I just went down the shops to buy some lunch, and saw a man lying in a doorway. I went up to him and saw he was resting on a dirty blanket and snoring. He smelled of alcohol. I prodded him and he stirred.
“You ok?” I asked. “Need any help?”
“Mmmmph,” said the man grumpily. “I’m sleeping… leave me alone…”
I did as I was told.
When I came back from the shops, there was an ambulance, a police car and an FRU parked by the doorway. Three paramedics and two policemen were standing around the man. He was telling them that he was sleeping and that they should go away.
Why can’t people ASK “patients” if they are okay before they call ambulances for them? Being drunk and homeless and sleeping in a doorway is neither an illness nor a crime!
August 13th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
I remember once being sent to a park for a young woman who was reported to be lying prone and unmoving on the grass. Upon examination, it turned out she was sunbathing.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:47 am
On duty we were once called to one of the events car parks for a, person looking unwell and not moving in a van. on arrival we found the person was part of the main entertainment. do you want to guess what this person did.
This person was in the dropping weight part of the show, and was a crash test dummy!!!!! I thought the black and yellow quartered circles gave the game away!!!
August 14th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I see your point, but I have to admit I would feel a little differently if it was my doorway. Getting a drunk to move so you can get in/out of your home isn’t that much fun.
The last one outside my flatblock went from telling me “piss off, I’m sleeping,” to “I can’t move anyway, my leg’s broken,” so I offered to call an ambulance. At that point he got up and walked away. If he hadn’t, then I would have called an ambulance. I’m unsure what else I could have done. Trod on him as I left the building?
August 14th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I see what you mean, Mary. In this case, the doorway belonged to some kind of training centre, but had it been my doorway I might have ended up calling the police if the person had refused to budge. (I actually found someone asleep on the communal stairs to our flats once, but he scarpered after I put on a very stern voice and ordered him away!) I’d call an ambulance if someone said they wanted one or were obviously ill/injured, but we get loads of calls that go on the lines of “There’s a man lying in the road. No, I haven’t asked if he’s okay. Can’t you send someone to do that?” Which is annoying.
August 19th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
As with Dave M a very similar situation arose many years ago when I was but a lad.
Someone called the police/ambulance to a car parked outside the local shops with a ‘dismembered body’ on the back seat.
It turned out the owner of the car was an SJA trainer and the ‘body’ was only an Annie.
Still, it made us laugh at the time.
Regards
TM
August 21st, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Last week I was called to a man, slumped in a car, “life status questionable”.
I drove for 12 minutes across the rush hour city. You don’t need to imagine who dangerous that is.
On arrival at the street in question, I drove down it, and back up. No cars with people slumped in it. One builder’s van with a guy eating a sandwich and having a brew, one people carrier being loaded with toddlers and one white VW Golf with a couple in it, arguing.
Just in case I missed anything, I got out the RRV and walked up the road, checking to make sure that the other cars really were empty.
I returned to the RRV and called up control, with the intention of standing down the ambulance. Dispatcher told me that the call had come from a person in a house, and on calling the person back, it became obvious that the person in Number 4 had called and the “male slumped in car” was the couple in the white Golf, right outside his house.
My old friend Red Mist kicked in, and I went to have a word with Number 4. A gentleman answered the door and explained that he had called the ambulance because he was worried that the man in the car “might be or drugs or something”.
I suggested that perhaps he could have asked the couple if they needed an ambulance.
“I thought they would attack me.”
So, I asked, you thought it would be better if I got attacked instead?
I walked over to the car, knocked politely on the window and the lady rolled down the window. I asked if they needed an ambulance to which, of course, they both said “no” and looked perplexed.
“He thought you were drug crazed criminals and were going to kill him, ” I said, turning around to point at the caller. the look on the caller’s face was a picture, and I have never seen a front door slam so quickly, and the sounds of locks and door chains being fastened reverberated across the street!
Why do we put up with such nonsense?
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:12 pm
hello, i too am a techie and the other night i went to an “unresponsive on a grass verge” - which 99 times out of 100 means “drunk.” We got him up and checked him over, he was just very worse for wear and had no shoes on. thinking that he had had his shoes nicked by an unsympathetic passer by we offered to take him home (wouldn’t normally offer but his address was just 400 yards up the road and his wife answered the door.) she freely admitted leaving him there to “teach him a lesson” which is all very well until a passer by phones for us. by the way she took his shoes too!
September 9th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
I’m a Police Dispatcher in NZ and we get these calls all the time. In 9 years of dispatching, 1 only of these calls has been to a victim, he was reported in a reserve on a saturday morning prone on the grass when we got there he was a victim of serious assault and died in hospital. 99% of the time these calls are a waste of time because as you say people will not approach the potential patient, you can’t afford to be complacent though because that 1% will come back and bite you big time.