A quick thank you to one of the police cars of Newham.

There we were last night - driving on blue lights and sirens to a job which would ultimately prove to be as dull as ditchwater.

I'm racing down Barking road, I always race to high priority jobs, it's what I'm paid to do.

Ahead of us, at the junction with Ron Leighton way there is a police car. They see and hear us coming, so they pull over to let us pass. Just then another car decides to overtake the police car in the middle of the junction, pulling out in front of us we have to slam on the brakes to avoid driving into them.

I may have honked our horn at them.

So it was with much merriment that I saw in our rear view mirror the police car pulling the car over in preparation for a jolly good talking to.

We were laughing about it for the rest of our shift.

So if anyone from Newham police read this (and I know that some do), a big thanks from this particular LAS crew.


I also wonder if the driver of the car is that rarity in Newham - someone with a valid license, road tax and insurance.

An absolutely easy shift last night.  One patient was a little old man who was “not right” and had “vague eyes”.  His wife was terribly worried about him, but I suspect that there was little seriously wrong with him.  We then got sent to a two week old baby with a flaky scalp.  Once more a nice an easy job, where we didn’t even have to carry the patient.

Then we were sent to “54 year old male with chest pain”, the call had come from a public telephone box, so I wasn’t too surprised when we received the update “Patient has been drinking”.  The area is a local haunt of our homeless alcoholics – there are public toilets, a nice churchyard to hide and sleep in and a number of off-licenses to buy their cheap tramp-juice.

Both ourselves and the FRU spent some time driving back and forth trying to find him, with no luck.

We got back on station before being sent on a similar call in the same area – I suddenly had a brainwave.

“I bet it’s John Smith”, I said, “He’s an alcoholic homeless guy, normally as good as gold, but he calls us when his hostel kicks him out for drinking”.

We got an update – ‘Patients name is John Smith’.

Once more we chased around the area looking for him, at least this time I knew who we were looking for.  Once more he had given us the slip.  I’ve never known him to act like this.

Still – next time I see him I’ll have a little word in his shell-like…

Take off your shoe.

Now remove your sock/stocking.

Get a ballpoint pen (red for added authenticity)

Lightly touch the nib of the pen against the sole of your foot.

You are now looking at the same wound that I went to last night.  As a Category A call.

The patient was a 25 year old woman who had stood on a sliver of glass.  The pain was apparently so bad that not only couldn’t she walk, but the pain was travelling up her leg and into her chest.

Chest pain = Category A call.

I had to wheel her out of her expensive riverside flat apartment.

Her husband told us that he would follow behind us in his car.

 

The only sound you could hear while she was being wheeled out was Reynolds grinding his teeth.

After she was safely dropped off at hospital I indulged in a little ‘Primal scream’ therapy.

 

I’m starting to come around to the idea of charging for certain ambulance jobs…

This blogpost is a little later than planned for reasons which are about to become apparent.

If you pay UK taxes, I’d like to take a moment to thank you.  You have helped me out quite a bit.

 

We got a call as “Two people in collapsed state”, so we rattled around to the house only to find the two ‘patients’ having a nice (for them) drug trip.  They were boyfriend and girlfriend and the ambulance had been called by the boy’s mother.  She told me how they were both known to use drugs, and that her son had spent some time in a rehab unit trying to kick his drug and alcohol addiction.

We called for another ambulance as they were so far into their drugged state they were in a real danger of blocking their own airway and choking to death.  There was no way we could transport both patients.

So I stayed downstairs with a male 6’2”, built like a brick outhouse apparent weightlifter while my crewmate looked after his girlfriend in the bedroom.  Sometimes I draw the short straw…

Eventually another ambulance turned up (we were having a very busy night), and we started to move the patients into the ambulances.

Unfortunately for me, the male patient became just a bit agitated and started waving his arms about.  He managed to string together a couple of naughty swear words just for my ears.  As we got him into the ambulance he managed to punch my crewmate and kick the FRU driver who had arrived to help us out.

As I was trying to strap him down onto the bed he swung an arm at me and caught me in the face.

My glasses went flying off my head, bounced around the back of the ambulance and landed in pieces at my feet.

I’d just like to state that without my glasses I score a 9/10 on the Magoo Scale.  This is about the level where you would pick up a skunk thinking that it was a pet cat.

We took both patients into the local hospital, where the young man decided to ‘kick off’ again.  He tried biting a couple of us until the docs could dose him up with Haldol which *ahem* ‘calmed him down.

I then called Control on our radio and let them know that I was no longer able to work – I don’t have a spare pair of glasses, so there was no way I could continue.

Control sent one of our new Duty Station Officers (DSO’s) over for a chat – I’ve got to say I’m pretty impressed with him, he seems to have a pretty good idea of whats going on, and he talks a lot of sense.  He also told me that each night around 10 ambulance crews are assaulted, which is a surprisingly huge number given the shortage of ambulances on the road each night.

He also told me that when I got new glasses I should give the receipt to him so that he can do battle with the finances department and then I can claim the money back.  Asking him if the patient would be made to pay by the LAS, I was told that this wouldn’t be the case, and that the money would come out of our normal funding. 

I was told not to buy any solid gold glasses.

I find this a bit ridiculous – here is a patient who has indulged in something illegal – he has assaulted a number of ambulance and hospital staff (thankfully no-one was seriously injured), he has wasted all our time and broken and essential bit of kit for the running of an ambulance.  Because of him there was one less ambulance covering our area that night.

And he’s going to get away without losing a penny.

I can see why we don’t bother pressing criminal charges against him (I read enough police and magistrate blogs to understand a little something about the CPS), but you’d think that we could win some small civil action against him.

So – as it is, my new glasses are being provided by the tax payer.

Thanks.

I promise – no solid gold glasses.

 

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I now have two pairs of glasses on order (a 2 for 1 special on frames for all you fans of reasonable NHS budgets), I also have some ultra stylish ones that cost me £9 plus lenses.  Well…I think that they are stylish, and they were made in one hour, which is nice when you are otherwise as blind as a bat.

The Patient said that he had been kidnapped.

He hadn't.

He said that the people who had kidnapped him were Serbian.

He then said that they were Bosnians, then that they were "Pakis".

He said that the keys to his car had been stolen.

When the police searched him, they found his car keys.

He said he didn't know where the damage to the side of his car came from.

There was a matching damaged skip just down the road.

He said he had been walking home.

Other people had seen him driving, they were the ones who had called the ambulance.

He said he only had a drink or two.

He was so drunk, he could barely walk.

He said that he didn't want any trouble.

He had previous convictions from assaulting both the police and ambulance services.

He told the police that he didn't want them involved.

He got arrested for drink-driving

He told us to "fuck off".

So we did - then he spat at the police

We put one of our 'TB' masks on him to stop him spitting at anyone else.

He smashed his head against the floor in temper.

His hand was causing him pain - but the injury wouldn't cause any lasting damage.

We were quite happy to have him arrested after refusing the ambulance. The police doctor would probably arrange an x-ray and treatment of his hand.

I hate drunk drivers with a passion - I particularly hate abusive drunk drivers who could have killed someone and who have been flagged as being violent towards anyone in a uniform. When he told us to "fuck off", I was more than happy to open the door to the ambulance and have the police remove him.

For some reason I find it difficult to care about his painful hand.

Because of various reasons of confidentiality, I'm not going into deep detail for this post. Sorry

She was 31 years old and I was kneeling next to her forcing air into her lungs because she had stopped breathing.

I was sent the call as a "31 year old suspended" and to be honest I didn't think that the call was going to be as given. I was working solo on the FRU at the time, and I sped to the address, reaching the place at the same time as the ambulance. It was an ambulance with two trainees working it - while one of the trainees and myself went to the patient the other trainee and their supervisor turned the vehicle around so that they could leave the scene quickly if needed.

I rang the entry bell to the block of flats - whoever answered the entryphone seemed to be a bit disorientated, but we soon gained entry.

"Probably a psychiatric patient", I said to the trainee as we stood in the lift.

"I hope so", replied the trainee, "I've not done a suspended before".

"Don't worry about it", I said, "Just remember that you just need to try and keep calm, I'm there to run it until your supervisor gets there".

The doors to the lift opened and we made our way to the flat. I walked in through the door and all hopes of the call not being a suspended were dashed.

The patient was lying flat on the floor a deep shade of blue - over her was a man I took to be her partner, he had one ear on the phone, listening to instruction from one of our calltakers. With his free hand he was pushing on the woman's chest in an effort of CPR. He wasn't doing a bad job of it either considering that tears were running down his face.

On the sofa was the daughter of the patient - she was around five or six years old. She was also crying. I realised that it was this little child who had opened the flat door for us.

The trainee and myself fell into our roles - I managed the patient's airway and breathing while the trainee connected the defibrilator. The patient had a pulse, but had suddenly stopped breathing. There was nothing in the patient's history to suggest what had caused this sudden stopping of breathing. The mother had overcome a serious illness a few years earlier - but that illness wouldn't account for what was happening today.

The job itself went pretty well - while the patient didn't start breathing again on her own, we did manage to 'pink her up' a lot. The transport to hospital went well and we handed the patient over to the hospital staff with a real hope that she would make a recovery.

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I went back to the hospital a while later.

The patient had suffered a sudden huge and unrecoverable bleed into the brain. She would never wake up.

For some reason this really upset me. I don't normally get upset at people dying, but for some reason this one really upset me.

I don't know if it is because she has left a small child behind - a small child who saw her mother die in front of her. I don't know if it was because the mother overcame a serious illness six years ago for the sake of her child. I don't know what will happen to the child, as the mother's current partner isn't the biological father.

I don't know if it was because the mother had overcome serious adversity and yet she was dead at such a young age.

I suspect that it was because, for once, we thought that in giving the patient the best chance possible, she may have survived. I'm guessing that we were all disappointed that the patient was going to die despite doing our best work.

Whatever the reason, I was at my most upset over a dead patient since the dead thirteen year old I attended.

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If there is a slight upside to the story - it's that because we kept her organs protected by breathing for her, those same organs were used to give a new lease of life for a number of other very sick patients. I only hope that this fact will gve some comfort to here family.

Yes - I'm a registered organ donor.

I’m working nights this week, so my writing time is limited by the routine of ‘Sleep – Eat – Work – Repeat’.  Couple that with a very difficult upcoming post to write and I would beg your short indulgence in the madness that strikes me when I’m constantly jetlagged.

I have two ideas.  One is more serious than the other.

I’ll leave you to decide which is the serious one.

 

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Idea One

The LAS should have business cards printed up which state something along the lines of “Due to your inability to control your drinking of alcohol you have wasted the time and resources of - an emergency ambulance and staff (including dispatchers and call takers), an A&E department along with nurses, doctors, radiographers and other NHS staff.  Please think on this”.  We could then leave these in the pockets of the drunk patients we pick up, so that they could reflect on their behaviour when sober.

We might have to get it printed up in a few languages though…

 

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Idea Two

Concerning maternataxis at 5:30am.  Can I beat one of them to death please?  Just as a warning to the others.

 

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Finally, before I go to bed, a quick “Hello” to Emma who I passed in a hospital ambulance bay last night.  Sorry I ran off but the nurse had something important to tell me.

Nighty-night all.

ZZZZzzzz….