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.
Friday, November 16, 2012
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.
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.
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