A blood sugar reading of 17 is very, very low. Anything below 80 is getting dangerous, and anyting abouve 240 is getting a bit high, with readings over 300 putting you in danger of ketoacidosis.
Don't forget, your blood sugar would be high because of insufficient insulin being available to transport the glucose into the cell for metabolism. In other words, your sugar is sky high because your cells are starving...they aren't getting the sugar inside the cell. This causes metabolism to switch to anaerobic, causing a buildup of all kindsa nasty stuff in the tissues, incuding high ketones and high levels of lactic acid. This builds up SLOWLY, over hours or days typically. The paramedic typically cannot reverse this in the field, since it requires graduated levels of insulin and fluids over the course of several hours. Tachycardia (rapid heart rate) occurs here as a result of dehydration, as the body tries to rebalance itself.
On the other hand, hypoglycemia of the extent you described (17 mg/dl) typically only occurs in a diabetic who has taken his insulin, causing him to burn his blood sugar off, but has not eaten to replace that sugar. Its characterized by rapid decrease in level of conciousness, irrationality, and falling unconcious. This occurs in minutes to a couple of hours. This is easily reversed in the field by the admistration of glucose by IV...the hard part is usually getting the IV, since these guys can fight like they're on PCP! A patient who is alert and talking, but who is also hypoglycemic, would typically be corrected orally (orange juice with a buncha table sugar mixed in).
The point is, absent further information, neither of these sounds like what you had going on. A sudden onset of a heart rate of 140, without strenuous exercise, is cause for concern, but I've seen anxiety attacks drive it higher. What did the medic give you IV? Was it valium or ativan to calm you down?
