Do y'all remember the episode "Nusiance" where Roy is paired with Craig Brice, (aka "the Walking rule book") Johnny is hospitalized after being hit by a car. Roy and Brice go on a rescue, and Brice tells the victim something, that upsets him and his wife, and it makes the victim's condition deteriorate. Roy, the compassionate paramedic covers, and says they do that to everybody, hoping to put the couple at ease. After the rescue, he reprimands Brice for upsetting the couple. I never liked Brice, he was trying to be so perfect, that he forgot how to be human. I'm all for honesty, but brutal honesty, when someone is having a heart attack, and the hysterical wife.
I wouldn't want someone like Brice working on me.
He'd scare me to death--literally. I'd prefer Johnny and Roy's TLC to Brice's cold clinical persona. Brice isn't human. Sometimes, at times like that, I'd forego a little honesty, and fudge the truth a little bit, so as not to upset the patient or family, especially if they get hysterical and freak out.
If I"d been there, of course back then I was just a kid, I would've taken the wife to the kitchen to let the men work, and gather the necessary information from her on her husband's medical history, and condition, and all that to give to the paramedics so that they could relay it to Rampart, then I'd give the woman a paper bag, and
have her breathe into it so as to help her get breathing back to normal, when she starts to hyperventilate.