How much fun is my job? This much fun!

Just a pic of how much fun I had at work last night. An altered mental patient bit my upper right arm just inside and above my elbow. Fortunately he bit through two layers thick fleece, my sweatshirt and my jacket otherwise he would've taken a chunk out of my bicep because he was serious. Spend several hours at the hospital doing paperwork for insurance, worker's comp, blood work, tetanus booster and an amoxicillian prescription just in case cause human bites are seriously nasty - worse than animal bites. Seriously, retirement can't come soon enough some days.

It took 7 adult males to hold him down while I argued with the ER for sedation orders. We have medical protocols here that are still 1980 and "they" don't feel comfortable allowing us "peon" field morons make these type of decisions- like knowing when a 220 lbs top physical condition adult male who is currently out of his mind for medical reasons needs to be sedated in the field. Otherwise this type of patient tries to kick our collective asses while we (paramedics, firefighters and police) have to humanely restrain them without causing them permanent harm. Nevermind this same patient would be sedated immediately in the ER by the same Dr if this happened in the ER. But apparently us -der- paramedics are too stupid to know when to use this appropriately.

That's a big reason why the public sees recordings of police and medics 'ganging up' on 'helpless' persons in the media and it's assumed that public safety persons are using excessive force. (not that it's never happened, unfortunately) But many services are not allowed to use medical sedation, such as valium, to control persons that are out of control and willing to harm themselves and others because Dr's and government agencies are afraid to get sued (rightfully so) therefore they rely on good old fashion football dog piles and physical restrains to control these patients. (Because the admins don't have to do it, they leave it to the moron field crews!) However, this takes several adults per 1 adult patient to do the job without causing undue harm to the patient and avoid receiving harm themselves. And it's a major pain in the ass! This job is not for the old and I'm feeling more every year.