Get Away
August 28th, 2006
Having just come back from a week of annual leave doing volunteer work away from home, I have been thinking about people’s perceptions of the ambulance service. Nearly all of the people I have been with for the past week I have never met before and I was quite taken aback by the interest people showed in what I do. I didn’t once get the normal question “is it like Casualty/ER/[insert hospital drama programme here]?” In fact, I was surprised at the questions I did get. Some people wanted to know what people’s houses were like, others wanted to know what the worst incident I have ever been to was (a very common question - any budding psychologists out there feel free to tell me why this is!). One person who had no medical background kept giving me different scenarios and wanted to know what I would do which kept me amused while driving the minibus.
So why blog this? Well aside from not really having much else to write about, I was asked what the least worthy call I had been out to was. I have countless tales of drunks and other rubbish I can tell - most of them boring, but it made me remember one call I went out to last summer. Late evening, around 11:30 pm, I was called to an 8 year old boy with a wrist injury. I can’t remember now whether or not this got a blue light response, but it wasn’t far from station anyway.
When we got there, the patient was being held by his mother, apparently quite drowsy. Immediate thoughts were this child is either just tired or may have a head injury as well as a wrist injury. It soon became clear that it was benign former and not the more critical latter that was the case. The child told us his right (dominant) wrist was aching, with pain travelling upwards towards, but not as far as his elbow. The pain was obviously muscular from its description and location. There was nothing visible on the arm to suggest any serious traumatic injury, he had full movement and power in it. So the next step was to get some history. “When did this pain start?” I asked. “About 3 hours ago” came the reply. “What happened three hours ago?” I enquired further. “We were just sitting at home” his mother answered. So far, no clues but I continued to probe a little deeper. “Has he being doing anything out of the ordinary today? Anything different to what he would normally do at home?” I questioned “Yes, we went bowling” came the all important reply.
Now I don’t know about you, but when I have gone bowling I have usually had a stiff, aching forearm later that evening. The mother even told me that he had the same pain last time he went bowling. These are the sort of calls that leave you tearing your hair out, wondering what would possess anyone to call an emergency ambulance for this. Suffice to say the mother was advised that a hospital trip for this would not be especially appropriate and that if he was still in pain in the morning to go and see a doctor.
The sad thing is, if she had insisted she wanted to take her son to hospital, we could not have refused to take her. The Patient’s Charter introduced about ten years ago states that everyone is entitled to an ambulance when they want one, and everyone is entitled to go to hospital if they want to go. So next time you see a news article about an ambulance taking a ridiculous length of time to get to a seriously ill person, think of the crew who could have been responding to them tearing their hair out at an ‘emergency’ call like that one.
Entry Filed under: General
11 Comments
1. Rob | August 28th, 2006 at 2:15 am
Sigh. I feel your pain mate. BTW What kind of volunteer work were you doing when you should have been resting?
2. John Robertson | August 28th, 2006 at 2:50 am
I was looking after disabled kids from deprived backgrounds, taking them away on holiday. I’ve been doing it for a good few years now and it’s the best week of every year without a doubt!
3. Steve | August 28th, 2006 at 11:26 am
Just cruised on by following a link from Tom Reynolds. I’m interested in such things cos I’m currently a Student Paramedic and I like to hear the views of those already doing the job.
Sore wrist from bowling, eh? On first reading it I was convinced you were going to tell us the lad had been ‘choking the chicken’ or similar. Or have I just got a one ttack mind?
Steve
4. Lesley | August 28th, 2006 at 11:42 am
I love reading sites like yours and Tom Reynolds, I want to joing the LAS but havent had a driving license for two years yet so cant apply at the moment. Did you go away with the charity CHICKS? I’m going away as a volunteer with a group of children in October, looking forward to it!
5. j | August 29th, 2006 at 2:46 am
Steve, guess you’re not a proof reader - the boy was 8. Made me smile/grimace though.
6. Dan | August 29th, 2006 at 8:14 am
Joy of joys..
I wonder if you get any regular customers who persistently waste your time? I know of one guy in a local A&E who visited each week for a check up and a cup fo tea…granted, a good example of community care but a bad example of resource management. The police are able to take action against timewasters…maybe you should be able to as well…
7. Jake | August 29th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Yup, sounds like the typical dross we get too! Have recently (this year) been to numerous toothaches, burns the size of a 10p piece on the forearm that were just slightly red, lost remote control (rang thorugh as a chest pain though to guarantee we turned up! Sat in her chair the whole time we looked for it and then looked crestfallen when we found the remote but unplugged the telly!), untold catheters blocked that go to hosp and then 30mins later we are taking home again, feeling lonely, my dog’s died (to be fair control thought she said daughter), unable to rouse a diabetic (she thought he was in a hypo but hadn’t prodded him, arrive to find patient snoring and he woke up on the first shake).
And those I remember, untold others just slip through the net of my failing memory.
8. Tim | August 29th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Sounds like standard Bristol jobs!
Went to a guy once, who did get a Blues response, as it came through as chest pain to be told…
“Hi mate, can you put my trainer on and pour me another glass of cider please?!”
Needless to say mine and my colleague’s reply is not typable incase young people read this…
9. You Called Me For This???&hellip | August 30th, 2006 at 11:09 am
[…] John Robertson at I Like Curry recently blogged about the time he was asked what his “Least Worthy Job” was. In response, Tom Reynolds (he of “Blood Sweat and Tea” fame) at Random Reality offered a little tale of his own. So today I thought I’d join in. Although I’ve got quite a list of “you called us for this???” type calls, one of Tom’s readers, Yiota, reminded me of a incident late one evening……. […]
10. Andy Wright | August 30th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
3 9’s call to a fitter, 10 miles away, arrive to be greeted by lady holding small dog, she states patient is better now, can we see the patient please, well of course you can i’m holding him !!!
11. Diagnosis? N.F.I.&hellip | September 6th, 2006 at 10:11 am
You Called Me For This??? (2)…
Happiness is having a good pee!
My second call, on the bat mobile, last night was to pop round and assess Vera, a 65 year old lady who’d dialled 999.
The area was in a run down part of town, where the houses all seemed in need of a good deal of …