So I wished for an interesting job, and I got…
A collapsed 50 year old female, probably from a low blood pressure. A pleasant couple, and she had just been discharged from hospital that day (after investigations into a possibly related condition).
A middle-aged mother who was having a panic attack. The crew reached her at the same time as me, so there was nothing for me to do.
I was then sent six miles to a worried mother and daughter, who had been asleep with the gas cooker still on downstairs. Both were absolutely fine, but went to hospital in order to put the mothers mind at ease.
A 28 year old female, who had a high temperature for two days, and that night had started to vomit. Otherwise healthy, with what I euphemistically call “No Priority Symptoms”. The husband followed the ambulance to the hospital (1 mile away) in his car.
Then I was sent to a patient with two days history of chest pain, basically outside the Royal London hospital. (Stopped me getting my 1 am bagels from the 24 hour bagel shop…) The pain was probably related to a cough he has had, but it was hard to tell as he didn’t speak English, and my translation was via a friend who wouldn’t ask the patient what I told him to ask.
A maternataxi, where the ambulance crew asked what I was doing in that part of the world, just because I was so far from station, and they, like me, can’t believe that labour pains are a “Category A” emergency response.
Then I was sent six miles again to a young man with a mix of an asthma attack, and probably pneumonia. I was able to start the lifesaving treatment that he needed (oxygen and a Salbutamol nebuliser), and the ambulance crew were only a few minutes behind me. That patient was ‘blued’ into hospital, and spent the rest of the night in the resuscitation room.
My final call was to a male who was ‘dizzy’. He met me outside his block of flats in his pyjamas and slippers, and refused to give any sort o medical history. This was really infuriating, as there could have been something really rather wrong with him. Thankfully the crew were right behind me, so we got him into the ambulance, and noticed that he had recently had a blood test. Would he tell us what the blood test was? No, would he tell us what medication he was on? No. Would he describe how he felt? No.
We tried explaining that we couldn’t help him unless he started talking, because there are drugs we could have given him that react badly to some regular medications, but still he refused.
So the crew just took him into hospital, where he then proceeded to annoy the A&E staff.
So that was it, nothing interesting at all.
Apart from the radio/CD player in the car being broken…
Buggerit!
Miles driven – 97
8 Calls, 7 of them in under 8 minutes.
Longest run - 5.8 miles, shortest run – 0.7 miles
Average distance traveled to a call – 2.7 miles
