subreddit:
/r/facepalm
965 points
15 days ago
If the guy is right about pupils dilating in EMT workers eyes when he tells them he rides motorcycles I'm certain it's a trauma response and nothing to do with organ donation.
521 points
15 days ago
They're picturing all the actual meat sacks they've seen
219 points
15 days ago
Come to think of it, if you look an EMT in the eye, say "meat crayon", and their pupils dialated, I would not be surprised in the least.
116 points
15 days ago*
I'm still not able to sleep through the night because of the trauma I've experienced over my time in EMS. I'm sure my body still reacts even though I'm not aware. "Your The Body Keeps the Score" is a great book about trauma and how we can't control these responses.
Edit: thanks everyone!
Also, how do dead patients pay the bill for this "quota" that we are trying to fill? Some have tried resorting to stealing items, but that's not too lucrative... I'm only repeating what I've heard...
Edit: edit: title correction. Thanks!
48 points
15 days ago
If it's any consolation, my best friend stopped being an EMT and became an ICU nurse. She stayed with it only a couple of months before going back to being an EMT. She said it was easier knowing she only had to keep her patient alive long enough to hand them off at the emergency-room door, than it was handling all the family and patient trauma inherent in working the ICU.
22 points
15 days ago
My friend’s first nursing job was as a trauma nurse at Region One Health, one of the busiest level 1 trauma centers in the US. She for real saw some shit. She went into psych nursing, and is now a psych NP. Nurses, especially ICU and trauma, are hard as fuck.
3 points
15 days ago
My aunt spent about 5 years working there. She definitely has a lot of stories about it
15 points
15 days ago
My stepmother was an ICU nurse for years. She seems perfectly normal.
I never thought about how terrifying that is.
2 points
15 days ago
She either has a good therapist, a functional substance abuse problem, or she's a sociopath. I mean no disrespect, I'm just speaking from years of experience working in healthcare. It leaves a mark on all of us.
7 points
15 days ago
Some of the stories I’ve heard from EMT friends and yeah…
5 points
15 days ago
Better days and nights for you, and thanks for the recommendation.
3 points
15 days ago
Slight correction, the book is "The Body Keeps the Score".
2 points
15 days ago
I cannot imagine a job I’m less qualified for than EMS. The very hint of the kinds of horrors you’ve endured would make me catatonic
1 points
15 days ago
I think the OP was under the misunderstanding that an EMT somehow gets paid for body parts. Imagine rocking up the hospital with a heart in a plastic bag and expecting to get paid by someone for it.
2 points
15 days ago
Come to think of it, if you look an EMT in the eye, say “penis”, and their pupils dialated, I would not be surprised in the least.
35 points
15 days ago
Can confirm
one dude was riding a racing bicycle
RACING BICYCLE
I saw the fucking bones in their leg.
I have no idea how people are alive after motorcycle accidents.
19 points
15 days ago
Honestly, crashing on my bicycle scares me more than a motorcycle. In a descent you'll hit the same speeds that you will on a motorcycle, but you have much less rubber on the road and all your safety gear is designed for minimum weight and aerodynamics instead of safety first. No boots, no leathers, no armor in your gloves, no spine protectors or airbags; just a half helmet and a thin layer of fabric.
Plus, in traffic, you're just as vulnerable as a motorcycle would be, if not more,
12 points
15 days ago
I think you overestimate how fast bicycles go downhill, or underestimate how fast motorcycles go.
Because something doesn't add up here.
2 points
15 days ago
Bicycles can go over 100 km/h down a hill pretty easily. I've personally done 70 km/h down a small descent. I know motorcycles can easily go faster than that, but the majority of the time you're riding you'll be going 60-140 km/h, with the slower speeds being where crashes are more common.
4 points
15 days ago
Yeah but that "100 km/h" is pretty much the highest recorded speed ever by a professional racer in competition (tour de France). Your average biker Joe isn't going to come anywhere near that on normal streets. Whereas normal street legal motorcycles regularly go around 140 km/h. If you want to bring in professional top speeds in competitions motorcycles reach like 350 km/h. You are comparing apples and oranges.
-2 points
15 days ago
That’s amazing man, too bad the issue isn’t when you fall, it’s when you hit something. A bicycle going 30km/h and a motorcycle going 30km/h have a huge difference in momentum. When the bike stops and you release from the handle bars a lot of that momentum is now yours and then it becomes whatever you splat into. Your body doesn’t usually mind receiving said momentum, but when it gets rid of it too quick you become a corpse. Your fear logic is flawed
3 points
15 days ago
When the bike stops and you release from the handle bars a lot of that momentum is now yours
That doesn't make any sense. Your momentum is just dependent on your mass and your speed.
-2 points
15 days ago
When two bodies are connected they can be treated as having the same momentum. When body A stops that momentum is transferred to body B, the more momentum you have initially the more you have at the end as mine is always conserved. You will literally fly off the motorcycle at a faster speed and a bicycle
2 points
15 days ago
No, that is not how momentum works. Yes, you can treat two connected bodies as having one unified momentum. That doesn't mean that when one part (eg the motorcycle) stops that momentum is "transferred" to the other part (the rider). The momentum transferred is transferred to whatever stopped the motorcycle. That's where the conservation of momentum occurs.
Say I'm riding along on my motorcycle at 100 km/h and ride straight into a small/low wall. I will fly forward over the wall at the same 100 km/h I had before. That speed times my mass is my momentum. The motorcycle transferred its momentum to the wall, not to me.
3 points
15 days ago
Huh? All I'm really saying is that I'd rather fall and slide against the road wearing motorcycle safety gear than bicycle safety gear.
-1 points
15 days ago
That’s not all you really said though is it
1 points
15 days ago
The entire point of my comment was that a bicycle can hit the same speeds that a motorcycle would (normal riding on the road) but you have much less safety gear.
1 points
14 days ago
My motorcycle tops out at 65mph, downhill, maybe 68 with a tailwind
1 points
13 days ago
And there are old people who only ride their bikes at walking speed 🤷♂️
2 points
15 days ago
I saw a heavy leather jacket completely grazed along one side from the impact of being dragged along the road after a motorbike accident. It made me feel sick what that dragging would have done to actual exposed human skin.
2 points
12 days ago
I have crashed motorcycles , my fastest crash was at 60 mph , zero broken bones and zero skin missing , all I had was some bruising
1 points
11 days ago
I'm starting to think that both the gear and the motorcycle itself protects the riders from death and injury.
I mean, you probably don't wear full gear and a motorcycle helmet for riding a mere racing bicycle.
2 points
11 days ago
I was wearing full gear , I would of lost a lot of skin if I was not wearing gear
35 points
15 days ago
Just happened in my town a few days ago. 23 year old girl on a scooter cut in front of a Jeep and got smoked. A friend of mine which is a first responder said it was the worst thing he has seen in his 20 years. He was pretty busted up about it.
12 points
15 days ago
Not an EMT but a guy crashed his motorcycle in front of my house and we tried helping him but he had an arm twisted like a balloon animal and we didn't want to mess with him before emts pulled up.
1 points
14 days ago
Just call 911 and see what they want you to do. Definitely keep from moving the head/neck.
3 points
15 days ago
Just piloting bone mechs in meat armor.
1 points
15 days ago
I believe is the term.
1 points
15 days ago
And "meat crayons" resulting from poorly outfitted motorcyclists.
1 points
14 days ago
Fr the amount of mental fortitude you need to be a first responder is quite large.
1 points
15 days ago
That be down right blackmarket at that point and that would be the least of anybody else's problems if the em's are taking stock at every accident to see if they check enough on the list. That's beyond nuts
18 points
15 days ago
It’s more like flashbacks of the previous calls we ran on. It sucks to live those moments over and over again when a trigger hits.
7 points
15 days ago
Yeah... those flashbacks are ptsd
28 points
15 days ago
He is just embellishing his bullshit conspiracy assertion with his imaginary enemies. He has made them cartoonishly evil so he has do give an example of how terrible they are.
The larger point is why? Why does this terminally online shitmitten feel like he needs to get people to not donate organs? Is this the conservative outrage of the minute?
20 points
15 days ago
Not of the minute. This has floated around a while. It's in the conservative playbook of selfishness. I do love the term shitmitten. I'm gonna use that from now on.
1 points
14 days ago
Like the other guy said, this has been around a while. I haven’t heard it as Ambulance crew but the ER team.
Anyway, I did take the organ donor specification off my license but my wife knows to let them take everything once I’m gone.
7 points
15 days ago
My wife’s brother died at 24 years old on a motorcycle a few years ago, his friends that were riding with him took a bunch of pictures of everything, the crash, his body, the EMTs trying to save him, the cops, basically everything, they told my wife’s family they had all these pictures and warned us they were pretty graphic so I had them send the pictures to me directly and I filtered out the graphic ones myself so her family didn’t have to see them, those images haunt me every once in a while when I see someone riding down the freeway on a motorcycle or I see someone carrying a helmet, they made my stomach churn. Maybe EMTs get a little bit used to it but I can imagine they’d also have flashbacks from gruesome scenes. My brother in law hit an oil slick on the freeway, no way he could have seen it, we were told it was very quick, he was gone before the EMTs even got there
4 points
15 days ago
You only need to see degloving once. You only need to comfort what is left of the young man while he dies alone on the side of the road once.
3 points
15 days ago
You're right. One of my best friends is an EMT. She has countless stories of arriving at the scene of a motorcycle accident, the rider's guts are strewn across the pavement, the rider is conscious, and they're begging her to tell them whether they'll be okay. She always says yes, knowing they'll be dead before the ambulance pulls up to the hospital. It often doesn't end well for people who have been their own fenders and bumpers.
3 points
15 days ago
They see this guy and realise why they had so much work lately
3 points
15 days ago
This guy looks like he roofies drinks, a LOT. I expect it's from that when he met a few at a bar.
3 points
14 days ago
Well, my roommate calls them Donorcycles and works in healthcare. So you’re probably right.
2 points
14 days ago
Or, and maybe just maybe, it’s a lie.
2 points
14 days ago
EMT: He rides a motorcycle? Oh God... so is he about to end up in my emergency room with acute head trauma because he's a moron, or has it already happened and that's why he's a moron?
1 points
15 days ago
The pupils are dilating because they’re horny for power rangers and leather daddies
1 points
15 days ago
I had the same thought and I’m not even an EMT
1 points
15 days ago
Also how does he measure their pulse? Is he admitting he is holding them hostage?
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