Overtime..................and some.

Well I was supposed to be working on the RRV for the day but no sooner had I got to my local station (not where I'm usually based) the red phone rang, it was control asking if I could go to my base station to crew up with a trainee. They were one man down, 'No problem' I said and off I went. The good thing about overtime is that it's paid at time and a half or you can take it as time in lieu. I opt for the money every time as I always seem to end up with loads of annual leave and have to try and take it before the year ends. Because I had started earlier than the person I was due to be working with I thought I'd be able to get away earlier........................................

9 calls today:

1. PR (rectal) bleed, elderly male who happened to be a DR. Lost a considerable amount of blood and was still loosing some. He ended up being infused with blood. Poorly patient. It's not every day you can say you've cannulated a DR!
2. On the way to a standby post we got a Dr's urgent admission into a local community hospital but when we arrived the patient wasn't ready. We passed the call back to control and were told to carry on to the original standby post. Bahh
3. After watching Bondi Rescue on SKY we were given a 999 from the psych unit to the A/E.
4. Before we got on scene we overheard a call for a cardiac arrest so we were passed that call. There was a Technician responder on scene who stood us down as the patient was deceased.
5. Another cardiac arrest call but this was just to lend our ECG monitor to another crew as their machine wouldn't print out a trace. They went and got a spare machine afterwards.
6. Homeless guy with apparent chest pain, more like intoxicated but due to a couple of other contributing factors he needed to go to A/E.
7. Fall in the street, female who was on Warfarin (blood thinning meds) was rushing around town trying to sort out her last minute holiday details when she tripped hitting her head. Patients on Warfarin who hit their head, whether they cut it or not, need to go to hospital due to the internal bleeding risks.
8. Chest pain, young girl at work who became unwell with chest pains but we put it down to one of three things, gastric as bringing her knees to her chest eased the discomfort, possible chest infection brewing as her temp was slightly elevated or anxiety. It was a sharp pain and was causing her a lot of discomfort, enough to make her cry.
9. The Icing on the cake! Transfer up to the big smoke 'London'. A trauma patient needing pelvic surgery and we were the only available vehicle. We had 2 1/2 hours to go and knew we would be late. He was on a morphine PCA pump but had to have it disconnected for some reason. He was ok for pain relief on the journey and didn't need any morphine from me which was surprising. I only finished 3 hours after my shift ended but at least I get paid for 21 3/4 hours! Every cloud and all that. One good thing though, my dinner was in the oven when I got in and it tasted bloody great.