I’ll get back to reader questions next month, so keep them coming. This month, Ol’ Bullethead is gonna take off on a rant like a motor cop chasing a drunk speeder.
Some background: A few months back, my team wanted to go to a convention that deals with our specialty. My boss told me I could attend and bring one operator. I fought with him to let the whole team go. His position: We are a resource to the department and the city so we will not send the whole team out of town for a convention. He won, so I sent two operators and stayed back with the rest of the team. We were busy all week—so he was right.
Additional background: I have never—until now—been off for a work-related injury. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had more than my share of cuts, scrapes, sprained ankles, tweaked backs, twisted knees and all the other things we deal with, but nothing that actually took me away from work.
This time, though, I finally got an injury that put me down for a bit. Right about the time we found a hiding suspect, one of our K-9s decided I looked like the bad guy. That SOB of a dog blindsided me and took a deep hold on my left arm. He immediately started a violent shake. I fed him my arm to prevent the shaking and the son-of-a-gun reattached even deeper. We got the suspect, but I took the bite.
The K-9 left the bottom of my arm shredded to the bone and the top and side of my arm with about 10 deep punctures and tears. My thumb wasn’t and isn’t working correctly. The ER doc (apparently not familiar with dog bites) did me a “favor” to help with scarring and stitched me up (as if my ugly old gnarled ass minds a few more scars). That caused an infection, and I ended up back in the hospital a few days later and had to stay for a few.
Through all of this, I’ve been working with our city HR people to get treatment and back to work quickly. Boy has that ever been a treat! My first call to HR was the day after the injury. Upon explaining what was up, the lady told me I needed to immediately head to our Industrial Injury Clinic to see a city doctor. I drove the 40 minutes to the clinic, where the doctor told me to come back the next day for an infection check. I explained to the doctor about my thumb not working and he pretty much ignored me.
I returned the following day and saw the same doctor. He said my arm looked fine and should heal quickly. Mrs. Bullethead thinks he added to the infection I was about to get by not changing gloves and touching all sorts of nasty things in between dealing with my injury.
I explained again about my thumb, a few times, and he finally listened and rung the emergency bell and sent me to another doctor. This doctor also said I was doing fine and scheduled me for another appointment the following week.
The next day there was pus oozing from a number of my cuts and my arm was swollen from my shoulder to my fingers. Back to the hospital with a new doctor. This guy pulled the stitches and squeezed my arm until all the pus was out—that felt pretty nice! A few days and gallons of IV antibiotics later, the infection was gone and I had a new treating physician.
Back to HR. They immediately denied the new doctor—the only one who actually helped me so far—and sent me back to the city doctor. Good plan. If we ran operations that way, they would fire the whole department and have the county sheriff’s office take over service to the city.
Eventually, the city doctor prescribed physical therapy to get me back to work with a working thumb. I waited a few days and didn’t hear anything from anyone. I started firing off emails to HR and discovered the entire Industrial Injury section was away—at a convention. I laughed out loud for fighting with my boss. I’m trying to heal and get back to work and the people with the power are out of town. My paperwork sits on a pile somewhere while the Industrial Injury people party it up in Vegas or wherever.
Needless to say, this whole incident has been an eye-opener. Service has a new meaning now. Being there to help those who need us is important and may be life-changing, including taking the time to explain our procedures, being professional and courteous and always remembering we are all here to be resources to those we serve.
