I Told Him Not To Do It
Nine minutes to seven, and one last call before going home. It couldn’t get any worse after starting the day with a cot death, could it? What happened to these parents was worse, at least to listen to. The mother made the initial call, she was crying too much to be understood. Fortunately she was ringing from her landline, so I managed to decipher the address. When she sobbed “My son… not breathing” I had visions of another cot death, but then I asked the age. “Fourteen,” she wailed. I was about to instruct her on CPR, but suddenly she had a brainwave and shouted, almost intelligibly, “I’m a first aider! I’m going to do resuscitation” and then she dropped the phone and ran off to do it.
In the background I heard, faintly at first, shouting and banging. At first I thought there was a fight going on and that this was how the son came to be in such a predicament, but as the source of the noise I approached the phone I realised this was the patient’s father, who was utterly, utterly hysterical and smashing things. The man grabbed the phone and shouted the address down it, again and again. He didn’t let me get a word in edgways and it was as if he couldn’t hear what I was saying to him at all. I eventually got his attention by bellowing in a very loud voice which could probably be heard in the ambulance station below. It’s never nice to have to bellow at people whose relatives are seriously ill, but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind — increased volume is the only way to get their attention, and getting their attention might just achieve that piece of communication that saves the patient’s life. Whilst having his attention, I asked what had happened. It was very hard to understand what he was saying at first. Then I realised he was describing the appearance of his son. Face purple, eyes wide, unblinking, popping out of his head, bleeding from the mouth, stiff, cold, dead. I had to (inwardly) admit, it didn’t sound like there was much chance.
As I was listening to this, a piece of paper, passed down Chinese Whispers style from dispatch, landed on my desk. It said “Sector have nothing to send yet. Sorry”. My eyes nearly popped out of my head at that point. I looked at the clock, and it had only been a couple of minutes since the call started, but at times like this, time slows down and two minutes feel like half an hour. 1851 isn’t a good time to call for an ambulance, by the way. Crews, like control staff, change over at 7pm, so everyone’s loading their ambulances, adjusting their uniform or stuck in traffic on the way to the nee naw station. If you call for something non life threatening at this time, it may well be held until 7; if you call for a Proper Emergency you will end up with a grumpy crew who’ve just worked a twelve hour shift and who thought they were on their way home.
The man continued howling and wailing and repeating himself and not making much sense. I gathered that he’d just come home and found his son like that, earlier the son had gone to do [something] and his father had told him not to do [whatever it was]. Whatever the patient had been doing was lost in the midst of hysterics, but he told him not to do it, he told him not to. He was my only son, he was my life, he is dead, crunch, bang, I told him not to do it.
The ambulance arrived at 1901. It was the longest ten minute phone call of my entire career. I never did work out what he told him not to do.
on September 15th, 2005 at 1:52 am
Did you ever get to ask the crew?
on September 15th, 2005 at 9:56 am
Yeah, I did, but it didn’t really shed much light on it. They took the boy into hospital, although I don’t think there had been much hope, and he was pronounced dead there. He had been previously healthy and the only clue they found was some half-smoked cannabis in the boy’s room, near his body. This may well have been what his father told him not to do, but I still have no idea why he died.
on September 30th, 2005 at 10:06 pm
Your site is great! I just found it through this ‘blogrankers.com’ link through another blog (blogjam). In fact, I’ve already forwarded a link to my friends as we were discussing 999 calls 2 nights ago
Very interesting - and I imagine, very therapeutic too!! If only my line of work was vaguely bloggable…
anyway. back to lurking.
on September 30th, 2005 at 10:27 pm
Glad you like it, and please do send it to anyone as I am hungry for publicity!
What is your line of work then?
on October 4th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
Well, a keen employee of the NHS - but with no patient contact. Plenty of Professors though who profess to be extra-specially intelligent, but can’t fathom how to negotiate around a website designed specifically for their ease of use.
No, not IT - research & development….. *snore* …Oh you’re still awake?
on October 4th, 2005 at 8:09 pm
We never really found out either…… Iwas one half of the crew, working without my medic crewmate ( i was with my partner ). The scene you have described on the phone was exactly as we found it, i have never witnessed such grief and it was truly heartbreaking. The lad was purple+ on arrival but we gave it our best shot anyway, hindered by the f***ing heaps of shit we loosely call ‘ambulances’, the lights and sirens failed en-route to hosp, with the father doing the best he could to replace them.
From what i believe, the lad aspirated on a drink and had basically choked to death. He was their only son.
He had braces on his teeth.
I tend to remember details like that.
on October 4th, 2005 at 10:19 pm
Wow, it’s always interesting to hear what becomes of my jobs. Tom has picked up and blogged about at least two of them on the phone, but neither were a suspended. Aspirated on a drink… crikey… the images going through my mind were things like suicide, assault, drug overdose… I didn’t even know someone could choke to death on a drink. That must have been an awful call to deal with — I know I went home with shaky hands that day, and I didn’t even *see* anything. I also know what a long time you guys spent trying to revive him too — I asked sector for a report on what happened coz I knew it’d worry me if I never found out. The sector control stayed late the next morning to tell me when I got in, which was nice of her. Well done on your efforts.
on October 4th, 2005 at 10:59 pm
The coroners court was a couple of weeks ago, thankfully i didnt have to go, but a couple of the nurses did and told us it was probable he smoked a little weed, got hungry/thirsty, and had one of them really thick shakes and fell asleep……..
)
Dont forget what a grand job you do up there too (which prob sounds a bit strange coming from roadstaff
on October 5th, 2005 at 12:27 am
I have always had the deepest respect for control. It’s true. I can honestly say that in the 2 years I’ve been on the road (still a new boy I know, and still learning!) I’ve only ever been shirty with the radio-op twice. And both times, the radio op was shirty with me first.
The first time was when I was told to go “green mobile” after doing a 9 month old suspended baby - my first. I said “Er..well actually we’ve just finished CAD xyz, we’ve still got paperwork to finish, and we’d really like to return to station to get our heads together”. The reply was “Roger, I still need you to go Green mobile.”
So I said “you do realise we’ve just been to a 9 month old dead baby don’t you?” getting a little annoyed.
“Yes I am aware of that, but I still need you to go green mobile.” I didn’t. I went unavailable, we drove back to station and I rang the radio-op. After hearing my point of view (which I expressed very politely in all fairness, although I did tell her she was out of order) she apologised perfusely.
The other time, I was not very well, so was not in the best of moods anyway, and a new controller got shirty with me and insisted some information was on my MDT screen when it wasn’t. I told her if she didn’t believe me, I’d go unavailable, drive up to control and she could read the damn screen for herself. I didn’t realise she was new at the time, and was told later. I asked for my apologies to be passed to her, but she wouldn’t win many friends on the road with the attitude she gave me on the radio.
Having said that, I’ve found the vast majority of controllers to be superb. Yours is an extremely stressful job. I’ve been up to the room, and sat in on both the sector desk and the call takers. Would like to do it again soon.
on October 5th, 2005 at 5:10 pm
Sorry… please, could someone explain to me what ‘aspirated on a drink’ means? So he choked on the milkshake? How can you do that? Surely your body can cough and get you out of it. And what does the weed have to do with it? I feel I am missing something.
on October 5th, 2005 at 5:14 pm
Yeah, some of them are a bit arsey. If it’s any consolation, they are not just arsey to crews but to lower ranked dispatchers too, and of course to the general public. There have been a few occasions when I’ve been answering the crews’ line into dispatch and been stuck in the middle of a dispute between a crew and another dispatcher (that line, I find, is like The Samaritans for ambulance crews, half the calls are crews wanting to get something off their chest rather actually get me to do something for them) Most of my colleagues are lovely, though. And most of the crews are lovely too. Like you, I’ve only had two occasions when there’s been a problem — well, one is a recurring problem. The first is one particular EMT/paramedic who always grumbles about going out on calls and always says (in all seriousness) “are we the nearest?” or “but we only started five minutes ago, can’t you hold it until the 2 car come in?” and the other was a FRU who lost his temper after being sent to a category A call which turned out to be a 20-year-old woman feeling cold — it was February, it was 4am and it was snowing, and there was nothing wrong with her at all. I don’t blame him for being annoyed, but I didn’t take the call, didn’t send him to it, didn’t have anything to do with it and didn’t deserve getting an earful about it and subsequently hung up on. But I’m sure he isn’t normally that rude.
on October 5th, 2005 at 5:25 pm
Ernest — as far as I know (I am not a doctor, etc) aspirated on a drink means that the drink went down into his lungs, possibly causing acute respiratory distress syndrome. I’m guessing that the weed smoking had made him drowsy, which could account for the drink getting into his lungs in the first place. There could be more to it, or it could be one of those cases of a chance in a million freak accident type things. One of the pitfalls of this job is quite often you never get to the bottom of these things.
on October 5th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
Hi Mark - I know it does go both ways, and often I think its down to misunderstanding.
I don’t often query calls that I’m sent on - and when I do, it’s usually for green calls to ask if the ECP is available. The only reason for this is because the ECPs in the area I work have asked us to as they sometimes get forgotten.
Aspirating on a drink - you’re correct in what you say, it is when it goes down “the wrong way”. This often occurs in cardiac arrest patients cos we can sometimes over inflate the lungs so air goes into the stomach causing them to vomit. Because they’re on their back and we’re holding the airway open, the vomit then tends to go down into the lungs. When this happens, it’s vital to get the patient intubated, and while waiting for this to happen, we do “cricoid pressure”, where we press on a certain part of the windpipe causing it to squash and close off the oesophagus to prevent further vomiting.
on October 5th, 2005 at 6:07 pm
Yep, a lot of the ECPs don’t have MDTs, so we can’t see them on the computer system, and if we’re not told they are there (which sometimes happens) they get overlooked and sit on station drinking tea for two hours until boredom gets the better of them and they ring up and say “You do know we’re here, don’t you?” But if we’re sending you halfway across London for a suspended, then YES, you are the nearest
I’ve heard about that overinflating lungs business before — at St John they always tell us not to blow too hard otherwise we’ll end up with a faceful of vomit, but I hadn’t considered that it might go back down into the lungs — even worse than a faceful of vomit I guess. Fortunately I’ve not had to resuscitate a real person in real life yet. Resusci-Annie doesn’t have the vomit reflex!
on October 6th, 2005 at 11:15 pm
I have never actually asked the immortal question that I often hear others ask “Are you sure we’re the nearest?”. I often feel like picking up the mike and saying “No of course not, they just gave it to you for a giggle!”
We’ll often offer up for Cat As that are miles away. Heard a GB for a job in Croydon once and offered up for it (we don’t work anywhere near Croydon, but we’re always happy to run on it if there’s nothing else), so when we came up green after a job in our area, they sent us a Green 2 in Croydon. They admitted later on the phone they panicked a little when we went Amber to Scene without saying anything! lol
However if it’s a job like a suspended and it’s a bit of a trek, I will sometimes ask the desk to keep an eye up for anyone closer coming up green. It does very much depend who’s on. Some I know will watch it like a hawk without having to be asked. Others seem to have the attitude of “Well I’ve given them the job, so it’s theirs now”
on October 7th, 2005 at 12:10 am
You’re a saint! My favourite kind of nee naw!
on October 10th, 2005 at 5:03 am
just wondering why all crews change over at the same time? Seems silly if this can cause delay in response or lead to respoinse by crews overdue for a break?
on October 10th, 2005 at 10:51 pm
They don’t *all* change over at the same time, there is some overlap, but the majority of crews change over at 7 o’clock… as far as I know it’s because the crews work in teams and are always on with the same people… at least that’s the reason in nee naw control (we change over at 7 o’clock too).
on October 11th, 2005 at 1:11 am
Hi Mark
im a Paramedic in Auckland NeeNaw service in New Zealand, looked up your web site after a blurb from it was published in “The New Zealand Herald” our national daily newspaper. Love your stories etc, seems like we are pretty much the same everywhere round the world where as calltakers, dispatchers and medics, we hold the general public in the high regard that they so thouroughly deserve, not to mention our contempt the NeeNaw computer Q & A systems now in place. I was recently responded (single crewed too I might add) to a 80 year old man with chest pain, no further info given. I arrived to find the chest pain was a result of the pt having severe chest injuries and lying 150 mtrs down a bank after driving his car off the road 18hrs earlier and just being found.
Keep up the good work, i will be passing the website onto all of my colleagues both medics and comms staff
Cheers Mike
on October 11th, 2005 at 1:13 am
Hi Mark
im a Paramedic in Auckland NeeNaw service in New Zealand, looked up your web site after a blurb from it was published in “The New Zealand Herald” our national daily newspaper. Love your stories etc, seems like we are pretty much the same everywhere round the world where as calltakers, dispatchers and medics, we hold the general public in the high regard that they so thouroughly deserve, not to mention our contempt for the NeeNaw computer Q & A systems now in place. I was recently responded (single crewed too I might add) to a 80 year old man with chest pain, no further info given. I arrived to find the chest pain was a result of the pt having severe chest injuries and lying 150 mtrs down a bank after driving his car off the road 18hrs earlier and just being found.
Keep up the good work, i will be passing the website onto all of my colleagues both medics and comms staff
Cheers Mike
on November 2nd, 2005 at 2:28 am
If on approach I noticed that the suspended patient had a ditended stomach it usually meant a big meal had been consumed recently. Bad news, especially in days of very few “intubator” Its worth trying this. Role patient onto side and push in stumach with force. With luck the vomit will be ejected out while in a relatively safe position. If not nothing lost, the patient will most likely vomit on the first puff and the bag goes straight into the stomach curtesy of a very, very relaxed asophogus. Remember 99.99999 of the suspended patientsone comes across are dead, dead, dead anyway!