Things I should have known

So funny and not funny story....

Last night I went to a dance with a bunch of friends at a town hall near our homes because everyone was on Spring break from school. Well at the dance there were 3 very intense strobe lights and one of my friends is on anti-seizure medication for past seizures.

Okay so temporary pause for a side note... Any of you that know anything about health care at all know that strobe lights are BAD BAD BAD for people who have had seizures because they can trigger them. In fact to test for epilepsy people are place in front of a strobe light to attempt to induce a seizure. Me and my friend, both EMT-B's failed to put this together.

So mean while bad at the dance... He was going in and out of the dance and smoked a few cigarettes with some of the other guys at the dance. After awhile he came back in and sat down on a chair because he felt funny. I saw him sit down and looked away and when I looked back he was on the ground actively seizing.

He seized for approximately 2-3 minutes. While he was seizing I was trying to loosen his tie and collar and protect his head. I had people call 911 and just stayed there next to him until he stopped seizing.

Once he stopped seizing he was laying there very tense with snoring respirations and I was trying to help him get a patent airway but he was so tensed it was hard to do. He slowly started to wake up and kept trying to stand up I had to physically hold him to the floor in a sitting position so he would not stand up. And as I kept trying to keep him calm and on the floor he kept trying to hold my hand because I was the only one close to him.

When the paramedics came they were trying to ask him questions and he just kept answering NO to everything no matter what the question was and mumbling incoherently. He almost freaked out when they tried to place O2 by non re-breather mask on his face. So they loaded us up in the ambulance and I got to sit in front and try to give them as much information as I could. Then I had to wait in the waiting room at the hospital. Which was heart breaking because he tried to motion me into the room as they we taking me past his room to wait.

Finally they let me in the room and we had some fun talking to various doctors, nurses, phlebotemists, and clerks. Until the doctor finally came in and we talked about strobe lights and how it probably set a seizure off.

In the midst of all of this me and my friend talked about different types of seizure and what had happened to him and the different stages of a seizure. So that he would understand. it also helped kill the time because we got there at 10pm and didn't get to leave until past 1230 am.

So lesson learned strobe lights are not a good idea for my friends.