Spooky

I was just sitting at the computer at work and picked up Mosby's Prehospital Trauma Life Support book. Whilst flicking through I started to read about chest trauma and needle decompression, literally about 5 minutes after reading that chapter the phone goes 'can you head out on standby, but just to make you aware you might be needed at an RTC'. So off we go. Sure enough we get the job, we are the second crew. I end up performing a Needle Thoracocentesis ( needle decompression/thoracostomy whatever you wanna call it) on this young lad. What are the chances of that happening?!

Another spooky story from a few years ago, probably a coincidence though. It was a couple of months after moving into our brand new house and the new turf had just settled. I was playing football with the kids in the garden when I tripped on a piece of metal wire sticking out of the ground which I hadn't noticed before. I had cut the lawn earlier and hadn't gone over it with the mower so I was a bit puzzled as to where it had come from anyway After several attempts I managed to pull it out and bin it. I thought nothing of it, like you do. After a good run around with the kids I had to get ready for my night shift. Now here's the spooky bit; the first call of the shift was to a fall with very few details apart from we were backing up another crew. When we arrived there was another crew from the neighbouring county and fire & rescue. It soon became apparent that the patient, a lady in her 30's, had fallen on the pavement and landed on the verge but in the verge was a steel reinforcing rod sticking out of the ground and she had landed on it. In fact it had impaled her underneath her chin and penetrated all the way through her mouth and up into the roof of her mouth. She was still conscious but obviously unable to talk. A couple of lines were inserted, one in her foot! and the other in her hand. This was for fluids and pain relief before the fire fighters cut her free. It was going to be a delicate operation because one false move would of proved disaterous. A few minutes later a Basics Dr turned up to assist and asked if we had given any pain relief yet. The answer was no, it was about to be drawn up but because it was back in the days before we had morphine (we were using Nalbuphine at the time, which is not as good as morphine) and the Dr turned up, we thought he would give something better. One of the Paramedics said 'Are you gonna give Diamorph Dr? of which he replied 'You've got Nalbuphine haven't you?', 'Yeah' replied the Paramedic. 'Well give that then!' 'Err Ok' said a surprised looking Paramedic. So that's what happened, she was given 20mg of Nalbuphine. A short while later the Dr decided to give the patient some Ketamine as well. Once she was cut free she was put on a long board and rapidly taken to hospital. I checked on the tv and heard how the fire fighters had to cut her free, nothing about what we did. Oh well hey ho, the fact that she made a full recovery is all that matters. After all my waffling on, the 'spooky' part was a) me tripping over a piece of metal wire at home and b) the lady falling onto a metal rod. Both on the same day! Maybe it was an omen, I don't know. I don't usually believe in all that premonition stuff, it must have been a coincedence.