Mobile healthcare

On standby in the market square, don't think my crewmate really expected the market to be on! Feel we should make use of our time and offer a discounted BUPA medical to local shoppers. Community service and fundraising, perfect!

Fixed!

Just had a text from a mate at work. M&S takeaway cappucino machine is fixed. It's been ages!

Normality has been restored to standby's in the town centre. All is well with the world!

Female fallen

We often get called to the elderly who have fallen, either getting in or out of bed. Limited mobility often results in difficulty getting back up after slipping to the floor. Most warden controlled flats, residential homes and nursing home have a no lift policy and this results in a call to the service for our assistance.

The other frequent call is to the drunk who has also fallen but their limited mobility comes from an excess of alcohol.

Tonight was my first combination job.

It came through as female fallen and the address was a block of warden controlled flats. So we expected a sweet little old lady who had slipped getting into bed, they always seem to have nylon duvet covers and nylon type nighties, not a good combination when you really want to avoid the slippiest material on earth!

On arrival, we did find a sweet old lady on the floor, but on bending down to examine her, I got this strong whiff of spirits!

When we enquired whether she had been drinking, she looked all innocent and stated she had no idea what we were talking about!

A quick look around her flat uncovered 2 bottles of brandy beside her tv chair, a brandy glass on the coffee table and an empty hip flask at her bedside!

Brilliant, 96 years old and drunk as a skunk!

We advised a glass for medicinal purposes was fine but could she try and keep it to one glass a night! Not sure she cared.

A good start to the day

You know when you have had a good job to start the day, by the mess left in the ambulance after dropping the patient off at hospital. This little disaster was created by treating a woman with chronic abdo pain, which turned out to be a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. We cannulated her, have met for nausea, morphine for pain, fluids for her low BP and several flushes. She went to theatres later that day.

Teenagers!

I have now reached that point in life when all the Police Officers look far too young, not only do I not know the lyrics to the songs being played on radio 1 but now have not heard of any of the artists.

It was bound to happen eventually and I accept it in good grace. Despite the signs of advancing years, I still do consider myself hip and trendy, able to relate and communicate with the modern youth. Had that one shattered last night.

Called to a 16 year old who had slit her writsts. Now I do actually have a vague idea about what is going through the mind of teenagers, I was one once. Do appreciate the whole, the world hates me thing and life is too much to cope with thoughts that rattle around your head at that age.

This call was beyond my undertanding though. On arrival at the address we were met by a young girl who was the patients friend. She informed us that her mate was getting ready upstairs and would be down shortly. We were not allowed in as her parents were asleep and they would go mad if we woke them up.

I pointed out that as she had seen fit to call an emergency vehicle at 3am, they would understand, also I had no intention of examining her mate in the front garden! This prompted the usual teenage response 'Fine then, you don't care that I am going to get into trouble, I hate you!'
When her friend finally came downstairs, I found her to have hesitation cuts to both wrists and the right one was still bleeding slightly. I patched this up and then told her she needed to go to hospital, more to understand why she did this in the first place. I then got the whole story, I won't bore you with the details but it seemed to boil down to the fact that her neighbour had accused her of having a party whilst her parents where away and it's so unfair!

As we were leaving, she asked her friend to come with her, at this her mate launched into this stream of abuse about how as she is into self harm and this suicide attempt is only a way of pinching her thing! 'you only did this because I do it and you want to copy me, it's my thing to cut myself and you are just a copycat!'

They then proceeded to have this huge row about it. Aaaargh! Teenagers!

Welfare Check

Continuation from previous post.

As I walk into station, exhausted and looking forward to a cuppa, the phone rings in the office.

It's my first welfare check.

Control want to know, given the last job, am I OK?

I am reassured that with only 15mins left of our shift, we will not be sent out again and can grab a cup of tea without being interrupted.

How very kind of them!

As the kettle goes on the crew taking over from us arrive and that's when we have chance to deal with the feelings from the RTA in the usual Ambulance way. We tell them all that has happened and start complaining about everyone else who was at the scene, taking the piss out of anyone who remotely deserved it.

The saddest story so far

John and Rita have been to Las Vagas to celebrate John's 70th birthday.


They have always wanted to travel abroad and never ventured further than the occasional trip to France on the ferry. John is particularly excited to go as he always wanted to try the slots in the famous casinos.


Their children are now grown and left home and they finally have the funds and more importantly, the excuse to go on the trip of a lifetime.


On their return journey the long flight is uneventful, Rita and John even manage to grab a few hours sleep, even with the cramped seats on modern aircraft.


At the airport, the usual hanging around takes it's course, as they wait for the baggage to be unloaded and then the somber walk back to the car and reality. It has been a long journey and they are both looking forward to getting home to tell friends and family about the trip and share the photo's.


Rita gets behind the wheel to drive the 2 hr journey home, she is tired after their long flight but they will be home soon, with suitcases of washing and fond memories to look back on. John puts the radio on to catch up on what has been happening while they have been away. As they pull out of the terminal car park into the traffic flow, the end of their holiday is now a reality.

The journey down the motorway is typically monotonous, the dual carriageway they turn onto does not offer any additional stimulation, John is dozing in the passenger seat as the countryside passes by at a steady 70mph.

The road is straight and the traffic is light, the radio continues to repeat the same headlines every half an hour, it has not taken long for Rita to be up to date with going's on at home and she is no longer really listening to the commentary from the presenter, the songs are becoming more like background music she is vaguely aware of. She is feeling tired now but not long to go and they will be home with a nice cup of tea. Rita is not aware how her concentration levels are falling, how her eyelids are becoming more heavy and how more frequently she is yawning. With each yawn she closes her eyes briefly, it's a nice feeling, The day is sunny and the car interior is nice and warm, it's a familiar environment as the car speeds down the dual carriageway without effort, it does not take long for sleep to catch up with Rita.

It takes some time for their car to come to a stop after leaving the dual carriageway at 70mph and hitting the bridge support head on. The impact sends the car into a violent spin which causes the drivers front wheel and suspension to collapse, it has not been designed to take this lateral force. With all the rain we have had the ground has become softened and as the wheel collapses the front of the car digs into the ground causing it to flip end over end, finally coming to rest on it's roof.

We have been on scene for 50 mins now and I am aware of the 'Golden Hour' which is critical for trauma victims to stand the best chance of survival. I need to get her to hospital. Rita is shocked and does not seem to know what has happened, I keep busy reassuring her and attending to her injuries all the while silently praying she does not come to enough to ask about her husband's condition.

John is still in his seat, hanging from his seat belt. We have already declared him life extinct as soon as we arrived on scene. Other emergency services will deal with his body.

I block from my mind the horror of what she surely must feel when she is finally told of her husband's condition. Traffic is getting heavy as we approach rush hour and I need to concentrate on getting this patient to hospital as quick as possible. Feelings are to be put into the box and filed, I have a job to do.

I want to be a paramedic

Had a couple of shifts now with a para and we have some really interesting medical jobs to contend with.

This has meant we have been able to treat the patients with the right drugs before we have taken them to hospital.

It is the first time i have really seen the scope of the skills a Paramedic has to use and how much more they can do for the patient than the EMTs.

Ambulance crew found dead in vehicle of over eating

The state of our cab after trip to shops and kebab van! Very professional. Good job we have a door between it and the patient.

Lucky, lucky, lucky

• Head on collision with another car.
• Closing speed of 90mph
• Front wheel and suspension sheared off and 200yrds up the road
• Other car 300yrds away in the ditch
• Engine taken off it's mountings and entered the cabin, trapping the Husband by the legs
• Wife in the passenger seat, no air bags on this age of car
• 3 kids in the back seat.
• Helicopter scrambled to scene.
• 2 Ambulances on scene
• 4 Police cars in attendance.
• Injuries: 1 x Broken wrist, 1 x Bruised knee - all for the driver.
• Everyone else walked away!

Combative

Called to 80yr old lady who was fitting.

On arrival at the scene we found the patient on the floor, blood smeared across the kitchen floor from a small head wound sustained from the fall.

She was fitting and this was common with this patient, due to her current medication, explained her husband.

We got her into the back of the Ambulance as quick as possible and the Paramedic put a cannula in her hand, no mean feat as she was very combative and post ictal. She then promptly pulled this out before we could secure it in place. Time to try and stop huge haemotoma developing on the back of her hand then.

Cannulation attempt number 2.

Hand is now useless as a potential site, so the Paramedic tries for the arm but she will not hold still. In steps the local naive Technician and I clamp her hand between my legs, support her elbow with one hand to enable the Para to put the needle in and hold her down with my other hand.

That was, in hindsight a mistake.

I have her wrist clamped between my legs and when the needle is inserted, she grapples with her hand for anything she can grab hold of.

This leads to a few sharp intakes of breath and a huge effort to keep the tears at bay!

Thank Christ for the boxers I have on today, which keep everything mostly out of the way!!

No surfing with the horses

After trudging across a boggy field I spy what must be our patient standing with a small group of people, I can tell it's our patient as this gent in his later years has a mass of white hair, all apart from the rather large red patch occupying the back of his head. Ouch!

If he's up and about, he can't be that bad, can he?

On reaching the patient, we find one very jolly Irishman who can only be politely described as 'In Drink' more precisely, s**t faced on 8 pints of Guinness. He is also sporting a rather gooey mess to the back of his head, where he lost the fight with gravity and the pavement.

He is insistent that he is fine and wants to go home for his dinner. This is really not an option, as he is covered in blood over his head, face, chest and back and the wound to the back of his head is still bleeding.

We have a sensible chat with him about the fact that he needs to go into hospital to be checked over. This rapidly deteriorates into a stern telling that he needs to go to hospital, combined with a half walking, half dragging tactic, towards the Ambulance.

Half way there, he collapses to the floor, sobbing that the IRA had killed both his parents during the troubles, this then manifests itself into leaping up, banging his head on the nearby wall in the process, shouting and being quite aggressive about how the terrorists were then dealt with, or not, which appeared to be his point. Don't have an issue with this as long as he does not go down the path of 'transfer of aggression' and we become the focus for his anger.

We finally get him into the Ambulance and secured on the stretcher, when he turns into hug mode, now would not normally mind this but he is covered in blood and now so am I. Gloves only cover so much of you.

Spend the trip into hospital trying to bandage his head, all the while trying to avoid him putting both his bloody hands on my face.

When we unload at A&E he then decides that he is fine and wants to go home, trying to climb off the stretcher. This takes 10min more persuasion to keep him from falling off and banging his head again.

We go through to Minor's and attempt to get him into a chair in the cubicle, this takes another 10mins of shouting and 'gentle' prompting from us.

The nurse examines his head and cannot see anything due to the amount of blood and matted hair, so a trip to the nearby sink to wash him is planned. You can guess this took a good 20mins.

He insists on walking back to the cubicle, shrugging us off on the way and promptly misses the chair and lands on the floor...................banging his head! The staff decide he should stay there as less likely to anymore damage if he is already down on the floor, so a mattress is brought in for him to lie on. This he takes offense to and leaps up shouting and swearing, where he then lands a punch on my crew mates chin, who promptly grabs him and secures his arms. I get spat on and told in no uncertain terms what he will do to us once he gets free.

We hatch a plan. Let's just take him down face first onto the floor and hold his head while 1 porter and 2 Ambulance crew sit on him and the nurse can staple his head closed. Despite the small bang to the front of his head he received on reaching the floor (Ooops - he did miss the mattress on the way down due to his struggles) this plan worked like a dream. 2 quick staples later and he had been treated. We left him in the company of several less than amused Police Officers.

I pondered after that unlike the advert, serious quantities of Guinness do not make you think you can surf the big waves with the white horses, it just makes you a complete and utter, obnoxious twat!

Update: Hanging

Arrived on scene 22mins later to find a paramedic from the RRV already there. He had secured a nasal airway to improve her perfusion as, although she was breathing on her own, the snoring meant that her airway was compromised.

She was GCS3 which is as unconscious as it gets and posturing, which is holding your clench fists to your chest, indicating a spinal or brain trauma. We needed to get her down the stairs and into the truck to start the journey in. This was going to be a little tricky as the top of the stairs was occupied by a large fake marble mermaid outside the bathroom door, very random!

Also the Police had parked two cars outside the house, plus the two cars the residents had plus the RRV plus our truck. We were almost parked in another postcode!

Stretcher into the neighbours drive and then use the large sling for rescuing trapped dock workers for the trip down the stairs seemed to be the best plan of action.

After securely strapping the patient into our contraption, we man handled her down the stairs and into the Ambulance, where we could monitor her a little more closely.

The run into hospital took another 20 mins and we 'unpacked' her in resus for the team to start work on her. I have to say the marvels of Oxygen never cease to amaze me.

On arrival at hospital, she would open her eyes in response to her name, which was a marked improvement. Not sure what the overall prognosis would be for her as she had sustained some neck damage from the hanging, severity of this is unknown.

I will try and get an update on this one for you.

Fashionable

Someone told me the other day that hanging is on the increase as a suicide method. Apparently it is quite fashionable!

How do you find this out when contemplating killing yourself?

Currently on my way to a female who has hanged herself and her husband has cut her down and is doing CPR.

I can only say, I hope he is really good at it as we are 25 miles away! There are no crews nearer.

I struggle to understand that must be going through your mind to choose to do that. I hope when we get there we can do all we can to give this lady a chance to get the help she obviously deserves.

Mummy's boy!

A night of young drunks.

Two memorable one's where the 16yr old who drank 3/4 of a bottle of vodka in an hour and then promptly fell over! No surprise there then!

So called mates (who let him down the stuff in the first place) got concerned and called us as he had blood coming from this nose. That'll be the nose he fell on when he hit the ground?

I would love mates like that, their main concern was if we were going to call the Police! Quality!

At least this one was pretty much unconscious and co-operative for the journey.

The next one was a real Mummy's boy.

He had downed 3ltrs of alcohol (mainly alco pops from the sound of it) and was throwing up like a trooper when we got there. With a large haematoma on the front of his head, he needed to go into hospital.

At this point he developed a pathological fear of needles and hospitals. This did not bode well for a peaceful journey! He then burst into hysterical sobbing begging this girl to come with him in the Ambulance. She looked less than impressed about the whole affair and did not seem keen to leave the party and I don't blame her. I did try to point out that this kind of sobbing and hysteria is seriously not attractive to a more than sober female. Reckon his relationship with that one will be short lived.

Finally got him into hospital, after he repeatedly begged us not to inject him with anything as this would kill him!!

When his parents arrived, he launched himself at his Mum and spent the next 20mins that we were there sobbing into her shoulder. Dad looked a little embarrassed and non too pleased.

Winter wonderland

Woke up this morning, just about still this morning after night shift, to find myself expecting Christmas presents when i looked outside. Do we have wierd weather or what? Should make tonights shift interesting if it keeps up! Marley enjoyed his first snow experience.

A test of willpower

It's now 4.5hrs into my shift and not one sick person!

We have been sent out on standby 3 times now to sit outside McDonald's!

Talk about a hurculean show of willpower to have only eaten two hashbrowns so far this morning.

Where are all the sick people?