And last night Roy Adams’s heartbroken daughter Sarah claimed he would still be alive if there had not been a delay.
She added: “It’s awful. The medic could have saved my dad but instead he stood outside for 16 minutes. All that crucial time was wasted.”
I'm yet to see a 'Health and Safety' form that we fill in on the road - yet more 'Sun' exaggeration. But then they do seem to have a real hatred of people actually being safe at work.
When I was working solo, you made your 'health and safety' assessment in your head - if it felt safe to enter on your own then you would enter, if there was something about the call that made you nervous, then you would wait for backup. From the story in the newspaper, it would seem that the solo thought it was unsafe to enter - but after waiting sixteen minutes for a police escort to arrive, decided to enter on their own.
Probably what happened was that the solo wasn't happy to enter on their own for whatever reason, waited for the police and after they didn't turn up for a while entered the household at their own risk.
From the Times Online article about the same job.
The ambulance service spokesman described the risk assessment as a “mental checklist” which included considering the safety of the scene, types of risk and whether extra help or equipment was required.
“We have a duty of care to treat patients but we also have to look after our staff,” he said. “In this case the medic conducted the assessment, had safety concerns and decided to call for back-up.”
Well done that 'spokesman' for getting the real situation across to at least one paper (even if it is the toilet paper 'The Times')
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But it's not just about the poor reporting - what really sticks in my throat is the comments by the Great British Public who take the rubbish that is printed in the Sun as gospel. When every story becomes a trial by media it's interesting how quickly people are to judge something based on 380 words that they have read in a tabloid paper.
this idiot should be given life in prison
This medic should be struck off straight away, no questions ...
These people want us to risk our lives to save them when they make comments like that? What next? Moaning because I have two perfectly good kidneys and I should give one of them up for transplant so that someone else can live? Offering to be stabbed in place of someone else because we 'save lives' and are 'paid for it'?
How many of these commentors, after seeing the damage a knife can cause, would volunteer to walk into a place where there is a real fear of losing your life. They are very brave sitting behind their keyboards, but I bet they couldn't walk a mile in our boots.
And calling us 'Hitlerite' - well, I hope that whoever made that comment makes that viewpoint known to any ambulance crew that comes to help you in the future...
I do despair sometimes.
And should the Solo be vindicated, how many column inches would the Sun spend on that?
