So, how could last night have been worse than the night before?

For a start, four hours of sleep.

That's how.

Then, a similar mass of patients, and then throw a serious shooting in on top of that.

The shot guy was interesting. He'd been shot in the mouth, with the bullet lodging in the base of his tongue... this is the only wound reported to us by the ambulance crew. On a hunch, the doc wanted me to take a chest film too... and his left lung was deflated, the cavity was full of blood. A second bullet (or maybe the first...) had entered below his shoulder blade, into the lung, barely missed his heart and great vessels and stopped at his right rib cage.

He's one lucky SOB... like the doc said, he must be scum, that bullet would've killed a good person... the track was below the aortic arch, between the heart and the aorta. The angle had to be just right, not off more than a degree, to do this without killing him.

Once again, this didn't stop the routine work that had to be done... only tonight, I didn't really have any excuse for calling my backup in... I never got caught up, but I was always just one patient away...

The bronchitis is at me full on now, too... I was hoping to get the antibiotics in time, but I guess not.

I'm off to try to sleep. More tomorrow...