One of the devices that Fisher & Paykel manufacturers is the CPAP device for Obstructive Sleep Apnea. My job has been to make reports about devices that aren't working properly. This past week, I finally got a chance to see the devices in use.
Thursday night I went to Auckland Hospital to visit the Sleep Lab. It was a good experience to see how people get tested for Sleep Apnea, and to see the changes in their breathing when they are put on CPAP...
This was the first time that I had driven by myself in New Zealand. I've driven several times, but never had to drive AND navigate. I got lost trying to find the hospital, not a big surprise, and ended up driving all around Auckland. We were supposed to be at the hospital between 7 and 7:30. I made it to the parking lot around 7:15, thinking "I'm late- Janet (my co-worker who was also visiting the Sleep Lab that night) has been here since 7 and everyone is going to be irritated." Turns out, Janet was just getting out of her car when I pulled in... She had gotten lost too. So it isn't just me- the hospital is hard to find!!
So I watched several people get hooked up for the sleep study. They use so many different sensors! It is kind of a creepy job- watching people sleep and periodically listening to people snore, but people seem to feel a lot better once they get therapy for their sleep disorders. We watched people sleep and learned how they diagnose Sleep Apnea and set CPAP pressures. The first patient got titrated by about 11:30 at night, so we were excused to go home. Janet and I walk to the parking lot and get into our cars. We went to floor 1, 2, 3... Couldn't find the cars. Didn't make sense because we only drove up one story before parking! We check the 4th floor, no car. Can't be on the 5th floor- that's the last button in the elevator, and we weren't on the roof. Turns out ground floor is actually the 4th floor and we DID park on floor 5 and the roof doesn't have an elevator button. Time to go home and sleep before work the next day!
WRONG!
Just as I'm pulling out, I see Janet walk up to my window... Dead battery. Janet and I start asking people for jumper cables, but there weren't that many people out and the people that were out didn't have jumper cables (or they were leaving the hospital late at night and "didn't have" jumper cables).
We find a guy who is parked nearby and ask him for cables. He doesn't have any... In fact, he is currently breaking into his car because his keys are locked inside. (Shady story, but later a security guard was helping him, so it must have been legit.)
We decided to go back into the hospital and ask security. He called the security cars, but they didn't have jumper cables. He recommended going outside and asking the police. So we go back outside and, lucky us, a tow truck is driving by! We ask the tow truck driver for jumper cables. He tells us that the police officers are waiting for him, but if we follow him across the parking lot, we can borrow his cables to jump start the car. He drives off and we follow him. Turns out a car drove off of the road, through the guard rail and down to the bottom story of the parking structure, about 4 stories down. The fence that divides the road and the parking structure is bent up and knocked over and there is a red car sitting on its roof. The cops and tow truck driver were pretty much just standing around talking. No one told us to go away, so we stood around and looked at the fence and the car too. We realized the tow truck driver wasn't going to help us, so we started walking back to the car. Of course, it started to rain about this time.
Finally, we find a guy in scrubs leaving the hospital. He says he has jumper cables, but we quickly find out he really doesn't want to help us. As we walk to the parking lot, he asks every person that we see if they have jumper cables. He is asking what side of the car the battery is on because he has short jumper cables and they might not reach. No one else has cables, so he ends up helping us. The cables reach and the car starts. We figure he'll be upset if he knows we have a second car, even though we didn't have any jumper cables, so we tell him we'll let the car run a minute to warm up. All of a sudden, he decides to be helpful and says we should just go and he'll follow us out to make sure that the car runs okay. So I get in the car with Janet and we drive around the parking lot to show him that the car works, and then we turn around and Janet brings me back to my car.
I made it home without getting lost and made it in to work by 8 am the next morning.
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