A busy start

Mondays are the new Friday & Saturday nights, well that's what I think anyway. It seems to me that nowadays Monday is one of the busiest days of the week. People always say to me 'Cor, I bet you're busy at the weekends aren't you?'. In fact everyday is busy in this day and age.

And it was no different yesterday. I was supposed to be on a RRV but crewed up on a vehicle as someone was sick. AGAIN! It was non stop. 8 jobs in total (and an assist) and the other crews were exactly the same.



1. Dr's 999, GI bleed. This guy wasn't very well at all. White as a ghost, tachycardic, hypotensive and had high blood sugar. He was also in a lot of pain. After some fluids and pain relief from us he stayed in resus while he had a blood transfusion.

2. Chest pain. Female with severe chest pain. The usual Aspirin & nitrates, took some bloods and gave her some pain relief which worked well. Unable to thrombolyse though. AGAIN! Story of my life.

3. Head injury. Male who had sustained a head injury before the weekend and wasn't feeling right. He had a bruise on the brain and some slight bleeding.

4. Unconscious. Male who found at the front on the street with vomit by his mouth. We backed up a car but when we got there he was insistent on walking to the photographic shop. We managed to check his pulse, blood sugar and temperature but nothing else as he kept walking off. I suspected he had a seizure. We cleared from that job but the car went off looking for him. Another crew brought him in later.

5. Seizure with hip pain. A young epileptic girl had a seizure in the street and developed hip pain. She had a previous problem with her hip as a child so we took her in to get it checked out.

6. Chest pain. Elderly lady with chest pain on and off for 2 days. Her blood pressure was 71/45! Aspirin, IV & bloods and also some sodium chloride just to keep the vein open. She was blue lighted in and stayed in resus for a while. Not very well at all.

7.Dr's 999 Bowel obstruction. Lady with terminal cancer of the brain, as you can imagine she wasn't very well at all. All we could do was make her as comfortable as possible. This was the same lady I went out to before who was having seizures while still conscious. I was toying with the idea of cannulating her in case I needed to give her diazemuls (She is prone to recurrent seizures which has needed our intervention in the past) but decided not to. The last thing she wanted was for me to be poking her around and anyway she had good veins so if she started fitting I would get one in when I needed to.

8. Back pain. A lady with arthritis had developed central lumbar back pain and couldn't get up. We managed her pain with good old gas and air. We used a scoop/orthopedic stretcher to get her out and took her in to get checked out.



We also stopped to assist an officer who was dealing with a regular patient who was on the side of the road. He had taken an overdose of paracetamol & alcohol and was not really with it. We stayed with the officer until a volunteer crew turned up (we were off the road and heading back to base for our 1st break). The patients face was a picture when he was being loaded into the ambulance, it was right in the centre of town and everyone was staring at him. That will teach him although I doubt it will be the last time we see him!