Friday 26 April 2013
Hero in Green.
One less hero in green tonight, an awful accident where a paramedic has lost her life. thoughts are with the Paramedic's and the patients family and friends.
Uncharted Territory
Working out of a new station today, cheeky little over time that I've managed to grab out of my normal area of operations. It's a lot more rural than my normal station so I'm looking forward to a much quieter day! Probably doomed myself to getting dragged into the nearest city now but hey ho!
Wednesday 24 April 2013
Head like a ball of putty.
As Friday nights go it was panning out as a pretty standard weekend night shift, we'd started off with a couple of GP's jobs that needed transporting into the hospital for care over the weekend and then followed them up with our first alcohol related call of the shift. An office worker who'd enjoyed their Friday night drinkies a little too much and ended up falling up some stairs and running a good suit. He needed a couple of stitches in a nasty gash to his knee and he was very polite so a nice easy job which we took into hospital and left with his gratitude ringing in our ears. I like these jobs, nice and easy no thought required and a thank you at the end. Most importantly on a weekend no vomit or violence were involved!
The next time the MDT (mobile data terminal) on the ambulance chirped its irritating alert was to a detail arriving which we must respond to. This detail read like the report of a boxers injuries after a world title fight. There was a long list of injuries that made my crewmate and I take a sharp intake of breath, the footprint to the face caused some real concern. To leave an imprint this person has been booted quite firmly and the list of potential problems that this could cause started my mind racing with possible treatments. My train of thought was brought to a crashing halt when I saw that we were not to respond using lights/sirens and our advanced driving skills but at normal road speed as this was not triaged, by someone over the phone in a city many miles away, as an emergency.
When we got there I noticed a very nice 4x4 in the driveway, chunky tyres, rock sliders etc I'm a geek but I like my off roaders. Anyway back to the tale, we were met at the door by the patients partner who was obviously upset. She explained he'd come home with "a head like a ball of putty" she thought he'd been in a fight. She took us upstairs to the bedroom where her partner was trying to sleep. I turned the light on and instantly became public enemy number one, a flurry of repetitive swear words came my way insisting that I turned the light off and left the room. Now the patient had had the odd lemonade or two but the injuries that I could see we're enough to cause me concern. Head injuries and alcohol can often present very similarly which is why we have to treat for an injury.
This is where my problems began, this guy needed to go to hospital but he didn't want to go, he wanted to go to sleep. He told me this over and over again with little recollection that he'd told me only 30 seconds before. He was repetitive with big lumps on his head, a head injury or drunk?? I like my job too much to dismiss him as a drunk so I now have to convince him to come. As a health care professional I have to assume that he has the mental capacity to make a decision that is in his own best interests. On this occasion as he refused to go to hospital I deemed that he lacked the capacity to look after himself therefore we would have to force him to come with us. We aren't trained in restraint so I called upon the skills of my friends in blue. Thankfully for a Friday night they didn't take long to arrive but in the mean time, whilst I tried to ensure he didn't swallow his tongue, he still managed to attempt to remove my head from my shoulders.
We managed to convince him,without causing him any further head injuries, to join me on the ambulance. By convince I actually mean cuffed and restrained but he did end up en-route to hospital without any more injuries. We got him there and he under went a battery of tests to ascertain his head may be lumpy but other than a broken cheek he had escaped major damage.
This job drained me mentally and physically, two hours of negotiation with someone who sounded like a broken record whilst dodging the occasional fist or boot can be quite tiring.
The next time the MDT (mobile data terminal) on the ambulance chirped its irritating alert was to a detail arriving which we must respond to. This detail read like the report of a boxers injuries after a world title fight. There was a long list of injuries that made my crewmate and I take a sharp intake of breath, the footprint to the face caused some real concern. To leave an imprint this person has been booted quite firmly and the list of potential problems that this could cause started my mind racing with possible treatments. My train of thought was brought to a crashing halt when I saw that we were not to respond using lights/sirens and our advanced driving skills but at normal road speed as this was not triaged, by someone over the phone in a city many miles away, as an emergency.
When we got there I noticed a very nice 4x4 in the driveway, chunky tyres, rock sliders etc I'm a geek but I like my off roaders. Anyway back to the tale, we were met at the door by the patients partner who was obviously upset. She explained he'd come home with "a head like a ball of putty" she thought he'd been in a fight. She took us upstairs to the bedroom where her partner was trying to sleep. I turned the light on and instantly became public enemy number one, a flurry of repetitive swear words came my way insisting that I turned the light off and left the room. Now the patient had had the odd lemonade or two but the injuries that I could see we're enough to cause me concern. Head injuries and alcohol can often present very similarly which is why we have to treat for an injury.
This is where my problems began, this guy needed to go to hospital but he didn't want to go, he wanted to go to sleep. He told me this over and over again with little recollection that he'd told me only 30 seconds before. He was repetitive with big lumps on his head, a head injury or drunk?? I like my job too much to dismiss him as a drunk so I now have to convince him to come. As a health care professional I have to assume that he has the mental capacity to make a decision that is in his own best interests. On this occasion as he refused to go to hospital I deemed that he lacked the capacity to look after himself therefore we would have to force him to come with us. We aren't trained in restraint so I called upon the skills of my friends in blue. Thankfully for a Friday night they didn't take long to arrive but in the mean time, whilst I tried to ensure he didn't swallow his tongue, he still managed to attempt to remove my head from my shoulders.
We managed to convince him,without causing him any further head injuries, to join me on the ambulance. By convince I actually mean cuffed and restrained but he did end up en-route to hospital without any more injuries. We got him there and he under went a battery of tests to ascertain his head may be lumpy but other than a broken cheek he had escaped major damage.
This job drained me mentally and physically, two hours of negotiation with someone who sounded like a broken record whilst dodging the occasional fist or boot can be quite tiring.
Always start at the beginning.
Greetings all, this is my first post on my first blog so forgive me if its not too polished and there are any typos! I'm a Paramedic working in a city in Northern England and through this blog I hope to share the highs, lows and a little bit of why i love my job!The location of my station means we get the best of both types of emergency work, some urban and some rural. For those in the know that means I get to deal with the weekend alcohol fallout in the city as well as cleaning up after the farmers who decide to stick their limbs in to machinery all this fun and everything in between! I hope I'll be able to post fairly regularly and as I do I'll cut out the typos!
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