Tom Reynolds's Blog, page 4

Assault (Again)

Someone tried to assault me on Sunday - an alcoholic who was brought into hospital drunk, then sat outside to continue her drinking. She then decided to wander off home while still attached to and IV, IV bag and drip stand.

Another crew came across her and were trying to deal with her but already had a patient in the back of their ambulance, so we decided to help out and take the 'patient' back to the A&E department to have the IV removed.

As I was waiting to chat to the nurses about her she ...

Postcodes

As is my wont, I often find myself moaning about social care, or rather the lack thereof.

We were sent to an elderly man who had fallen over, the police had already arrived and had gained entry to the address and by the time we go there they had already picked him up and sat him on the end of the bed.

We did our usual checks, and a few things were a little 'off'. For example his ECG showed a chronic heart condition that may have been the cause for him to collapse.

The patient didn't want to go t...

Blame Us

I've been doing a fair amount of transfers between hospitals of late. Which is why this article on the BBC news site struck me a particularly timely.

Unnecessary risks are being taken when transferring seriously ill people from hospital to hospital, doctors say.

But British Medical Association doctors said medics often had to rely on batteries to power vital equipment - and these were prone to failing.

Most ambulances do not have sockets for standard three-pin plugs. Instead, they have...

Best Wishes

Two police officers had to be cut free from a police car that was involved in an accident on its way to a 999 call this morning.

The car was going to an emergency call when it was involved in an accident with another vehicle at shortly after 5.05am. The accident happened at the junction of New City Road and Barking Road.

Police, fire and ambulance officers attended. The two officers in the police vehicle received leg injuries in the accident and were taken to Newham General Hospital. The...

How 'Cool' Is Hitler?

Nice - Can me and my crewmate have a £10,000 budget please? I could do a study into why our ambulances rarely have a complete set of equipment on them. Or, you know, I could just spend the £10,000 on buying the kit.

An ambulance service has apologised after staff were asked to rate how "cool" Adolf Hitler was in a questionnaire.

The survey was sent out to 4,000 employees at West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) as part of a £10,000 study to identify what made good leadership.

Respondents...

Looking At The Schoolyard

It's night and myself and a policeman are leaning against a front garden wall, my crewmate is in the ambulance cab doing some paperwork. If this were a TV drama one of us would be casually smoking a cigarette in order to show the audience how cynical and hardened we are.

We are outside a squat, opposite a school. The windows are boarded up and so was the door, but the people living inside managed to pry them off and sneak some mattresses into the building.

There were two people living inside...

Immobilising Drunks

It's a simple little rule really, one that I learnt in training school. 'If they are drunk and have fallen a long way, collar and board them'.

It sounds simple, but there is a world of difference between what should be done and what can be done.

My current chappie was drunk which, to be honest, was probably a normal state of affairs for him. He'd taken some imagined offence at the person living upstairs from him (for this was the classic Newham housing scheme where a landowner converts a...

Having Some Fun

The two women sit in the pub drinking heavily. One of them puts down the phone having called for her husband to come and walk her home.

She turns to the other woman and says, "I've going to have a laugh on the way home".

"How's that", the other replies.

"Well, I'm going to get halfway home and then 'discover' that I can't walk. So I'm going to throw myself on the floor and roll around like a two-year old having a temper tantrum".

"Won't that get you dirty?", the other woman says.

"Well, yeah, but ...

Place Of Fear

Sometimes the eyes are blue, sometimes brown, sometimes green. But almost always the eyes are reddened and damp with tears.

Sometimes they are male, sometimes female, sometimes old and sometimes a child. But they've always been hurt.

Sometimes it's bruises, sometimes it's cuts, sometimes a broken bone, sometimes something much worse.

Sometimes I talk to them, my crewmate hovering outside the door, police in the house talking on the radio.

Sometimes I'm the one standing in the doorway, teeth...

Collapse

I'm often sent to a patient who has 'collapsed', sometimes this is due to a genuine medical condition - something like a heart attack, a stroke or diabetic problems. Often this is due to alcohol - the location and calltaker details often gives it away - the patient is in the street and the person who phoned for the ambulance cannot give us any details because they 'don't want to go near the patient', that or they are phoning for us from a bus or car.

'Drive-by calls' are normally for drunks...