I've been working with Ceebee again today which has been brilliant.
We got a job, an RTA, on a road that is quite well known to us at our ambulance station. It is about 10 miles long and is an old Roman road so is very straight with a few kinks in it.
People tend to get a bit carried away on the straight bits and don't see the kinks. Anyway we went to this job. We've both been in the job for a while and we were pretty sanguine about what we were going to. To paraphrase it was going to be a non injury job or something a lot worse.
We came to the scene and both said, in unison, "Oh F**k"
The road bent round to the right after a long, fast straight. Unfortunately the car hadn't followed the road and had carried on straight. Hit a sign, knocked it over. Hit a post, knocked it over. Hit an oak tree and hadn't knocked it over.
We both got out hurridly and went to have a look.
To put it bluntly, the car was trashed. Inside was a single man. He was trapped by the engine, which had been pushed into his lap, the door which was wrapped around his side and the roof.
Struggling in we discovered that he wasn't responding at all. He was breathing though. Oxygen on, airway in and check for a pulse.
Bugger. There wasn't one.
We were on our own. Two technicians. No paramedics, no firebrigade, no police. And we couldnt get him out.
Bugger again.
Then people started to arrive. The firebrigade arrived and we got them cutting. A paramedic arrived and he took over care of the patient, trying to get intravenous access.
Talking to the firebrigade it would have taken about three quarters of an hour to free him. By this time he had stopped breathing as well.
He was dead. Reluctantly we decided to leave him be.
I don't know his name. I know nothing about him but somewhere, someone was waiting for him to come home.
And he wasn't going to.
