White lightening

"Okay, let me get this straight; you've felt ill for 3 weeks and you ring 999 on Christmas day because?" There's 2 cars on the drive, every gadget in the house that money could buy, no carpets and the place stinks of fags and dirt. A 42 inch flat screen TV is showing something on sky movies . "I just feel shit and I'm fed up with feeling shit" is the grunted reply. "An ambulance is for life threatening emergencies or accidents" I try to explain, "which category does feeling shit come under?"
"Don't get fucking clever" is the answer to that.
"Couldn't you get someone to drive you?" I wonder out loud. "They've all been drinking". Of course, I'd forgotten that I'd tripped over several empty bottles of white lightening on the way in. "Ring a taxi then?" I knew I was on a losing battle. "No credit, it don't cost owt to ring 999".
Of course, how stupid of me. I almost slap my forehead. "With all due respect, feeling shit with a cold doesn't really warrant you ringing 999, and whilst I'm here explaining what is and isn't an emergency-"
"I pay your fucking wages don't you dare speak to me like that you bitch"
Oh hang on I think, isn't it the other way round, I'm supporting you and your lifestyle you benefit work dodging knob. "Please don't swear at me, if you speak to me like that again I'll just leave"
I walk out the door to the sound of expletives and an empty can of special brew hits the door as I close it.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas wishes

"You've tried your best to fight this Fred, but it's been 2 weeks since your fall, you're bed bound and Daisy can't keep looking after you"

I was fighting a losing battle. "If I go in I'll never come out again"

I guessed he was probably right, he'd fallen at home and banged his nose, there wasn't much evidence on the outside but I suspected that he'd had an internal bleed, a small one since the fall.

Fred was a stubborn chap, he wouldn't let Daisy ring 999 or his GP and took to his bed to rest. "Thing is Fred" I tried to reason with him "it's been a fortnight now, you're getting worse by the day, let me arrange for you to go in, they'll patch you up and send you home when you're back on your feet"

Daisy was having her two penneth as well, I looked at them both, still in love and probably as scared as each other. I said to Fred that if he got a wriggle on he'd be home in time to send me a card for Christmas. Eventually he agreed and promised to send that card.

A couple of weeks later I got to work to find a card which had come through the post. Suddenly Fred popped back into my mind.

"I wanted to write to you because you made such a difference to Fred. He promised to send you a card but I'm sorry to say that he passed away before he could fulfil that promise, so I'm doing it for him. Merry Christmas and a happy new year,
Love
Daisy"

36 hours later

I wonder now if they'll notice that we're humans, not machines? That things do get to us, hurt us and deeply affect us?

Time will tell.

We care....really

"Our plans will deliver a faster response and therefore increase the chances of lives being saved. I would not support a plan that would reduce the quality of patient care".

So says our chief. Here's an example of a recent job which I'm sure is echoed throughout the country.

A 40 year old patient with shortness of breath, no history. A passer by calls 999 so the nearest vehicle gets sent...a fast response car. The Paramedic radios control requesting a hot back up, to which gets told there are no vehicles available. 20 minutes later the patient takes a turn for the worst and goes unconscious. Again told there are no vehicles. All well and good when you're stood outside in freezing temperatures and joe public is huffing and puffing saying how disgusting it is. Not long after the patient goes into cardiac arrest and dies.

The paramedic emails the chief a few days after because rightly so he's a little pissed. The chief replies saying that they hit the target because they got to the patient in less than 8 minutes.

This, joe public, is what we're up against. There is no patient care, all that matters is hitting targets.

Thoughtfulness

We don't like to use the "Q" word, but it had been unusually Q. It was a night shift, all crews had been on station for over an hour. I went and joined them in the crew room. 2 hours later our radios bleeped back to life in unison. Never a good sign that. Mine bleeped again with an immediate update..."RTC one vehicle, driver trapped, possibly fatal"
As we got in our vehicles 2 police cars and the fire service went by. Always nice to go in convoy...always nicer being at the back.
We all arrived at more or less the same time, the police cordoned off the road, the fire service got to making the car stable and we went straight to the patient.
The driver was well and truly trapped, he'd hit a wall head on at speed, it was dark but I went in from the drivers side and another lad went in from the passenger side. All the windows were smashed in, we were putting the pads on the guy when suddenly the fire service got some lights on the scene. "STOP" I shouted as it all fell silent. "Everyone stand back" and they did. There was a crook lock device on the steering wheel. There was also a noose around his neck attached to the rear of the car. All of a sudden we all became very wary, the guy was very dead, beyond help but we wondered just how far he had gone in his quest to end his life. The police and fire searched the vehicle ensuring it hadn't been rigged in any other way.
He'd put a lot of thought into his suicide. Poor chap.

Sleep

"Baby not breathing"

Perhaps one of the worst things you could hear over the airwaves. We drove, infact at times we flew. It's easy to see how red mist can blind some drivers. In our driving manual is a paragraph: "Red mist is the term that describes the state of mind if the driver of an emergency vehicle who is determined to get to the incident in the shortest possible time with total disregard to other road users"

It still took us ten minutes to get there, and it felt like hours. The update told us that CPR was in progress. The front door was open and I could hear screaming, I ran straight in and took in the scene, dad was doing CPR, mum was screaming. I grabbed the child and dad and ran back to the truck doing mouth to mouth on the child. The only thing that the child needed was a paediatric team at the hospital, we flew back while I carried on working with dad in the background begging me to save his child. The taste of partially digested breast milk stayed with me for a long time.

The story behind this 15 week old was tragic, mum had a cold and the baby was snuffly, dad stayed downstairs with the little one whilst mum got some rest. Dad got tired and fell asleep on the sofa, unintentionally rolling over and smothered it.

If you do ever read this, please please please don't ever fall asleep with your baby, in bed, on a sofa or anywhere where this could happen. It happens to every day folk in every day places, not just on the tv.

Promise me you won't leave me?

"I don't care what you say, I'm not going" she said for the tenth time. We'd been called to a lady with neck pain which radiated down to her chest. She was adamant it wasn't chest pain radiating up to her neck but I thought it was worth splitting hairs over. She used to be a nurse at the hospital and didn't want to go. I'd spent the best part of an hour trying to convince her to go, I thought she was having a posterior MI and I was having trouble getting her to understand the seriousness, she was in denial .

Her husband pleaded, "just go and get it checked out love, for me please?" "I'm not staying in" she replied, "and I'll only go if you promise not to leave me" a silence fell in the room as I realised she was looking at me. "if you don't promise then I'm not going".  We agreed that I couldn't promise to stay for long but would happily get her booked in and leave her with a nice nurse. I hoped to God there was one on duty. 

We put her on our carry chair despite her protests "I'm not dying you know" she said as I strapped her in. "give us a kiss love" said her husband on the way out, "I'll sort the dog and lock up and be up there soon ok?" 

"ah stop being so soppy" she said refusing a kiss. Thank god I stopped the chair and told her to stop being so mean and give him a kiss. 

We hooked her back up to our equipment in the vehicle and got a line in, I just had a gut feeling. "You can stop looking at that machine, I'm not going anywhere" she said. We went in red and asked to go into resus, I couldn't shake that niggling feeling in my tummy. I gave quite a comprehensive detailed handover and for once the nurse listened to the details, I went to book her in, as I walked out the door the woman called to me; "Remember your promise!"

"2 minutes!" I replied as I headed towards reception. 

It was quite busy, we had to go into the paediatric resus as the 2 adult resus bays had poorly patients in. I had a quick natter with the receptionists as I waited for the printer to kick into life. As I stuck the stickers on the forms I heard someone shouting for help. As I ran back across the department and into resus she had arrested. The nurse was struggling to get the trolley flat, I began CPR whilst the nurse got some help. The doctor who came in was shit. I know that's incredibly unprofessional but he was. We shocked her a few times and did a few rounds of CPR but we couldn't shock her out of VF. I heard the doctor say "time of death...." and I questioned him "you can't call it?" 

He said it again: "time of death......" I looked at the monitor and stated what I thought was obvious "She's in VF! You can't call it when she's in VF!!!!" 

As he walked past me banging in to my side he said "make sure she's stopped quivering before you let her family come in".

I stood open mouthed. This isn't what I'd promised. I'd like to be able to sit here and tell you that I stood there and fought for this woman, but I didn't. I was a newly qualified para who still doubted my ability. If this had happened now in my career I would like to think that I would have the noggin to stand up to the dickhead of a doctor and fight. 

Spam

The radio bleeped into life "sorry" said control "I know you're nearly finished but we're getting some calls from the Motorway, initially we thought a cow had wandered onto the carriageway but now we think it might be a person...please could you have a look?" Er...thanks for the offer control but no, I don't really fancy this one. I've been to people that have been hit by fast cars and my gut feeling was that there was nothing more to be done. "Yup roger, will update you from scene" so off I pootled. The police had beaten me to it (thankfully) and closed the road I got out and put my gloves and jacket on. "You'll just need a torch" a gruff policeman said as I got mine out the back "oh and you might want to stay in my footprints literally" he said as I took giant steps before giving up and making my own footprints. Traffic was still moving on the opposite side of the carriageway as we walked close to the central reservation. Suddenly the air turned acrid, like a dodgy butchers shop. "Looks like the initial impact was here" as we pointed our torches to a pool of blood on one lane. As we walked further along there was tissue and other unidentifiable bits along the way. "This is where they ended up" the copper said matter of factly. I looked down and cocked my head slightly as much as I tried to make anything out, I couldn't. It looked like a lump of spam, opened on the road and spat out of its tin. A black Nike trainer stuck out from the side.
About 20 cars and lorries had hit and run this person over, I couldn't tell if they were a man, woman or god forbid, a child. The only thing I could work out was they had one intact foot with a trainer on it, nothing else.
I updated control and completed a very sparsely filled in confirmation of death form. I left to the sounds of the gruff, tall copper puking behind his car.

The end of The Service as we know it.

Well today is the end of the Ambulance Service as we know it. Our stations are to be closed and new super stations, or "Hubs" are to be built. I have a 40 mile round trip to work and my fella has a 70 mile one, each will now increase significantly. This means that we will pick the trucks up from the hubs and be out all day, going to little "spokes" or portacabins to have a wee if we're lucky. It's also meant to mean that we will hit more targets, what the chief seems to fail to understand is that crews are out all day anyway and still don't hit the targets. We've also got to bring sickness down. Lift staff morale. Keep on top of the audits. Fix the broken trucks that have 300k+ miles on the clock. Keep up tough book compliance. Sweep the floor as you go. This all needs to start at grass roots level. The big stick culture doesn't work, crews pick their trucks up at 0600, go out straight away on a job without getting a chance to check their kit, job after job after job. No getting back to station for a drink, we're at them to speed up handover times at A&E so they can get out to the next patient, they get their only break of the day 10 hours in to a 12 hour shift and then go straight out to be made late off because their local hospital has been turned into a Minor Injury Unit and the nearest receiving hospital is 20+ miles away with 5 crews in front of them waiting to handover. 2 hours late off and another 3 day shifts to go. Will enforcing 8 hour shifts improve morale? I doubt it. But you know what? We keep doing it because it's what we do. It's a part of us, and when this chief fails, like they all have, one day, someone might, just might realise that beating us down with the big stick simply won't work.

A nice day for a drive

The sun is shining, chris moyles on the radio, it's going to be a great day! I'm driving along with my sunnies and air con on thinking of the jobs I've got to do when I get to station. Ahead in the distance I see on the opposite carriageway the traffic slowing, I can't make out why. I then see a puff of black smoke and a lorry at a strange angle....*fuck* if I'm honest my immediate thought was to look the other way and pretend that I didn't see anything but my honest ego slaps me across the face reminding me I'm in a marked FRV. I call it in on the radio and head to the next junction to spin round. I've asked for the police, fire and 2 vehicles. I hope that's enough. there's one older chap trapped in the lorry, thankfully no other patients. the road is a wash with diesel and I try to get access to my patient. he's trapped in the cab and all I can reach of him is his right arm. he's conscious and complaining of pain everywhere. i have a good pulse and I manage to get a BP, get a line in and climb up into the cab with him. we chat about this and that and pass the time of day, trumpton arrive and try to release him. I can't feel down his legs as they are trapped by the engine, he says he can feel them so that's good. trumpton use spreaders to try and get some room, the cut the roof and door off. I wish they'd hurry and they do well, as we get him on to the spinal board I can reach a hand down to his lower legs, he screams out. his leg has been impaled by the seat runner, back through to the front. he is half in, half out, I have to make a decision, his leg or his life. I have to unimpale it. he screams some more but he is free. thankfully I requested the helicopter once we realised how badly trapped he was. within 15 minutes he'll be at s regional trauma centre. he still refused any pain relief. mad crazy old fool.
I get cleaned up. back on station and someone makes me a cup of tea, I get sent to the hospital on standby and I call in to see my sister in law who makes more tea. tea makes everything better doesn't it?! my radio interrupts the silence informing me of yet another lorry entrapment. within 15 minutes I am looking at a scene of carnage, a lorry has run in to the back of a farm vehicle, it's a foreign lorry and ironically if it had been right hand drive he wouldn't be so trapped. there's a FRV and a crew here, just one patient, but a gravely ill one. I liaise with the crew here, then control asking for a doctor and helimed. we can't control this guys pain nor his bleeding. he is trapped by his mangled legs and they probably need amputating as again the engine is playing it's part in trapping them. I have a helicopter and a doctor on route but they are tracking 40 minutes away, a PTL is bringing the flying squad down from another county. we can't get enough fluid into the guy as it is spilling out everywhere. the squad arrive and I watch the doctor get out. my heart sinks. literally. this doc is a lovely guy but it would have been more useful sending nurse Gladys on her bike. he wanders over with no sense of urgency; "have you got him out yet?" he asks nonchalantly. " I think you might need to perform bi lateral amputations" I reply as he drops his helmet.
the helicopter arrives and things look a little better, the fire service have erected scaffolding and are cutting the engine away little by little. I take a step back and watch how everyone is involved and willing this guy to live, each absorbed in some way and working like they have worked together for years which of course they haven't. I am distracted by my 3 cups of tea and bursting bladder, I look around thinking that I may need to find a bush soon but look skyward to see the police helicopter and think me having a wee would, knowing my luck end up on some police reality show. Thankfully after being trapped for 90+ minutes they release him and he is barely alive. he is flown to a trauma centre and taken straight to theatre but despite all of our work and silent prayers he dies on the table. As he was flown away we look in the cab and find lots of childrens toys and teddies. A panic grips us all as we realise we could have missed something terrible. thankfully we found nothing, but a grim thought hangs over us as we find photo's of this guy and his family.

One of those jobs

The radio goes off just as I approach the driveway. "Can you just have a look please....it's been downgraded but as you're nearly there?"
I drive up a track, it's almost midnight and I can see all the lights flickering together and suddenly the house is plunged in to darkness. As I get out the car a man stands in the doorway ushering me inside "The lights have fused....I can't get them to stay on.....Please, she's just inside....." and off he walks. I grab a torch and my bags and wish we had personal issue handguns.
I smelt the blood first, you can when there's a lot. "Hello?" I try to sound brave but it comes out like a whisper "In here" is the faint reply. I walk in to the downstairs cloakroom and slip, I look down and shine my torch at a naked woman covered head to toe in claret. the floor is one big puddle, it is smeared over the surfaces, walls and everywhere else I can see. "I think my carotid has gone" said the woman. "Can I have a hot response please control" I say into my radio praying they wouldn't reply with the words 'kilo zero'.
"Hello my love, what on earth has happened?" I ask, only half wanting to hear the answer. As I try to find the source of the blood she says that she came to investigate the lights blowing and ended up on the floor.
"I think she fell over this" a man says calmly, holding up a pice of wooded furniture. I turn, half expecting him to be stood there with a machete but he isn't, he is holding up a wooden chair "
"You know thats not what happened" says the woman sternly and then clams up. He wanders off again and I put a dressing on to her head. It is immediately soaked but I'm pleased to tell her that her carotid is intact. She has a 3 inch deep laceration just above her ear. I apply another dressing and a tight bandage and check her pulse. I can't see a great deal but she feels clammy and she needs to not be here. Thankfully the crew arrive as I am trying to get a line in. We decide to put her straight on the stretcher and get her to the vehicle.
She's a character, she's had a good bottle of wine and tells us about her time as a nurse tutor. Before she finishes we have her monitored with fluids up and resus waiting.

The season of Goodwill?

It had been a busy night, i'd just sat down on my break as my radio rudely woke me. "There's an armed burgulary in progress - please could you attend?" Of course I will, thats a £20 disturbed break, thank you very much. As I pootled along my brain began to catch up. "Er...I know it's a girly thing to say" I said to the radio "but have the attackers gone?"
Apparently the Police were on their way too, if I squinted I could see a faint blue haze in the distance.
It looked like there had been a viscous attack, bloody handprints smeared across walls, droplets of blood outside leading us to the patients like a sweet trail. the guy who was well built and not far off 7 foot tall was sat in an armchair, his partner sat shaken and battered on the sofa.
She's been taken upstairs and put in the bath, her wrists cable tied and completely wrapped in sheets. They were going to dowse her in liquid and set fire to her, for whatever reason, probably due to the fact that her partner opened the safe for them, they let her go.

Happy Christmas.