Your biggest patient

[12R34Y]

the "big folk" ambulance thread got me to remember some of my fonder morbidly obese calls..............

My personal best: 850 lb code blue in bedroom of tiny house. We shocked him once since he was in V-fib, but went to asystole and we stopped almost immediately. unless he was going to get up and walk to our ambulance we weren't going to be able to help him. called med control and they okayed it. Couldn't get an airway (his man breasts were literally covering his face on each side)...........compressions were useless...........took 2 engine companies and a ton of cops to get him out and to the morgue.

They had to cut out one side of the bedroom wall around a window.....push him onto a tarp and a firetruck pulled him into the front lawn and from there i don't know how they got him to the funeral home/morgue...........i was long off shift.

worst part was that it was Christmas morning.

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[oudoc08]

We have a lady that we haul fairly routinely that tops 800lb.
Had to go last week to her house, dreading it all the way, until one of our dispatchers called to let us know that we were going on her 120 lb husband instead. I think I'm going to nominate that dispatcher for emp. of the year, as she could have just let us sweat all the way there.

 

[DSM]

There was one guy who was so big that his friends would put him in the back of a pick up truck and bring him to the hospital.

One day he broke his femur just walking across his yard.....we had to slide him on the ER table mattress onto the floor of the ambulance and that is where he rode the 100 miles while being transferred to a hospital that could take care of him!! I took ten of us to slide him in the ambulance......I am not really sure how much he weighed....750 to 850 poundds.

 

[Apollyon]

Originally posted by 12R34Y
My personal best: 850 lb code blue in bedroom of tiny house. We shocked him once since he was in V-fib, but went to asystole and we stopped almost immediately. unless he was going to get up and walk to our ambulance we weren't going to be able to help him.

We had a code like that, but she wasn't 800lbs - prob around ~400 or so. But the house was strewn with garbage, she was on the second floor, and I could not tube her. Moreover, neither me nor my partner could find a vein, so I called my medical control and said that we were screwed either way - BLS in house, or HUGE extrication time out, where she would be unsalvagable anyhow. The doc agreed with me, and that was the only BLS-code 'em and call 'em I've ever run.

 

[NontradICUdoc]

about 7 bills. It took 2 ambulance crews, and an engine company to get him from his bed, of course on the second floor, to the ambulance. Then another crew at the hospital to get him out of the ambulance and onto the hospital bed.

A nurse got a whiff of his moldy crotch and puked on the floor. He died the next day.

 

[EMT036]

Originally posted by Apollyon
We had a code like that, but she wasn't 800lbs - prob around ~400 or so. But the house was strewn with garbage, she was on the second floor, and I could not tube her. Moreover, neither me nor my partner could find a vein, so I called my medical control and said that we were screwed either way - BLS in house, or HUGE extrication time out, where she would be unsalvagable anyhow. The doc agreed with me, and that was the only BLS-code 'em and call 'em I've ever run.

Yeah had one like that... 750lb guy coded on his couch, surrounded by at least 20 Burger King bags.... (in his trailer.) Have never been so happy to see lividity and rigor....

 

[Robz]

Originally posted by EMT036
Yeah had one like that... 750lb guy coded on his couch, surrounded by at least 20 Burger King bags.... (in his trailer.) Have never been so happy to see lividity and rigor....

Thats one "whopper"

ok...I'm leaving now that I realize how bad that joke was.

 

[PluckyDuk8]

We had a guy that was at least 600 pounds- but we took him from a nursing home and luckily they had a crane type swing contraption that moved him from the bed to the cot and back. We had a second crew meet us at the nursing home and at the doctor's office to help get him into the ambulance and out. Plus the fact that I weigh 110 pounds and couldn't provide that much help...Sometimes I think my dispatcher was on crack (even though no matter what it would have taken two crews, I just found it ironic that they gave the call to the smallest person on shift).

 

[bandaidsNhoses]

I had a guy once, came in as an 'uncon' to the medics and the dispatcher was like: "yeah lemme know if you need assistance as per the text" (on the MDT). The medics go onscene and radio back: "definately". So they send my BLS bus there and there's the 2 crews and 2 cops: 6 of us staring at this guy. He was a brand new admit to the the nursing home, they didn't even get to weigh him yet and he was in sepsis/APE. The cops ask if we wanna call another RMP and we say no, we're skipping straight to an engine company. Mind you this guy is at least ~700-800 and overflowing off the hospital/nursing home stretcher. We lowered his bed as close as to the ground as possible to our stretcher, it took 10 of us: 4ems, 2pd, 4FF's groaning just to slide him over, and again loading into our bus, which not withstanding, kinda leaned to one side...

 

[beanbean]

We had a gentleman who weighed somewhere in the 400's with major pulmonary issues and thus was a frequent flier. Two things made the situation worse. He lived in a house on a steep hill and the only way to the front door was a narrow set of stairs. He could not be tx'd supine due to his resp.issues - he would start thrashing around if he wasn't sitting upright. We would have to go out the back door and down the grass hill. A nightmare! The other problem was he had a psoraisis-like scaly rash all over his body and due to his size he rarely bathed. Frightening! So not only was he heavy to lift, no one wanted to touch him to begin with. He passed away at the hospital a few years ago. Thank God he didn't code at home.

 

[trauma_junky]

Ya, it always sucks when you have to ground transport major trauma because your patient is so fat the physics of flying is impossible. Unless they have a chinook. Had a 600+ guy in an Izzue Rodeo. 1.5 hour extrication!

 

[Febrifuge]

Originally posted by beanbean
The other problem was he had a psoraisis-like scaly rash all over his body and due to his size he rarely bathed. Frightening! So not only was he heavy to lift, no one wanted to touch him to begin with.

The rash sounds nasty, and I wouldn't want to touch it either... but you know that actual psoriasis is harmless, right?

 

[beanbean]

Yes, I know. He didn't actually have psoraisis it just looked like it. I don't think his rash was infectious at all - just nasty looking. His infrequent bathing habit was the worst part.

I really feel for people who for whatever reason (physical or psychological) reach a point where they no longer can keep themselves clean. I think this guy just bascially didn't care anymore. He could hardly breath, was severely limited physically and was only in his 60's.

On the opposite end of the scale:

One of the most disturbing calls I ever did was for an end-stage anorexic patient. She was about 35 and hadn't seen a physicain for over 20 years. Her family had cared for her in their house and only called us the day she became unresponsive. It was unbelievable that her family had not forced her to seek treatment before this point. She could not have weighed more than 70 lbs. Anorexia is a horrible disease and so heart-breaking when the patient refuses help. However, this woman's health and her living conditions (the health department would have deemed the home inhabitable) was inexcusable given the family's refusal to seek hel[ for her.