Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.
We were a bit busy tonight

Well, apprently I am lying in a bed in casualty with a dislocated elbow.

Obviously I'm not, because I'm writing this. But someone with my name is.

I had a bit of a shock as you might imagine. Walking into casualty to see my name up on the board.

I introduced myself. He seemed quite a nice chap but was quite surprised as well

Small world

I've seen some very strange things in my life. Things that people find hard to belive.

But today I've seen some some things that I have never seen before. Strange things. Unbelievable things.

Anyway, today has been very busy. Frankly the busiest I have ever seen it. It got so bad at one point the there was no actual room to get people off the ambulances and into casualty. I know that some places are busier but for the hospital where we go mostly it was a first.

It started quietly. Sort of sneaked up on us. The morning saw us get sent back to base regularly. We didn't mind, although it was never for very long.

On the way back one of the times I saw strange thing number one. A man with an extreme combover. Not just side to side, "the Bobby Charlton". But back to front. His crown was in the nape of his neck.

Got the picture in your mind. Good.

After dinner we got a  call to a man who had collapsed. He was an elderly chap who had carers everyday to look after him. His carer had found him in a collapsed state with blood round his nose and mouth.

We arrived and found him in much the same way. No idea what his medical history was because the carer, for whome English was not his first language, didn't seem to know anything about him. 

Now this chap was completely unresponsive and when you find someone like this you fall back on standard treatments. Oxygen first. Then a basic set of observations. BP, pulse, blood sugar, temperature and an ECG then hospital. Blood round his mouth may have meant that he was bleeding into stomach.

All seemed ok but he was not responding at all. A call to the hospital to tell them we were coming and off we went.

Into hospital and handed over to the staff. We busied ourselves tidieing up. Going back to his cubicle I found that they had catheterised him.

The catheter bag was filling up. Strange thing number two. His urine was green. I'll say that again.

His urine was Green. Not green tinged, Green. The same colour as my uniform.

He had a massive infection in his bladder but I have never seen anything like that before. Even the consultant at casualty was looking at it in bewilderment saying,"Its green."

The afternoon passed in a flash and before we knew where we were it was time to go home. Unfortunately we were queued up at hospital with a patient.

About half an hour later we managed to get away. We left the rest of the fleet parked up outside casualty.     

Football. Why?

I mean you spend a freezing November afternoon running round a field wearing shorts and a thin shirt. And its raining.

No thanks.

A guy this morning had a bit of a row with another guy. Studs met shin. Studs won. We were called and eventually found him. We were initially given the wrong address. Well, technically it was the right address, but it wasn't where he was sitting.
 
We found him sitting in the rain with a big hole in his leg. Getting him on board we had a look at the wound. Unfortunately someone had covered it in vaseline. It stopped it bleeding ok but was a right bugger to get out.

The temperature was dropping.

This afternoon we went to the university and someone else injured at a football match. Shin met studs again. No hole this time but some bruising. It didn't look broken but it was giving him a bit of pain. The wind howled across the pitch. It was COLD.

The afternoon wore on
 
We were due to finish at seven. But the other two crews were due to finish at six thirty so we were resigned to the fact that we weren't going to finish on time.

Sure enough "Beep-Beep-Beep"

There was an RTA on one of the roads leading north. The details we got were that it was a rollover but injuries were unknown.

It had possibilities that someone might be seriously hurt.

It was snowing.

We arrived to find a car with its front stoved in and three people looking a bit shaken. None of them were seriously injured and none wanted to go to hospital. Suddenly control rang us to say that there was another RTA about two hundred yards further up the road.

So off we set again to find another two cars and their occupants. Again they weren't badly hurt, but they needed to go to hospital.

Apparently what had happened was this. A motorist had seen the first RTA and had sped off up the road to warn people therby causing the second one.

Oh well. Two more late shifts to go

Our specialist skills were called upon again yesterday. As you know, we are Specialist Trampoline Extrication Practitioners. I keep mentioning this to the powers that be but there is no sign of any extra money coming our way.

Oh well.

We got a call to the same school that we had been to before. The details were exactly the same as well. A young girl who had been bouncing around, fallen awkwardly and now had neck and back pain. The same as last time.

We arrived and I climbed on the trampoline as well. I reeled out the same old jokes as last time but they seemed to work. Either that or it was the Entonox that was working instead.

Hard collar round the neck and she was soon on a spinal board. It was pretty certain that she hadn't done any damage to her neck and spinal cord but you can't be too careful.

Anyway, loaded onto the ambulance and off we went.

That was one side of the tale of our working lives. The other side came today. We have certain people who are regular users of our services. Either they call us on a regular basis for what ever reason or they put themselves in a position where members of the public call us.

This one was one of the latter. He has a tendancy to drink vast amounts of alchohol, fall over and a member of the public calls us. We take him to hospital, where he wakes up, runs away and then goes and does the same thing again.

So we had picked him up twice yesterday. We got a call to an address which I remembered given as a male collapsed on the street. We were just round the corner so it didn't take us long to get there.

And there he was. Lieing in the street in the rain. He had no shoes on for some reason. The bystanders looked worried and told us that he couldn't get up. My crewmate walked over to him and asked the man if he wanted to go to hospital. He said he did, got up walked to the ambulance.

I drove him to hospital. Arriving at the other end I proccured a wheel chair. Opening the door, my crewmate had a strange smile on his face.

"The seat is yours," he said

I looked and saw that the seat was covered in brown stains. Stains that weren't mud.

Oh crap.

Got him onto a hospital bed and discovered that he appeared to be wearing fishnet tights under his tracksuit bottoms and he had indeed pooed himself.

I meet some odd people

We had a third person out with us. People sometimes come out to have a look at what we do. They very quickly find out its not like Casualty.( http://www.bbc.co.uk/casualty)

Usually when someone comes out the night gets very quiet.

And this was no exception.

Outside KFC was a man who had just filled his veins with Heroin. He was drifting away on a pink cloud and his breathing was getting slower and slower. Soon it would stop altogether.
 
Fortunately he was found by a couple of patrolling PCSO's and they called us.

We got there and he was completely out of it. He wasn't responding at all and he was breathing  at a rate of about 5 or 6 times a minute. It should have been quite a bit more than that. He was a good colour though which was a good sign.

Getting him on the ambulance we measured his blood oxygen level. That was good, actually better than mine was. Anyway he was still out of it so we gave him something to bring him back

Narcan is a wonderfull drug. It costs about 60p and will totally destroy  the effects of a £50 bag of heroin. Wonderfull.
 
We gave him an armfull of that and it brought him round (a bit). Enough to tell us to F**k off anyway. Then he fell asleep again so we took him to hospital whether he wanted to go or not.

Anyway later in an evening where nothing much was happening we got called to a twenty month old child who had probably had a febrile convulsion. I say probably because he would not let us get anywhere near him to do any tests. He cried and cried. We took him to hospital because his crying was going hypersonic and my ears were starting to bleed. Getting out of the house dogs were howling and car alarms were going off. Onto the ambulance and he fell asleep. It never fails.

So, back to work. Back to nights and the fact that the front door to the Ambulance station is broken. Again.  Feels like I've never been away.

Foggy last night. Very foggy. The fog was as thick as thick jack Mcthick, the winner of last years Mr Thick competition.

"Male - unconcious in carpark - head wound - Trousers round his ankles - Police en route"

Our reactions, on the way, went from, "Eh!" to "Eww!"

Arrival. Two police officers were standing in the fog. We went to talk to them

Then we introduced to the gentleman concerned. He was very, very, very, very drunk and his trousers were indeed round his ankles. He wasn't reponding at all so we decided to get him on the stretcher. I fumbled my way back to the ambulance to get it.

Getting him onboard we attempted to examine him. He had a bump on his head and his mouth was full of blood. Unfortunately this was the point where he decided to wake up and attempt an exit. He didn't get very far.

One of the police officers decided to come with us and we set off.

We arrived at hospital with having taken a swing at my crewmate once or twice. I opened the back doors and he gobbed a big red, bloody er..gob on the floor.

The copper found a tooth on the floor. We assumed that it was the patients but as he wouldn't let us look we couldn't be sure. We left it with him though.

So that was one of the highlights of the evening. The other was a young lady student in fishnet stockings. But thats a story for another day