I woke up at 9 and was at work by 10:30. I was training someone today, but in the classroom setting. I quickly grew bored of going over the ingredients of the drinks, and took her to the bar and let her watch the drinks being made. I then had her garnish the drinks and run them to the tables so she could learn table numbers.
Around 3, I left her to study for a few minutes and I walked through the kitchen. I heard someone yell “a guy at table 104 stopped breathing call 911!” I walked over to the table to find an elderly man slumped over in his chair. I turned to my manager and told him to grab me some gloves and got permission to treat the patient. Someone was on the phone with 911 and they instructed us to lay him on the ground. Someone came up and gave me gloves and directed people to assist me moving him to the ground. The man had a pulse, and was breathing normally, but was pale, cold to the touch and very diaphoretic (sweaty). We rolled him to his side as directed by the 911 dispatcher and someone went to cover him with a sweater because his body was cold. In a firm voice I told them to remove the covering as he was probably suffering from heat stroke. He remained unresponsive but I continued monitoring his vital signs and trying to wake him up until the fire department arrived. I gave one of the firefighters a short report on his vitals and the medical history we could obtain and then I casually walked away and went back to my trainee. The server who was helping the table was visibly upset, thinking it was somehow his fault for serving the man alcohol, but there was nothing he did wrong. I finished working with the trainee and went up to the front as the medics were placing an iv in the man’s arm and carrying him out on the gurney. My managers were coming up to me shaking my hand saying I was a hero, people were crying, some of the girls hugged me thanking me for what I did. I really didn’t do much to be honest. I have been in that situation probably a thousand times, it was just second nature for me.
It took about 15 minutes from the time the medics left until I started with the jokes. “We weren’t very busy today, you could say the restaurant was… dead”. “Don’t seat 104, that table is haunted.” The server who was helping the table was in the back still upset, I went back and sat in front of him, and in my best Good Will Hunting voice I said “it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault.” One person got the joke and had to walk away to keep from laughing out loud. I have developed a dark humor from being an EMT for so long, I have to be able to laugh at terrible things or they will eat me up inside.
I stared my night shift at 4 and quickly became tired. It was moderately busy, but nothing I couldn’t handle. It was still unbearably hot. One hour before closing I had a party of 10 sit down, they ended up leaving $10 on an almost $200 tab. I rushed to get out of there as I had been there for almost 13 hours. I left at 11:30 and went home to unwind and watch Netflix.