Oh dear. “Christmas Christian”… lovely…

Rob — everything on this blog is true, despite a recent review describing it as “a spoof of the ambulance service”…

Would someone like to explain the concept of an irony bypass to your caller?
At least when I called about an unconscious person (i.e. most likely passed out drunk) I had the decency to remain at the scene.
Thanks for your hard work!

I received a call to the EMAS control room yesterday from a lady whose father had collapsed during a church service (he was the organist(). She was really worried about disturbing the church service, as they had just carried on regardless. I thought the congregation could at least have stopped and prayed for him or something!

I’ve spent ages trying to think of how to word a comment. But I can’t. I’m left speechless.

what Snoop said…

I wish I could be surprised to be honest.

I’ve been kicked by a very “posh” gentleman for kneeling down treating an elderly female who had suffered a TIA/CVA type of event since I was delaying him getting to his train and there was a queue to get past…

There are exceptions however. One collpased elderly male, cause unknown that I was treating while out shopping waiting for the ambulance service when over toddles an elderly female in her 80s, with her cane and her 10 year old grandson and says “I have told my grandson to call the ambulance for you, you tell him what to say. I would help but I cant kneel down any more with my arthritis….”

And to finish a terrible true story from my days in the world of retail….

Back in the dark ol’ days when I was working for a major food retailer begining with T.. as First Aiders we treated an elderly female who was a known epileptic who had a fit and badly fractured her skull (a lot of blood… brain matter on the dressing…) and another snob demanded to go down the closed aisle and get… Jelly Babies… when she was politely told she couldnt… someone went to thrown some at her, complete with all the various body fluids on their gloved hands and she replied “No not those ones, the ones next to them don’t be so stupid!”

The Store Manager just managed to stop the Fresh Foods Manageress from knocking her on her back….

And the oh so vocal “Christians” (Not the real ones who don’t make a fuss, but just live it well) wonder why everyone seems to hate them. They think themselves martyrs, while they make a mockery of good people everywhere. 2000 years on, and they still don’t get it. Crying shame.

Ditto the down escalator! >:(

My husband fell off a truck at a building site and injured his back about two months ago. While he was lying there on the ground in pain and gasping for breath, a bloke (who had seen the whole thing) came over and said, “Jeez, you alright mate? Want some help to sit up?” After sitting my husband up, he just walked off and LEFT HIM SITTING THERE, without so much as a backward glance!!! Unbelievable! Eventually my husband was able to drag himself to the truck, then hail a brickies’ labourer to let out the handbrake, and drive himself, one-handed, to the Doctor, who was luckily only about 2k away. He’ll be back at work in a couple of weeks, but no thanks to the guy who walked off and left him.

Unfortunately I am sure it is not uncommon.
From my side, after working no-stop from 23 to 26: a 38 man that died from Leishmania the 25 after two days of suffering, a homeless founded alone LOC, the 24, in the street that collapsed and die two hours later in ER even after I tried EVERYTHING. It seems that In Xtsmas I got useless

Anyway, Happy New Year from Spain

The other side of people driving by things and calling 999 is that it’s a waste of resources, as by the time the ambulance arrives, there can be no-one there.

I took a call from a man in a car who had driven past a female leaning over a wall with her head stuck in the hedge above it. When I asked the man why he thought she needed an ambulance, he just replied that it didn’t look right. I asked him if he was with her, and he said he wasn’t, and he had driven past. Needless to say, by the time the ambulance pulled up a few minutes later, there was no female with her head in the hedge. We obviously called the man back, and asked if he could give us any more information on the “patient”, but he couldn’t, as (he kept reminding us) he had only driven past and wasn’t going back. When we told him there was no-one there, and asked was he sure she had required an ambulance, he very rudely said that he would sleep better that night knowing that she was ok, and hung up the phone.

On a busy day, what a waste of a resource. I’m guessing this guy wouldn’t have stopped if he’d seen any of the above either!

When i crashed my motorbike due to slippery surface on the highway. Alot of people just drove right by.

Its a cruel world.

We use St John ambulances sometimes — usually they take the lowest priority calls and doctor’s calls. I guess that’s coz they’re taking the “overflow” that we can’t deal with, so we take the Cat As and they get whatever’s left. I’m a member of SJA myself, although I don’t do ambulance work, just first aiding, and I think they do get the piss taken out of them a bit, although sometimes it is justified — you get some really strange people in the organisation and whenever there’s an accident they swarm round the patient like vultures, fighting everyone else off. They’re good at what they do though, and a SJA ambulance person is qualified to the same level as an LAS technician, so they shouldn’t be seen as “rubbish”.

As a member of SJA before I joined the LAS, I used to think that the ambulance aid 2 qualification was the same level as the IHCD technician. That thought was dispelled within the first week in training school.

SJA ambulance personnel are trained to a high standard, but have no where near the background knowledge and patient assessment skills that the IHCD qualification demands.

Having said that, there are members of SJA that I would rather have treat me if I was ill that some LAS staff….

A very brief article in the Guardian touching on un-Christianlike behaviour:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,,1674777,00.html

Been there, seen it, t-shirt shrank. The day I came off my bike and collided with a rather solid wall the “gentleman” in the car behind me drove straight past. Fortunatly the lovely lady in the following car stopped to check that I was ok and a very nice young man walked me home. I make a point of not “crossing over to the other side of the street” and I’m not even a Christian.

This is the most depressing story I’ve heard in a while…I think the caller has a nasty surprise coming if (s)he thinks getting to church on time is the way to get through the Pearly Gates.

It’s funny what other people consider to be an appropriate response to an injured stranger. I remember calling an ambulance about a man who had collapsed on the street three blocks away from the hospital I was working at as a junior doctor. I answered all the standard questions (although the dispatcher allowed me to leapfrog the proforma a little after I gave the guy’s GCS as part of my reply to the initial airway/breathing question) and was dumbfounded when I was asked: “Are you able to stay with this man until the ambulance arrives?”

I thought it a bizarre question - OF COURSE I wasn’t going to walk off and leave this guy unconscious in the middle of the footpath, what kind of person did the dispatcher THINK I was? - but now I see why the question gets asked. Even if the caller is a doctor, I guess you can’t assume that their natural response will be to remain with the patient until the ambulance arrives. Strange world we live in.