Another night

I am work tonight and was on last night. It's not been too bad really, only did 3 jobs last night!
We were first given a Cat C psiam call to a 3 year old with flu like symptoms, drowsy and was developing a bruise like mark on his head but as we were getting close to the address we were stood down for a higher priority call. It was to an acute abdo pain. I got on the radio and asked why were we being stood down and how was the abdo pain more of a priority. They got back to me and said that the higher priority call was from a GP on scene and as the other call was only Cat C it was deemed less important. My reply was 'Well I hope the kiddie hasn't got menningococcal septicaemia then!' Silence, there was no reply. You see just because the call was triaged by phone it doesn't mean to say that this child wasn't potentially seriously ill. It probably was a cold but I like to rule out the worst case first. As it happens the abdo pain turned out to be quite serious. The DR was in fact just leaving as we arrived, he gave us a smile and when I asked if the lady was in a lot of pain he just smiled and said yes. He wasn't wrong, this lady didn't know what to do with herself and was wandering around in agony. We got her on board and sorted her out with some Morphine, 10mg in total. By the time we got her to hospital, which wasn't long, she was a lot more comfortable. She did say to her daughters (one is nurse at the hospital) that she felt fine now and wanted to go home. Nice job, didn't hang around on scene long and sorted the ladies pain out. We turned up at the hospital later and saw a hive of activity in Resus, it was our lady. She had just returned from CT and was found to suffering from a leaking aortic aneurysm. The staff weren't sure if she was going to have the operation there or if she was going to be transfered. I have since found out that she is on the high dependency ward.

We did a small bit of standby and our next job was to a 3 month old baby. Basically mum panicked about her not breast feeding properly and that there were breathing problems. The baby was fine just a bit bunged up with a cold and teething. All that was required was for one of the parents to have to expect having to sit up all night but because the parents were worried and also eastern European (nice couple actually) we thought we would take them to hospital just to give them piece of mind. Although I am an experienced father of 4 and been through exactly the same thing I would never of forgiven myself if we had left them at home and something had happened to the baby in the night.

The next job was to a diabetic man whose wife called because he was half hanging out of the bed and she couldn't move him. His BM was 1.7 and he was semi-conscious and snoring. I treated him with 100ml of IV glucose 10%. He fully recovered within minutes and soon scoffed down tea and sandwiches. His BM was now 7.3. We referred him to his GP as he was having hypos more frequently.