Hey I just met you, and this is crazy

But you're about to call your spouse without thinking through what to tell them.

In EMS we see this all the time.

Someone will suffer an illness or injury and, before we can even get them transferred to the cot, they whip out the phone and call someone.  Sometimes they'll cry, other times they may be slurring a few words here and there, other times they call the hubby in Africa to report my assessment findings but it goes something like this:

"I'm being taken in the ambulance.  No I don't know where, no I don't know what's wrong.  Here, talk to the EMTs."

Then I hang up the phone, set it down and wait for it to ring again.

Trying to keep patients off the phone is a challenge sometimes, they're so nervous and want their family members to have all the information immediately, even before much of it is determined.

Anytime I see a phone come out I caution folks "Why don't we wait to call until we know what to tell them?" as I slowly remove the phone from their grasp.

At the airport I have the added buffer of a built in delay.  I can add "Hey, they think you're on a plane for the next three hours.  Plenty of time to figure out what's going on and what to tell them."


On a recent job the passenger was not amused that they were asked to leave the plane for taking their shirt off.  He only wanted to "get more comfortable" and the airline decided to call 911 to have him removed.  EMS and PD convince him to stand and walk and the odor of alcohol told us this assessment would get...interesting.  As we're walking to the seating area, still in the jet bridge, he decides to start a video call with his mother, who is apparently hard of hearing because they're shouting at one another.

He's upset they won't let him fly, she's upset they won't let him fly and mom wants to talk to me about what's going on. "We don't even know yet, he'll call you right back." and I pressed the little red circle.  Handing the phone to the officer I told the passenger that he can have it back when we're done because it became a distraction.

Keep them off the phone until we know what's going on.  This guy was about to take a 5 hour flight and could have called mom in an hour after sobering up a bit.  Instead she got a shirtless call from her slurred word son half stumbling up a jetway as Paramedics and Police tried to convince him to hang up.

I doubt this was the first time mom has gotten that kind of call if you know what I mean.