Talented people of reddit kindly create a truly motivational weight loss poster.
More than a year ago this image : http://imgur.com/mYt7J.gif motivated me to successfully and permanently quit smoking. Two months ago I finally started the battle against obesity, a much more daunting challenge since I have been fat since childhood. So far I have lost 30 'easy' pounds but I have another 100 pounds left to go, that's why I would appreciate a genuine motivational poster like the 'stop smoking' one.
Final edit : http://www.reddit.com/user/InAFewWords/submitted/ has created http://i.imgur.com/p4fhv.jpg upvote the thread at : http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ctq62/hey_redditor_who_asked_for_a_poster_for_fitness/
Posted Jul 25, 2010, 1:34 PM UTC · edited
473996
I'm no good with Photoshop, but I can tell you about the last full arrest I ran as an EMT. In short, the woman died because she was too fat. I don't mean that's why she went into full arrest-- I mean she ultimately died because we were unable to give her the treatment she needed due to her weight. We couldn't intubate her because no one could put enough force behind the laryngoscope to lift up the bulk of her lower jaw and throat. We couldn't get an IV because there was too much fatty tissue between her skin and her veins, so we couldn't give her drugs.
The family sat in the next room in shock while we flailed on this poor woman for about two hours, waiting for enough personnel to respond so we had the manpower to get her into the ambulance. It then took us another 30 minutes to move her outside. At the hospital, a mini-rescue from the city fire department had to meet us there so we had the manpower to pull her out. The docs met us in the ambulance bay; they didn't even bother waiting until we transfered her to a hospital gurney before calling out the time of death.
At the autopsy, it was discovered that she died of a simple pneumothorax, something that is very easy to treat. If she had weighed even 250 pounds, we could have saved her.
Good luck.
This comment is unrelated to the thread. I just want to thank you and all the other EMTs for what you do. An EMT saved my sister's life a few years ago when she OD'd. I consider myself pretty tough spirited, but I couldn't do what you guys do day after day.
Firefighters too. Pretty much all public servants except certain police officers. Not that I don't appreciate and respect officers for what they do, it's just that it's much easier for them to become corrupt assholes than it is for an EMT or firefighter.
Firefighter here. Thanks. :)
Oh, fuck you lazy commie motherfuckers sitting around the firehouse getting paid overtime and building up big fat socialist pensions for playing cards and AHHHHHHHHHH FUCK MY APARTMENT BUILDING IS ON FIRE OH FUCK OH FUCK HELP SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING FIRE I'M ON FIRE BRB
Thank you :)
Fuck yeah firemen.
Whenever I'm drunk I end up walking past the firestation and having a big chat with the firemen who sit out the front of the station waiting for a call. I bet if I walked past a police station drunk I'd be arrested and have my civil rights violated.
FUCK YEAH FIREMEN
thank you <3
Awesome...my father-in-law is a retired firefighter and it is unbelievable what he has done for other people in his lifetime. Thanks for everything you do!
What's your extinguishing-to-xbox ratio, timewise? ;)
Thanks for all your sacrifices.
PFFT!
hah! the second part of the clip was amazing. "you put on two pair of pants!"
no. it is not irrelevant and thank you for sharing, these stories are always valuable and welcome in any discussion because they bring us back to looking at the big picture and at life in general. at least that's how i see it i have my doubts maybe i'm superficial.
I am glad your sister made it through.
Thank you. She od'ed on a month's worth of antidepressants and was in an induced coma for two weeks. While I have nothing but praise for you EMTs, I have some other words for some of the hospital nurses and doctors. She came out with no lasting physical injuries and is doing great now.
Thank you. as volunteers, we dont always get any kind of thanks. so this means a lot even though its from a stranger on the internet. im happy your sister got a second chance :)
You volunteer? I thought emt's got paid. I'm tempted to go back and find the woman who saved my sister and comforted my mother during the worst moments of her life and give her something really nice.
One of our family friends told us a story about this morbidly obese (like 500 lbs) guy who needed an MRI or something, but wouldn't fit in the machine. They tried everything. He was too fat for an ultrasound too. Finally, she ended up calling the local Zoo to ask to use their elephant MRI machine. They laughed, told her they got prank calls like that at least once a day, and to not call again. The guy is still undiagnosed.
This sounds like an episode of Grey's Anatomy.
I think it actually IS an episode of House.
It's actually a scrubs episode.
There was a fat guy on House, and they fit him in the machine, and it broke.
No, in that episode they use the hospital's MRI and it breaks.
Didn't he have Lupis?
Yeah, tubby broke the MRI machine.
Also an episode of Royal Pains
Is that show still around? I watched part of a season of it, but I don't think I heard whether or not they were renewing it...
I can't even remember how long ago I watched it. Time is weird.
When I was in the Marines, one of my superiors had this big lard-ass, butterball wife. She was walking down the stairs, stepped wrong on the last step, and fell, breaking her leg in three places in the process. The reports of gravy pouring out remain unconfirmed.
Sounds like Marine humor to me.
Local news reported on a woman in Kansas City who claimed to have gone through this (she was 275 pounds at the time), but the report seems unverified.
FTFA:
This is in LA, and I think they wouldn't allow it either.
Hm, she probably could get to use the machine if she proved she was a medical doctor.
Every day? Sounds like they get a call from a hospital everyday. There are a lot of sick fat people that need MRIs, after all.
"I'm so high guys. You know what would be hilarious? Yeah! Call the zoo and say we're doctors that can't fit a fatty in our MRI! Can we use the elephant MRI you have?" I think I did that in high scool after graduating from "Is your refrigerator running? You better catch it!"
Most people are pretty much unaware that elephant MRIs exist.
About how much did she weigh?
626 pounds at the autopsy.
That's... almost four of me. Mind blowing.
Not even three of me...
Off to the gym!
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EMTs/Paramedics are not thanked nor paid enough for the work they do. PTSD pretty much comes with the job. Thank you for what you do. I'm looking at getting my EMT cert, but I am simply cannot stomach the idea of making it my job.
You can get your EMT cert and volunteer. That's what I do. You'd be amazed how much you can "stomach." When your training kicks in, all you're focused on is the next thing you need to do to get the patient to definitive care. I cannot recommend volunteering as an EMT enough.
How old do you have to be?
18 by the time you take the written test (there's a practical test as well.)
You can't everywhere alas (eg not in Toronto)
Sad but true. I believe volunteer EMS and Fire are limited to the United States.
Depending where you end up working, you may not see the truly grisly stuff on a day-to-day basis. I'm with a private ambulance company, and virtually everyone starts out running GT/interfacility calls, which involve generally stable patients; working on a 911 unit requires additional training. Will you encounter something that's difficult to deal with working GT? Probably at some point, but the vast majority of the calls you'll go on are very routine.
And injuries from the job: I have a friend with ongoing back problems from his time as an EMT. He's a big strong guy, was carrying an obese man in cardiac arrest down a staircase with other EMTs (one or more, I'm not sure.) Something happened, my friend messed something in his back, and it put him in a wheelchair for a few months. I'm not sure if the fat man lived or not.
How old was she?
I believe she was in her mid-40s.
::Please don't read this as criticism, but as curiosity in extreme cases::
Wouldn't the pneumothorax be relieved by "stabbing" a trochar into the chest along the side of the ribcage? Even if you couldn't get intubated or an IV, would an opening into the thoracic cavity take her from needing critical care to needing supportive care (or at least buy some time before she was critical again)?
I didn't read it as criticism. =)
In the field that day, we had no way of diagnosing her pneumothorax. We got called for a woman in full arrest. When we got there, our initial concern was restoring her heartbeat and respirations. We never got past that point. If we had been able to establish a definitive airway (getting a tube into her lungs) we might have been able to listen to lung sounds and realize that she had a pneumo, but we were stuck using a bag-valve mask and could barely get air into her lungs. The call was a clusterfuck from beginning to end because every effort we made was frustrated due to her sheer bulk, but legal ramifications (and an asshole of a Med Control doc) forced us to continue.
TL;DR Ideally, yes-- but this call was as far from ideal as one could get.
Good answer. After I posted I realized that you probably couldnt have made that dx anyways, but it was more of a medical pondering than a logistical one. I can only imagine how frustrating something like that would be...
If that isn't motivation enough, I don't know what is.
Kudos to you and your line of work ma'am
It's not my line of work per se (I'm a volunteer) but thank you.
Double Kudos for being a volunteer
Your hospital is going to get sued. Thats how the world works.
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Ok correction: thats how America works
Why would anyone get sued? We (the ambulance and rescue crews) did everything in our power to save her. By the time we got her to the hospital, she had been clinically dead for at least 2.5 hours. There's no coming back from that.
Spread that message everywhere you go. Fat people need to be told that they become somewhat of an island (metaphorically, but also literally if they're floating in the ocean) when they choose to stay fat. When they drift too far from the normal size of other humans, the healthcare available for them greatly narrows. However, that said, I don't cry over morbid obese people dying. They're wasting their lives, and overall it's good that they're no longer wasting resources.
I was with you until the last two sentences. Human life is valuable no matter how fat you are, just because they eat a lot doesn't make them worth more or less than anyone else.
agreed. =)
None of us are perfect, for example, you can kind of be an asshole.
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