, he had a cathartic experience: He had a patient die due to a rare condition that he had never heard of. He swore that day that he would never lose another patient because of something he didn’t know.  He became taking as many classes as he could.

Within 6 months, he became certified in Critical Care. Another year, and he was an RN as well as a medic. He quit firefighting and began doing flight nursing, transporting patients all over the world. Two years later, he earned his BSN. By his 25th birthday he began working in the ED and within a year was the charge nurse for his shift in the ED.

Then he got serious.

He got board certified in trauma nursing AND critical care. The first in the county to do both. He was the nurse in charge of trauma nursing for a level 2 trauma center, while at the same time being put in charge of training for his hospital. All before he was 30, supervising and training people who were decades older.

Now 32, he is a Nurse Practitioner specializing in Emergency Medicine. The medics and nurses love him because he remembers where he came from- he isn’t some kid right out of college, he knows what it is like to do their jobs.

The doctors respect him because emergency medicine is what he knows best. There are procedures that he has taught that many of them have only read about in text books.

The shift he is on has a doctor and a PA who specialize in family medicine, and they defer true emergencies like intubations or cardiac arrest to him.

That is where the worry comes in. Because of this, he is highly sought after for viral pneumonia, meaning that he will soon be headed to New York City to help with the crisis. I worry for him, even while he looks forward to making a difference.

I have been getting emails for the past two weeks, looking for more people with medical qualifications. Right now, they are trying to get people to volunteer by offering cash. I called and asked, and the reason why there is so much money is that people with critical care and ventilator experience are needed to work all of these new ventilators the government is buying. Now they are discovering that the have more patients than ventilators, and more ventilators than people who know how to use them.
My sources tell me that it will soon be involuntary- either “volunteer” or lose your medical license.

My wife and I have been cut off from the outside world and isolated from outsiders for over two weeks now, so I feel like we are safe from infection.

My inlaws finally heeded our advice and have begun to stay home, even though they had been refusing to do so. They called here to demand that we give them some of our supplies because they didn’t listen to our advice a month ago when we told them to buy things like sanitizer and N-95 masks. When my wife told them that we had no masks to spare for them, we got the line: “You would think at a time like this, you would worry about your parents and take care of them.” We were- we told you a month ago to buy that stuff and stop going out to social clubs. You wouldn’t listen. All I could spare for them was half a dozen surgical masks. I tried explaining to her that the masks I have won’t fit her anyway.

My son called this morning to tell me that the medical group he works for is heeding the nationwide call for medical personnel, and he is being sent to NYC to support the hospitals that are losing people due to infection. He is getting hazard pay that is about triple what he usually makes, but that seems like small potatoes for the risk being taken.

He also told me that medical people are being attacked if seen in public wearing any sort of clothing that identifies them as medical workers. Apparently people are afraid that the doctors and nurses are infected.

When I was in the Navy, I was the supervisor of a work center that was tasked with keeping a large amount of equipment working- including the ship’s fire pumps. The motor on one had gone bad and needed to be sent off for repair. This motor weighed over 800 pounds and needed to be pulled out for repair. The problem was that it needed to be lifted from the machinery room to the second deck- a vertical distance of about 80 feet. We set up a chain hoist. During the lift, the hoist rig separated and sent the entire load crashing 20 feet to the bottom. In the process, it removed 3 fingers from the left hand of one of my subordinates. The safety review that followed faulted the supervisor (me) for not using a certified rigger to do supervising the lift.

A month later, a second fire pump motor failed. When we were told to get it repaired, I pointed out that I still didn’t have a rigger. They told me to do the lift anyway. When we went to do it as ordered. the padeye available had a tag on it, stating that it was rated for a working load of 800 pounds. The motor, chain hoist, and associated equipment weighed in at 1100 pounds. I told the engineer that we could not get the lift done until we had better equipment and a stronger padeye installed. An hour later, a Chief showed up and put a new label on the padeye that read “Working load 1200 pounds” and then told us to do the lift anyhow.

This is why I tend to support Captain Crozier. The military is full of career ticket punchers who care more about their own careers than they do the lives of their subordinates. That is also why I don’t believe the people who say that cops or military will refuse orders to seize guns from citizens. They care more about their careers than they do your rights.

China begins drilling for oil in the South China sea, has the highest day’s production of natural gas ever, and begins large scale military movement, right when the Wuhan virus removes the US Navy’s chess pieces from the board. Amazing coincidence, almost like it was planned or something.

Instead of fixing the issue, fire the whistleblowers as an example of what happens to them. That way, no one will be tempted to do so again. It worked for the Chinese.

Biden, desperate to get back into the news after being pushed out by the Wuhan virus, is advocating for funding Iran’s nuclear program. 

In the past, I have pointed out that other countries do not count deaths the same as the US. For example, Australia only counts a death as being a homicide if someone is arrested and charged for the killing. If the killer dies before he can be charged, it doesn’t count as a homicide. In the UK, a death only counts as a homicide if someone is CONVICTED of the crime.

There are many areas where we see a discrepancy in statistical methods. For example, in the UK if an infant dies within 30 days of being born, that death counts as a miscarriage and does not add to their infant mortality rates. This is one of the reasons, perhaps the largest reason, that the UK has an infant mortality rate that is so much lower than the US.

In the case of the Wuhan virus, this issue rears its head again as we find out that France only counted a death as being caused by COVID-19 if the decedent died while hospitalized. Patients who died in a nursing home or at home don’t count. Until today, that is. Today, the French decided to add in the 884 people who had died in nursing homes. Those who have died at home presumably still do not count.

The point of all of this is that statistics are trash. Garbage in, garbage out.

Everyone I know that is from New York views rules as something to dodge, or something that doesn’t apply to them. The guy that I posted about here fled New York yesterday because two of his friends died of COVID. He is staying in Tampa and has plans to go deep sea fishing. My in laws are hanging out at a bar that is only open to a small, select group of regulars. They refuse to abide by any sort of social distancing.
Honestly, if any of them catch COVID I will not feel sorry for them.

I would assume that this is bad news for those who wish to ban guns.