Another 5 shifts!

Well I've had 3 days off and I'm back for another 5 shifts. Today I did an overtime shift on a response car at my local station (not my base station). There were some good people on today and it started off well with one of the guys cooking bacon baguettes. They were delicious. It was a quiet start for me while all the crews were either given calls or tasked to standby somewhere. I got a call later in the morning to go to one of the sub stations in the north of our area, I didn't mind. I had a good book and my sunglasses and the sun was shining, what more could I ask for on a Sunday morning. I had to get some fuel for the car and before I left the service station I was asked to go the hospital for standby. I remember thinking that this was going to be a cushy shift and being paid at time and a half aswell. I was only there a short while before being given a cat A chest pain in the next town. A young lady with a recent NSTEMI (as some would say-a minor heart attack) and a recent stent experienced chest pains. I and another officer got there first soon followed by a crew who took her into hospital. I cleared up and was sent back to base.
Back on base a call came in for one of the crews, I volunteered as one of the crew was talking to a police officer. It came in as a fall, no big deal. I'll be done and dusted in no time I thought. I find out that it's a 6 year old who has fallen from some playground apparatus. She's in agony, pale and has a deformed right arm. It looks blue and mottled from the elbow and her hand is cold compared to the other one. While I'm there she nearly drains a CD size Entonox bottle and I manage to get a small 22g IV into her left hand and give her 2mg of some much needed Morphine. She was in that much pain that she offered me her hand for me to pop the cannula in. A crew eventually turned up to take her in to hospital but before we moved her we splinted her arm with a vacuum splint. This is a slpint that has all the air sucked out and becomes rigid, this will keep her hand nice and still. At the time I suspected that she fractured her humerous and possibly dislocated her elbow. I later learned that she had in fact dislocated her shoulder and elbow and also completely snapped the end off of her humerous. The DRs also think she may have fractured her wrist. En route the paramedic gave her another 2mg of Morphine which made her high as a kite......................again! The combination of Entonox and Morphine really did the job. The last time I asked about her she was in having emergency surgery.
It's not often we have to stick an IV in a child but sometimes it's needed. All I did was treat her as if she was my own. I couldn't believe how brave she was compared to some adults that we go to. You know the ones when you take a sugar sample from their finger and there they are wailing about on the floor, GET UP!!! Well that's what I feel like saying to them sometimes.
I'll pop in to the children's ward and check on her tomorrow.

No sooner have I cleared up from that job I get a call to back up a double EMT crew at a cardiac arrest. Elderly lady, witnessed collapse. To cut a long story short there are 2 community first responders and an EMT crew on scene doing basic life support. I get there and intubate and put an IV in so I can give some resus drugs. We work her for 20 minjutes and after that I halt resus. There is no sign of improvement and the monitor is showing a flat line.

I had to get back to base to swap cars as I couldn't get into the boot, the lock was jammed. On base I restocked my kit and checked another response car.
A short while later another cat A call came in, it was another cardiac arrest. I got there to find one of our staff responders already doin CPR. She was showing Asystole (flat line) on the monitor. Her airway was a problem as it was filling with vomit. I managed to get a tube in and secure her airway. Next I got an IV into her left arm. A crew from a station 35 miles away backed us up and helped with the resus drugs and fluids. After a short while we got a pulse back. I hooked her up to the ventilator on board the ambulance and travelled in with the patient. She held her own all the way into A/E and at around 22.40 this p.m I was told that she was in ITU. Unfortunately she may die but never say never in this game. We did our best.
I get a lift back to my locked and abandoned response car with a local crew.

I then get another job but soon come to the conclusion that it's a GP 999 so query why I'm backing up a more than competent Paramedic crew. I then get stood down only to be given yet another cat A. This time an asian shopkeeper has fallen from his shop counter and landed on his head. His daughter stated that he collapsed in to her arms. A crew turn up so I assist them with a collar and full immobilisation. The patient smells like he has been drinking and is confused and lethargic. The crew take him in and I clear up.
6 six calls in all, not a bad day at all. Most importantly they were all genuine incidents.

Back tomorrow to do it all over again.