Personal Narrative: Emergency Assumptions

Emergency Assumptions
What did the heroin addict say to the EMS crew? Nothing. His shallow breathing, constricted pupils, tongue discoloration, muscle spasms, low blood pressure, and disorientation prevented him from telling us he obviously overdosed. Whether I’m transporting elderly fall victims, responding to calls for a man having a seizure in a tree, or overdoses of any kind, my job requires me to make a lot of assumptions. I always try to get as much information as possible but sometimes as much as possible isn’t much.
For the vast majority of my life, I have wanted to be in a medical profession. Excluding the time I wanted to be a pop star, emergency medicine has always captivated me. So much so that in my senior year of high school I obtained my AEMT certification and had planned on becoming a paramedic, later to become interesting in nursing. I worked with a company called Gold Cross in both Albert Lea and Rochester Minnesota.
During the time when I was obtaining my AEMT I had to attend clinicals in Rochester. A clinical is pretty much training for what you will be doing on the job with a person called a preceptor. I

Being newly 18 and despite knowing the information, I really hadn't had much hands-on practice. To my surprise, my preceptor turned to me and said “What do you do?”. I panicked. What do I do? It was a good possibility that this could be a life or death situation. I then had to rely on my assumptions and observations. I observed the man and quickly noticed needle marks up and down both arms, blue skin, small pupils, and respiratory distress. All signs of opioid overdose, I turned back to my preceptor and responded accordingly. She helped me administer .4 mg of naloxone; a drug that almost immediately reversed opioid overdose effects. The man immediately began to stabilize and started to come to. He was able to walk himself the ambulance when minutes before he was unconscious and