What are your greatest fears?

Spouse worked a ward above the ER, we collected (Or rather, she...) patients at any time day and night. Sleep hours are at the whim of the charge nurse in that facility. There are 20 Patients in one hall, 4 patients to one nurse. And 5 to one lessor nurse, CNA etc Eventually years later hospital cut down to one nurse every 6 or more patients to save money. The patients got warehoused like pallets stored far away alone.

The ER is a place where you can get really sick from the human trash that flow into the waiting room It's not like working on a traveler or trucker on the big road. This trash includes people who are not there because they need to be but rather drug seeking etc.

As far as EMT, you will have a whole county or city to care for 24/7 you wait in a ambulance bay facility certain periods of time. I recognized that it is very similar to waiting a half day to get loaded and then drive all night. No thanks.

Also, more serious hurt people who need EMT for gunshot etc, there are times the EMT has to sit behind police waiting for the bad guy to be taken out. Same with fire.

For me, I leave that to the younger generation who have the clarity and motivation to do a good job. They don't need a cranky old man telling them to stop worrying about the bleeding, there is more blood in bags. For example. Cheers.

 

In addition to the standard fears (intimacy, commitment and sasquatch), my biggest driving related fear is a head on collision in winter. That and getting my shirt cuff caught in an engine fan.

 

I tried to come up with fears related to the 18 wheeler and found I was generally too stupid to have very many. Losing fingers on the engine belts (Plural) was a real thought. But a minor one.

I think the worst for me was to get under my own rig with a peen hammer to beat frozen brakes loose in a winter storm up in Dakotas knowing when it begins to creak on that last one, get out or get mashed. It caught my foot but the thick snow was a salvation.

They also discovered I was the king of ice here in the south. Three inches of thick glass ice is fine with me. Guess what driver, go to Miss and get a load of bacon. I slept on the hill by the gate there with gusts of wind shoving the entire 18 wheeler towards that 3 foot ditch. I figured if it topples over it serves me right being that stupid. (It did not, I got the loaded and got out of there, slowly but surely)

 

Before this past month I haven't really had a big fear while driving. Stuff happens and I deal with it. I was asked to go to AK in Jan with a truck. I have been there before. All of the trips I have taken there have been in the winter. I have come to the realization that at some point if I continue to go up there my luck will run out and I have a good chance of wrecking the truck. I am not a person that likes to think about it like that but the last run I did up there I saw a pickup truck pulling a trailer roll over in front of me. All three people were ok. No major injuries. I stayed with them for about an hour for them to gather what the needed and could and then I drove them to the next available place. The roads were covered in ice. I like to think that I know how to drive but sometimes you just can't control everything.

 

Speaking of AK... if I ever get straightened out with these medical issues and have no family left Im going on that ice road. lol. It's literally the one thing we never got to do.

 

Their trucks up there are speced much different that most interstate trucks in the lower 48. Long wheel bases, lockers all the way around, they even have tires that switch out between summer and winter driving. That road is something else to drive on. I have only been on it for one trip and that was enough for me. My road ends at Fairbanks.

 

steering tire blow-out , I'm retired now , ran over 4 million miles without an accident , but that was always my biggest fear.

 

It takes 2 hands...to handle a WHOPPER

 

I worry that Disco is going to make a come back.

 

Now that's a scary thought right there....