Not a leg to stand on.

We got called out for a non-emergency lift assist. Basically, a "I've fallen and I can't get up" call. No lights, no sirens, it should have been simple. However, the first thing we encountered was that the front door was locked. I was able to communicate with the patient through the door as the rest of the crew looked for another way in. Fortunately they found the back slider unlocked. Unfortunately they also found a large wasp nest right over the door. We slowly opened the slider and the firefighter ducked in. He then went and unlocked the front door for the rest of us.


When I walked into the house I immediately had to start breathing through my mouth. It had the overpowering and undeniable smell of necrotic tissue, neglect, and decay. Our patient was sitting on the floor in front of her lounge chair (where I think she lives most of the time) wearing only a very large, over-sized t-shirt. Her legs, from the knees down, were black, pitted, and looked on the verge of rotting. My captain stated later, that it looked like you could scrape off a half inch of flesh from her legs and she wouldn't notice or feel a thing. She had called because she didn't have the strength to get herself back in the chair and not for any medical care. My captain asked her if she was sure she was OK because her legs didn't look good. She shrugged that off and said she was fine and just needed help into her chair. When asked, she said she was over 300 pounds but I think she might not have weighed herself in a while because she felt closer to four. We wound up using a tarp with handles under her and all three of us lifting just to get her lying half way on the chair. We had to readjust, re-grip, and lift again to get her all the way into the chair. We then had her lean one way and then the next to get the tarp back out from under her. We put back the furniture we had moved to accomplish our task and returned to quarters.

I don't know if that smell had penetrated my shirt or my nose or what, but I kept getting phantom/memory smells of that leg. Perhaps it is some form of olfactory post traumatic stress disorder. I wound up taking a shower and changing my clothes, hoping that that would take care of it and finally put an end to the call that kept on giving.