Stay out of the left lane

I'm on call this weekend at Manatee Memorial Hospital for the cardiac cath lab. We were called in this morning for a STEMI alert (ST elevation myocardial infarction, heart attack, in layman's terms) around 9:45 am. I got ready really fast and was on my way in a flash. We are allotted 30 minutes to arrive at the hospital then the standard is 90 minutes from door to balloon time. That just means no more than 90 minutes can elapse from the time the ST elevation is seen on the EKG until blood flow is established in the blocked coronary artery by a balloon or stent that is advanced in the cardiac cath lab. That 90 minutes isn't usually a problem.

For me, the 30 minutes is the issue. Although I'm out the door in five or 10 minutes, I live 11.6 miles from the hospital. I don't know how it is where you live, but Florida drivers just don't understand the concept that the left lane of traffic is for passing, or at the very least, people going the speed limit or faster. What the heck are the octogenarians in their Monte Carlos; the tree trimmers hauling branches, leaves, and other yard debris; and the trucks transporting boats doing in the left lane? Makes for an interesting road trip to MMH for me when my stress levels are already over the top because time is of the essence, or as we say in the business, time is muscle.

According to the research, there's a heart attack happening every 34 seconds. I collected and analyzed the research, put it on a spreadsheet, extrapolated the information, and applied it to Bradenton, the city where I work, thus where Manatee Memorial Hospital and my restaurant are located.

Since there are 86,400 seconds in a day, a heart attack every 34 seconds means that there are roughly 25, 412 hearts occurring per day. Of those 25, 412 heart attacks, 7.5 should be occurring in Bradenton. Since there are 2 major hospitals in Bradenton, we should be seeing 3.75 heart attacks per day coming to our emergency room. I didn't count Lakewood Ranch Medical Center because that's our sister hospital.

I'm just not seeing those numbers. So, I can say unequivocally that Bradenton is a healthy place to live, except maybe for on-call staff who have to navigate the left lane of traffic with the octogenarians, yard waste haulers, and boat transporters. One of these days I fully expect that a thick branch will fly off the yard waste truck, turn into a harpoon, and if it doesn't come spiraling through my windshield pinning me to the headrest, at the very least, it will scare the crap out of me. This will cause a 47 car pile up because tail gating is a way of life in Florida. The Monte Carlo will be under the boat and there will be trees and leaves all over the place. My air bag will deploy and I'll be trapped in my Rav4. It will create Carmageddon and I won't make the 30 minute window for arrival to MMH for the STEMI.

Further more, upon more extrapolation and research, I discovered the really healthy people are the ones who eat at my restaurant because never has one of my customers also been my heart attack patient at Manatee Memorial Hospital.

You know what that means. You better get over to Carmella's Casa Italiana, just avoid using the left lane. Then all bets are off.