Drama, drama, drama...three words that describe the last 18 hours of my life in the fire department.
I was working at Burtonsville station 15 yesterday on a worksub for 24 hours. Not too bad, especially since I got assigned to ride the engine. Most of the day was fairly uneventful, until about 2am. We got a call for a patient who was having trouble breathing. When some of the guys running the call with us saw the address, they immediately knew who this patient was; they had run a call involving him just yesterday (and I believe the day before, too). They mentioned that this was a very large man...over 300lbs. In fact, when the call was dispatched, we were told the patient weighed approximately 500lbs! I've run some large patients before, but nowhere near 500lbs. Yikes.
We got to the address and the apartment was in total shambles; furniture was piled up everywhere and there was a mountain of clothes covering the dining room table. The patient's wife met us as we came in and led us to the back bedroom, where sure enough, there sat a very large man on a chair. I don't know about 500lbs, but he was easily 350. He told us that his left foot was infected and very swollen. He had just taken some anti-biotics and feared that they might be causing his difficulty breathing. He had just been to the hospital yesterday and was extremely resistant to going back. After some reasoning from one of our medics and the captain, he decided to go back to the hospital. Compared to what came next, that was the easy part. Now we had to figure out how to get him out of there.
When the Burtonsville crew ran him the other day, they got him to walk to the ambulance. Because of the pain in his foot, that wasn't happening tonight. So we called our communications center and requested that our station's truck company be dispatched to help us. We asked for them, one because we needed more manpower, and two because they had a special tarp with handles on it that could be used for moving a large man such as the one we had. They arrived, brought their tarp, and we proceeded with our plan. We laid him on the tarp and dragged him out of the apartment into the interior stairwell (Myself, the captain and one other man were able to drag him out to the living room. Thank you, Crossfit!). Once we got him into the stairwell, about eight of us grabbed all the handles of the tarp and carried him down to the cot (Thank you GOD we only had to go down one flight of stairs!). We had to special call an ambulance from Bethesda who had a cot specifically designed for extremely large patients. After some more moving, lifting and twisting, we got him onto the cot and into the ambulance. After we cleared the scene and made it back to the firehouse, I heard over the radio that another engine company and truck company were called to the hospital to help get the man out of the ambulance.
The whole time we were there, I felt several mixed emotions. How could this man let himself get so large? Didn't he know the danger he was putting himself and his family in? But I also felt sorry for him. He said himself that he knew he had a weight problem, and clearly he was not happy to be in the situation in the first place. I didn't know this man and I didn't know what circumstances led to him being that large. But I knew that he must have felt absolutely humiliated being drug out of his apartment like some dead animal because he couldn't move on his own. I can only imagine the embarrassment and shame he felt. In spite of the whole situation, he couldn't stop thanking us for helping him out. It was in that moment that I was reminded of why I took this job: to help others when they can't help themselves.
As we left the apartment, I said a prayer for that man and his family. May God give him whatever he needs to make a change for the better.
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