Random Acts Of Reality

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Wednesday, March 30

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 07:22 PM BST

Home Sweet Home
Originally uploaded by Random_Reality.

Well I'm back home, where I am microwaving a curry, putting my feet up and will soon be playing a little bit of World of Warcraft.

Following that I may well be spending some time on IRC before going to bed and repeating this sort of day again tomorrow.

Looking back it was a fairly average day, no lives saved (particularly), no multiple trauma, no-one trying to hit me, and very little time sitting around doing nothing.

Blogging throughout the day filed up most of the free time that I had, and while it was a fun little exercise, I don't think I'll be doing it again soon. While I don't mind moblogging, I feel that I can't 'polish' my writing as much as I can when I get home and blog from there.

There is also a lack of reflection - if I write about a job immediately after doing it, then what time do I have to look back on it and pick out the interesting parts, or relate it to jobs that happen around it.

So while I may well moblog again, I don't think it'll be on the same scale as today.

"My name is Jack Bauer, and this was an average day in my life..."

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 06:25 PM BST

I did manage to drink my cup of tea, and then even managed to have a bit of a doze on station.

I then got a call to a lovely 74 year old lady, who was apologising for calling us, but she was on Warfarin (a drug that 'thins' the blood) and she had a nosebleed that wouldn't stop.

Her house was spotless, she was polite, and rather upset that she had 'bothered us'. I kept telling her not to be silly, but she kept saying sorry until the ambulance took her away.

The picture is of a derelict house that is a couple of doors down from where she lives - it always surprises me how lives can be contrasted in houses just a few yards away.

Hopefully this was my last job of the shift, and my next entry will be from home (where I can start replying to some of your comments)

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 04:26 PM BST

It's half past four, and as I mentioned this morning, my body just wants to sleep.

At least I've made a cup of tea, I just wonder if I'm going to be able to drink it.

Two hours and counting until the end of my shift.

Then I get to do it all over again tomorrow.

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 03:53 PM BST

"Can we send you this job? It's a long way away".

"Sure, why not..."

Three miles through heavy traffic, from one end of my complex to the other. Blues lights flashing and sirens wailing.

Five minutes it took me to travel it, well within the all important 8 minutes.

I only clipped three cars on the way here *joke*

Patient is a 74 year old male, recently flown here from India, very nice person who gave a good description of Cardiac chest pain. He had a heart attack two years ago and it feels similar to that episode. The ambulance which was from another sector was also pretty quick to turn up. The patient is now winging his way to hospital for assessment and treatment.

I fancy another cup of tea.

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 03:04 PM BST

This is the view from my other standby point, hidden behind the back of Stratford shopping mall it lets me get to most areas quickly and, because it is hidden from pedestrians, I can have a little sleep without people waking me up to ask directions.

If I want to watch people walking past then I park up near St Johns church.

The last job was a 60 year old man who had fallen over and had probably broken a rib. After a full examination to rule out anything nasty like a punctured lung, or the possibility of this masking a cardiac episode, I was quite happy to see him walk onto the ambulance. At the hospital they will probably do exactly the same examination, it is unlikely that they will x-ray him because with broken ribs there is nothing to do except treat the pain and let them heal naturally.

I did however manage to get back to station to have a well-deserved cup of tea, now I'm pondering why the traffic up the high street to Bow road is so bad.

I am making notes on how far/fast I'm travelling, and will show you these very geeky figures after I get home and 'crunch' them.

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 01:34 PM BST

Just finished a job dealing with a 64 year old female with angina-type chest pain. While the job is one of our fairly regular types, what was unusual was that the GP was still on scene and that he had given the patient some Asprin. I know I've mentioned before how GPs often don't do this important treatment.
Of course, as soon as I turn up, the GP disappears - he was obviously intimidated by my superior medical knowledge...

*cough*

Before that, I went to a job that was given to us by the police as "Male, 30 cuts to hand, self inflicted". As it was halfway across town, the ambulance got there first (but I still made it in under the all-important 8 minutes) - I then saw them leading the patient into the ambulance. Chatting with the crew it seems that the patient fell onto his hands and had nothing more than scrapes and grazes.

I suspect that there is more to the story than that, so I'll try to have a chat with the crew about it later.

Now I'm going to try and have my second cup of tea for the day.

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 12:21 PM BST

Well, it didn't take me long to find trouble, moments after writing the last entry I got a call to a male fitting in the street. The reason for the fitting was 'unknown', which means it could be anything from a head injury to alcoholic fitting.

When I got there, I immediately recognised him as one of our regular epileptic patients - he has 3 or 4 fits a week, it is only if he is outside when he has a fit that we get called. This time he had a nasty cut above his eye, but once more, the ambulance wasn't far behind and he was soon on his way to hospital.

I'm writing this outside the house of the next call, an 81 year old female with pain in her chest, caused probably by the dry cough she has had for the past 4 weeks.

Paperwork has been done, and I'm waiting for my next call.

The photo is of some of the dock cranes that we have in Newham.

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 11:22 AM BST

Second job of the shift is a 57 year old female with chronic emphysema, who for the past two weeks has had increasing difficulty with her breathing. While she was able to talk I could tell that she was having trouble breathing.
Once more, I was able to give her oxygen before the ambulance turned up, and as we were only 400yards from hospital she has had a rapid transport to hospital.
I'm now going to cruise the area looking for trouble while listening to some Polyphonic Spree on the CD player.

Hard life this ambulance work...

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 10:25 AM BST

So I spent some time at my standby point, then returned to station. I always have trouble around 10am and 4pm during the day, it is when my circadian rythmn hits its low points and I just want to sleep. If I'm not busy seeing to patients then these two times of the day are really tricky for me.

It doesn't help if I haven't been sleeping well - which, or course, I haven't.

At the moment the seat of the RRU feels as if it has rocks in it, maybe because I was doing something physical yesterday, or it might just be where the Night shift has adjusted the seat.

If I don't get busier, todays experiment in hourly blogging will get boring very quickly...

At the moment, instead of three ambulances running out of West Ham, there is only one. It is funny that there was no problem in manning ambulances during the Easter break (where you get paid more money for working overtime during that period), but that today, at least locally, manning is poor.

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 08:53 AM BST

First call of the day was a 90 year old female with shortness of breath since last night - the call came just as I sank my teeth into the first of two bacon rolls.

As always the person who needs the ambulance holds off calling us, and apologies when we do turn up. Here oxygen levels were rather low (88 out of a possible 100), but a bit of oxygen soon brought these levels back to normal. The ambulance crew weren't too far behind me, and have just driven off while I'm writing this.

Now I'm off to sit at my standby point for a while (and watch commuters struggle through the rain).

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 07:52 AM BST

I am allowed a short period of grace first thing I the morning. During the day I am not supposed to spend more than 20 minutes on station - any longer and I get someone from Control phoning me up to ask me to either roam around the area or to sit on standby. However because of union negotiation, Control can only put you on standby between the hours of 08:00 and 20:00 - so if there are no calls I can sit on station from 06:30 until 08:00. This means cups of tea, and BBC breakfast news.

I've just had a look at Google, and guessing from the logo, it's Van Goghs birthday. I wonder if they will do anything for St Georges day on the 23rd of April, like they did for St Patricks day - somehow I doubt it, the government of England seem to do pretty well ignoring it.

If you look at the events on the St Georges website, it really does look pretty pitiful, cafes doing Ska nights for instance...

Talking about BBC Breakfast news...doesn't Ruth Kelly have a deep voice (and an awful website).

For the next few hours, I imagine that I shall be moblogging, so the standard of writing will plummet.

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 06:51 AM BST

It is a source of amusement, when driving into work that you find the Rapid Response Unit you are going to be working on speeding past you on the way to a call. What it means is that there is definitely time for a cup of tea before the night shift gets back for me to take over - this means a slightly more relaxed, yet awake, EMT will be serving the people of Newham today.

It also means that I can read some blogs, write this post, catch up on some work bulletins and generally start feeling a bit more humaan.

I'm also happy for the bloke working the nightshift, he likes to get back to station late - as it's a bit more overtime.

Throughout the day, in an attempt to be as geeky as possible, I shall be telling you exactly how far I have travelled and the average speed that I drive at to get to jobs (answer:as fast as possible, but you may be surprised at how slow that speed actually is).

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by Reynolds on Wed 30 Mar 2005 05:56 AM BST

I fimd it incredibly unfair that I have to get out of bed at 05:15 in the morning. I mean, at that time of the morning, who else is awake enough to be ill?

Oh yes, bloody Maternataxis...

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Welcome to Random Acts Of Reality, a Blog based in London, England, written by an E.M.T working for the London Ambulance Service. Also, number one search result for "Womble porn". All names have be changed to protect the guilty. This Blog was previously known as "Why I Hate Humanity" but the antipsychotic medication seems to have kicked in.
All opinions on this website are mine alone, and may not reflect those of the L.A.S or other ambulance crews
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