Petrolhead's Ponderings

Taxi or truck?

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:48:00 +0000

While I was waiting for my friends outside a restaurant this evening, I was doing a bit of 'people watching'. I like imagining where people are going and where they're from. It makes waiting around a bit more interesting, if nothing else!

Anyway, I couldn't help but notice a dishevelled looking man aged about 75 stumbling between the bollards in the pedestrian zone. I knew a fall was going to be inevitable, but I didn't want to intervene unnecessarily, so I kept a close eye on him, poised to react if I needed to. He did fall, and as soon as he did I ran over to help. I see it as my duty as a member of the ambulance service to assist if someone is injured, but I was glad that another member of the public came over too. Together we made sure he wasn't badly injured, and we helped him into a chair provided by the restaurant owners. I asked him if he wanted an ambulance and he said no, just a taxi home. He told me he had the money to pay, and told me where he lived, so I booked a cab for him. He didn't completely make sense, because his speech was slurred. I could smell alcohol on his breath, so I put it down to that.

It wasn't until later in the evening that I started having doubts - should I have called an ambulance? After all, the man had taken a tumble, and didn't seem completely compos mentis. There was the slurred speech, of course, so he could have just been drunk - I'm not intending to stereotype him, but he gave me that impression. When I called the cab, it took about 15 minutes to arrive and the whole time the poor guy was mumbling that he wanted to get back home. So he obviously wanted to go home, but I'm not sure if I should maybe have called the cavalry to check him out and make sure he was definitely OK. After all, who can really say why he was stumbling? It could have been alcohol, but it could have been more sinister.

Someone put my mind at rest! Did I do right to call him a taxi, or would 999 have been more appropriate? All opinions welcome.

Professional distance

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:31:00 +0000

It's a well known fact that emergency services personnell tend to maintain a professional distance from their patients, in order to carry out their job without becoming emotionally involved. Certainly, if I were to allow myself to think too deeply about some of the calls I deal with, I would certainly not be able to cope.

However, I never thought I would keep this barrier up when I was off-duty. I'm not saying I'm heartless and don't allow myself to care, but I received some shocking news about one of my closest friends, Jack, yesterday, and I didn't react. My other friends were devastated, crying and talking about it constantly. I, on the other hand, dealt with the news calmly and got on with my evening. I'm not sure if it's because I haven't physically seen Jack to confirm that yes, he is seriously ill, or just that I can't let my guard down. But either way, I don't seem to be able to allow myself to cry. Instead of talking about my friend it's almost like I'm referring to a patient. I'm not seeing Jack, I'm seeing his illness and the symptoms.

In a way, it's good that I know I have developed this ability to distance myself from distressing situations. But in another, more personal way, I seem to have lost the ability to care about my loved ones.

Merry Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 10:00:00 +0000

Merry Christmas, dear readers!!!!!! That is if there's anybody left still reading this blog...I'm hoping to be back at work next month, so keep stopping by.

I hope you and your loved ones all have a fantastic Christmas. Remember not to get TOO drunk, because nobody wants to call an ambulance on Christmas Day! :P

Go on - eat, drink and be merry!

Petrolhead

999 transcripts

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:19:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, the Guardian Weekend magazine had a very interesting piece about 999 calls. It features several transcripts of calls to the ambulance service, and shows readers what it's really like when you pick up the phone and request an ambulance.

Personally, I'm fed up with the way that TV programmes such as Eastenders and even Casualty portray the initial contact. OK, I understand that having a five minute scene where the person reels off information such as the patient's address and level of consciousness may not make enthralling viewing, but the number of times I've seen Peggy Mitchell bark "Yeah, I need an ambulance now! My son's been assaulted!" and then slam the phone down is infuriating!

Friends of mine outside the emergency services have commented that the feature is a fascinating insight into how things work 'behind the scenes', and how important it is for callers to remain calm in what are obviously very distressing situations.

Here's a link in case you haven't read it yet. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/29/unpublished-999-call-transcripts

I'm still here!!

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:09:00 +0000

Sorry for the distinct lack of posting over the last 3 months! I am still here, but things are very busy in the world of Petrolhead right now. I'll update you when I can, but don't give up on me, I'm still here!

Out of Area

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Mon, 26 May 2008 14:40:00 +0000

Occasionally, we get calls for other parts of the UK. Usually this happens if somebody – from Cardiff for example – phones a relative in Sussex, and they suddenly collapse. The person in Sussex will phone 999, and we process the call as usual. When the call is finished, we’ll look up the ambulance service for that county and pass it to them to deal with. Yesterday, I took a call for a patient in High Wycombe, a 73 year old female who had collapsed in her utility room. Her son, who had special needs, panicked and called his uncle who lives in Brighton. He phoned 999 himself, and automatically got through to the Sussex control room. I took the call as usual, but then there was some confusion over which service actually covered High Wycombe! It’s East Midlands Ambulance Service, if you’re interested. Altogether that call took 11 minutes from the initial beep in my ear to completing passing the call to EMAS. Not bad!

Sometimes, we have to use our powers of persuasion with patients. I got a call from a very sheepish 57 year old man who was stuck on the toilet. He was disabled, and couldn’t transfer himself from the toilet to his wheelchair. He was also pretty certain that something was going on ‘down there’ so that was causing him a bit of pain. He wasn’t sure he needed an ambulance, and asked me if I thought he did. “How will you get off if we don’t come out to you?” I asked. He couldn’t think of an answer, so agreed to let me send a crew to him.
“I feel such a fool!” he told me. “Stuck on the toilet at my age! Will the crew mind? It seems such a stupid reason to have an ambulance.”
“That’s what we’re here for, to help people. People call ambulances for far more trivial reasons.”
I felt pleased with the way I handled this call. I made this man feel slightly better about calling us out, and even though we could have refused to send one because he wasn’t in a life threatening situation, how else would he have got off the toilet? If he’d called the out of hours GP, I’m sure they’d have referred him straight to us anyway!

Full Moon

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Mon, 26 May 2008 14:39:00 +0000

I always thought it was a myth when my colleagues told me that the strangest calls seem to happen when there’s a full moon in the sky. I was on a 12-hour night shift recently, and it was all going OK until about 1.30am when Dave – a regular caller – phoned us, saying he’d passed out 3 times in as many hours. I went through my questions as usual, but he kept saying he couldn’t understand me, like I was speaking a foreign language. As I was trying to ask the rest of my questions, he told me the doorbell was ringing (at that time in the morning??) and insisted on answering it. It was clear he wasn’t going to give up, so I let him go and answer it. He came back to the phone a few seconds later, saying the taxi driver was there. “So you’re getting a taxi to the hospital?” I asked. “Shall I cancel the ambulance?”
“No,” Dave sounded exasperated, “The taxi is here so I can get food! You speak to him, I haven’t got time for your stupid questions!” so he passed me to a very confused sounding Italian man, who got very impatient when I asked to be put back on to Dave and slammed the phone down. Agitated, I phoned back and the taxi driver picked up. “Does Dave still need an ambulance? Is he going to make his own way?”
“You’re making me late for work, go away and leave us alone!” was the reply I got. Dave grabbed the phone from the taxi driver, so I asked him. “No,” came the grumpy reply “I just want some food, so go away!” We got a further 4 calls from Dave that night – the saga only ended when I got one of his calls at 4.45am and passed it straight to my DDM (duty dispatch manager) who managed to persuade him that maybe it would be a good idea to go to bed.

At 2.30am I got a call from a woman who said he partner was hitting himself over the head with a deodorant can. She sounded exasperated, and explained that he had a history of mental health problems for the past 3 weeks. No matter how many times she asked him, he simply refused to give her the deodorant can. I wonder what happened to make him go crazy like that?

My final call of the night came via NHS Direct, for a female with a headache and confusion. The twist was, she was Arabic and neither she nor her husband – the caller – spoke English. NHS Direct had got a translator from Language Line, so we knew what we were dealing with but this made the call much longer and drawn out than usual. I had to ask my question which was translated, then the answer was also translated, a bit like you see on TV sometimes. It was very interesting though, and fitting that it should be the first Language Line call I get, exactly six months into the job!

A Mother's Instinct

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:12:00 +0000

Not being a mother, I can't say I really understand, but it seems to me that a mother's instinct is an incredible asset. My mum can almost always tell when I'm lying!!

When it comes to life-threatening emergencies, this instinct is amazing. I answered a call for a one year old little boy, who had spots and was vomiting. The call came from the child's mother, who had phoned NHS Direct earlier that evening. They put the boy's symptoms down to chickenpox and recommended the usual plenty of rest and calamine lotion to soothe the itching. But the mother's instincts told her this was not just a case of chickenpox. She was convinced it was something worse, as the baby was now quite floppy and unresponsive. When the crew got to the house, they were equally as concerned for the baby and rushed him into hospital on blue lights and sirens. I later found out that he had been diagnosed with meningitis. If she hadn't phoned 999, his condition would have deteriorated rapidly and he could have died.

Sometimes, the instincts of a parent - more often than not it's the mother, for some reason - can be rather annoying for the child (offspring, I should say, I'm not a child!) but on other occasions, such as this, it can save lives.

Number one rule..

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Sat, 10 May 2008 10:22:00 +0000

...Windows are not designed to be jumped through, especially when they're closed!!

Of course, most people know that already, and would think I'm pretty stupid for mentioning it in this blog. But one of the most interesting (and major, it turns out) calls on Friday night turned out to be just that. A very drunk, and very upset, 19 year old decided to throw herself through the window of the local post office just to show her (now extremely embarrassed) boyfriend how much she loved him. Being quite a warm Friday night, the town centre was milling with people, so we got several calls about this particular incident. There were 7 call-takers on duty that evening, and I think we all got at least one call relating to it!

We had a paramedic manning the clinical advice desk that night, so he drove the 300 metres to the scene. The patient's leg was bleeding severely when he arrived, and apparently her nerves and muscles were there for all to see. Her right thumb was completely degloved (the skin was torn off the thumb tissue - not pretty!) and she was taken straight to A&E when the ambulance arrived. We later heard that she'd been taken for extensive surgery soon after her arrival at A&E. Because of the damage she's done to her thumb, she won't be able to return to her job as a hairdresser for a long, long time. That was certainly a night for her to remember, although I'm sure she'd love to forget it.

The Joys of a Saturday Night!

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:51:00 +0000

I hope you've enjoyed my last couple of posts, they explain more about the technicalities of my job, because I haven't really had many interesting calls!

This week is my relief week, so I did a 10-hour night shift last night -I worked from 8.30pm to 6.30am. It started off well enough, the 'usual' chest pains and falls, as well as drunk people and overdoses. It got interesting when a call dropped into my ear and the first thing I heard was shrieking teenage girls. The alleged problem was that one of the girls - 18 years old, apparently - had taken an overdose of ecstacy tablets. They seemed rather proud of the fact they were experimenting with drugs, despite the fact that the tablets seemed to be having a detrimental effect on the patient's health. When I asked exactly where they were, they said they were by the side of the road next to a well known local park. I took the call as usual, then went on to take a couple more calls.

After about 15 minutes, the girls phoned back and the call came through to me again. The patient was now deteriorating, losing consciousness. They were louder and more giggly than before, and one girl in particular seemed quite mouthy, yelling in the background "Where the hell's this f***ing ambulance? Hurry up, you f**ing c***s!" I don't have time for people who shout abuse at the people who are trying to help them, so I asked the caller to get her mate to calm down. The girls kept passing the phone from one person to the other, including the patient, who seemed really drugged up and out of it. Several minutes after the ambulance had booked on scene, there was still no sign of the crew so I asked for better location details. The whole time, the swearing girl was getting more agitated, so I instructed the caller to send her to check the road sign. She came back, and what do you know? The whole time she'd been screaming abuse about the ambulance service, I'd sent our ambulance to completely the wrong side of the park! I entered the correct location details, and sent one of the girls to flag down the ambulance.

So that's that. An ambulance, in the busiest town in the county on the busiest night of the week, driving round and round in circles because a bunch of kids were too high on drugs to give me the correct location in the first place! Oh yes, it's the joys of a Saturday night!

Chief Complaints

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:47:00 +0000

Depending on the symptoms that the caller gives, each call is put as a 'chief complaint'. For example, if you say 'my daughter's fallen out of a tree', that would go under number 30: Traumatic Injuries.

The 'public' chief complaints go from number 1 to 32.

1. Abdominal pain
2. Allergies/Envenomations
3. Animal bites/attacks
4. Assault/Sexual Assault
5. Back pain
6. Breathing problems
7. Burns, Scalds and Explosions
8. Carbon Monoxide/Hazchem (Hazardous Chemicals)
9. Cardiac or Respiratory Arrest/Death
10. Chest Pain
11. Choking
12. Convulsions/Fitting
13. Diabetic Problems
14. Drowning/Diving/SCUBA accident
15. Electrocution/Lightning
16. Eye Problems
17. Falls
18. Headache
19. Heart Problems/AICD (internal defibrillators)
20.Heat/Cold Exposure
21. Haemorrhage/Laceration
22. Inaccessible/Other Entrapment
23. Overdose/Poisoning/Ingestion
24. Pregnancy/Childbirth/Miscarriage
25. Psychiatric/Suicide attempt
26. Sick person
27. Stabbing/Gunshot/Penetrating Trauma
28. Stroke (CVA)
29. Traffic & Transportation Accidents
30. Traumatic Injuries
31. Unconscious/Fainting
32. Unknown Problem (3rd party) This is mainly used when a careline calls us because a client of theirs has pressed their emergency button but not made verbal contact. We also use it when a caller isn't actually with the patient, for example if they drive past a person who is lying face down. We don't know whether it should be 31 (unconscious), 23 (overdose), 17 (falls), 12 (convulsions) or 9 (cardiac/respiratory arrest)

I have been working for the ambulance service for nearly six months now, and have used every single chief complaint at least once. Some complaints are more common than others: breathing problems and chest pain being among them. But ask any EMD and they will tell you without fail that the most common chief complaint is 17 - FALLS!!!

A guide to the 999 system

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:28:00 +0000

Statistically, the average UK resident will phone for an ambulance every 14 and a half years, so it's quite likely that the majority of our callers will be doing so for the first time.

I'm going to guide you through an average 999 call.

Me: Ambulance emergency, what's the address of the emergency?
Caller: 23 Random House, Average Road, Boringsville, Sussex, AB12 3CD
Me: Thanks. What's the problem, tell me exactly what's happened?
Caller: My dad's got chest pain.

I will then find 'chest pain' on the ProQA system and get the screen up.

Me: I'm organising help for you now, I just have to ask a few questions but it's not delaying any assistance to you.

Then I will ask the caller some questions relating to their father's chest pain, such as whether or not he is breathing normally. This determines the severity of the problem at that time, and the call is triaged.

Me: I'm arranging help for you now, stay on the line and I'll tell you exactly what to do next.

I will give some general instructions - called PDIs, or Post Dispatch Instructions - such as asking the caller to gather the patient's medications and writing down the name of their GP, and sending somebody outside to meet the ambulance crew. Usually, that is where the call will end, but if the chest pain is severe enough to pose an immediate risk (such as the patient losing consciousness or going into cardiac arrest) I will stay on the line in case further instructions are required. These are called Pre Arrival Instructions.

I hope you've found this interesting! If you want to know any more about the ProQA system, there is some information at http://www.prioritydispatch.net/index.php?a=products&b=policeproqa_more

Child Callers

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:11:00 +0000

Today, I had my first (genuine) call from a child. I say 'genuine', because I have had several calls from kids, but up until now they've all been hoaxes.

I was connected to the operator as soon as the call dropped into my ear, and he read out the phone number the child was calling from, before adding that the caller sounded like a child. I'm ashamed to say that as soon as he said this, I was already to prepare myself for explaining to the dispatcher that the call was a hoax. But when the child gave me the address and I asked what the problem was, it sounded pretty genuine.

The child's mother had fallen and hurt her back, she was unable to move properly. While I arranged help, I notified the crew that the caller was a child, and was 7 years old. The child was very calm, and as well as phoning 999 for help, he calmed his little sister down who was a little upset at the commotion. The child's mother was Indian, so he translated my questions into Indian for his mother, and back to English. I was thoroughly impressed, and that call made me change my views on child callers completely. I vowed to initially take all calls like this seriously, unless they seem blatantly obvious that they're hoax. I got a call 3 weeks ago from a couple of kids who claimed that a factory in Barnsley was on fire - "That's strange, how do you know about what's going on in Barnsley when you're calling from a phone box 250 miles away?" I asked. They hung up, horrified that I'd seen through their stupidity.

Two extremes

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:38:00 +0000

It's 2.30am, the control room is quiet, just the low hum of the air-conditioning unit can be heard. Then I hear a 'bleep' as a call drops into my ear. "Ambulance emergency, what's the..." I'm interrupted by a panicking woman, who tells me that there's been a crash outside her house down a dark lane. After I manage to get the address, I inform her that we have dispatched an ambulance, and she explains all she knows. Given that she was woken up by a huge crash and dialled 999 immediately, she doesn't know much. Looking out of her bedroom window, all she can see is a single light shining up to the sky. She thinks it's a motorcycle, so I update the crew. It's very important that the crew know as much as possible before they get to the scene, so I ask the caller to go outside and tell me what she can see. She's phoning from the landline so I call her back on her mobile. Frustratingly, it cuts out as she's running down the lane so I phone back. When she answers, she sounds very distressed. There is a car, upside down, and she can hear screaming. This is good, because if you're screaming, you're conscious and breathing. I'd be very worried if there was nothing but silence coming from the car. All the while, I updated the crew of everything the caller was telling me. About 30 seconds later, I heard the lovely sound of sirens. The caller confirmed that this was the ambulance, so she hung up.

The dispatchers kept receiving updates from the crew, as well as the fire brigade and police. I was also keeping tabs on the job, and it transpired that the car was a Ford Fiesta, driven by a 36 year old male, who tragically died on the scene. There were 3 passengers, all of whom were taken by ambulance to the nearest A&E department.

This call didn't 'get to me' like I thought it would. I was saddened by the fact that a life was lost, but I didn't let it affect me. That's a good thing, because the very next call really shouldn't have needed a 999 response. It was an elderly gentleman with earache! That's what NHS Direct is for, or the out of hours GP services - to prevent ambulances being dispatched for very minor problems, which then clog up the A&E departments. Of course I sympathised with the patient, because he must have been in an awful lot of pain - I've experienced more than my fair share of ear infections - but what could an ambulance crew honestly do for him? I transferred his call to our Clinical Advice Desk, who advised him to call his out of hours GP.

Directions

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:22:00 +0000

Last night was a 2230-0630 shift, which went annoyingly slowly. The majority of the calls were fairly 'routine', such as chest pain, falls etc. but I did get quite an interesting one - an assault.

It took several minutes to ascertain that a 37 year old female had been beaten up by her partner and left in her car by the side of the road. Unfortunately, she was in a very minor B-road in a small village somewhere in the county. I had no idea where she was, and she could not see any specific landmarks, so it took about 10 minutes to get a good enough location to send the ambulance crew. If the incident had taken place in the day, or before 1am, we could have dispatched the helicopter to locate the patient, but unfortunately the incident occured at 3.30am so the 'copter was tucked up in its hanger - fat lot of good it was in there! Eventually I managed to work out that she was in a dark blue Peugeot estate, and I instructed her to switch on the hazard lights so her car was visible to the crew.

The patient was very distressed, her partner had punched her in the face and she had a possible head injury so I stayed on the line with her until the crew got to her.

My friends stayed the night in my room last night, I had to turf them out of my bed when I got back at 7.30am! I felt guilty for about the 3 seconds I was conscious after my head hit the pillow. When I woke up at 1pm, I was greeted with the news that I dont snore in my sleep, but I actually sleep-talk!! Apparently, I was saying "I'll get that to you as soon as possible, sir." I can only imagine that I was dreaming about work, and 'that' was in fact an ambulance. I was so embarrassed!

Third Manning

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:10:00 +0000

Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a paramedic, and today I got my first taste of what it's like 'on the road', when I went third-manning (observing) with a local crew.

I arrived at the ambulance station at 6.30am, and met the people I'd be crewing with. At 6.35am we got a red call so I jumped into the back of the vehicle and we zoomed off on blue lights and sirens. It was very exciting! We got to our destination, and helped to pick an elderly lady up off the floor, where she'd fallen out of bed. She had a severe laceration to her forehead, and was quite confused. One of the crew was an ECP (emergency care practitioner) and could have stitched the patient's forehead himself without the need for her to attend A&E, but because she was confused, it was best that she was given a full check-up, so we took her down to the local hospital. Unfortunately, when the crew was lifting the patient from the floor, the paramedic felt his back 'go', so he got checked out in A&E too (five star treatment all the way!) and was deemed unfit to work, so he did paperwork all day, poor thing.

I teamed up with another crew, and our first call was at about 9.30am, to a 50 year-old-male with chest pain. When we arrived he seemed fine, but there's no knowing with chest pain so we took him to A&E anyway. It was probably just a touch of angina, but it's always better to be safe than sorry. And how right we were! When we dropped off another patient later on in the shift, the A&E staff told us that the patient had suffered a massive MI (myocardial infarction - aka heart attack) and had to have a stent inserted into an artery in his heart. When you have an MI, there's a blockage in the artery, so a special drug (thrombolysis) is given to get rid of the blockage and then you have a stent inserted to keep the artery from narrowing. (If any paramedics/technicians read this and want to correct me or add to that, please feel free!) So, if we hadn't taken our patient in as a precaution, he would almost certainly be dead right now. As it is, he's in CCU (Coronary Care Unit) and is being discharged tomorrow! We also had a patient who phoned 999 because he had a locked jaw, but when he was sitting in the back of the ambulance he forgot he couldn't talk and was chatting away 19-to-the-dozen until we reminded him and he went bright red! I could have given him the number for a cheap taxi service if all he needed was a ride to the hospital, but as it is he could have taken a front-line ambulance away from a patient who really needed it. I hate time-wasters so much!

Wow, it's been a long time!!

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:48:00 +0000

Oops! It's been over a month since I last posted.

Well, we're nearly a whole month into 2008, and I hope it's going well for you! It's certainly going well for me. I finished my training, and I went solo on 30th December 2007. My final training shift couldn't have gone better, if I'm honest. I took a call from a young mother whose 2-year-old son was having a fit. He'd been fitting for 5 minutes straight, which was incredibly worrying. I arranged the ambulance and stayed on the line with the mother until help arrived. I tried to keep her calm, because needless to say she was a bit panicky. The paramedics arrived, I left her with them and got on with the rest of my shift, which went fairly uneventfully. Later on, however, my DDM (Duty Dispatch Manager - my boss) sat me down and told me to get the job back on the screen. I was a bit confused, until he showed me the comments section. The mother had been so impressed with the way that I'd kept her calm and focusing on her son that when they arrived in A&E she asked the crew to thank me! I felt really proud of myself, because I hadn't tried any harder than I usually did, but that in itself must be a good thing because I must just be a calming influence on callers! It was certainly a very positive way to end my training, and also to end 2007.

So, I've now been solo for 3 weeks, and it's great. I'm trusted to take 999 calls, and I'm so proud of myself. This time in 2007 I was a kitchen assistant in a care home, doing 12 and a half hours a week - and in 2008 I'm a full-time EMD doing 12 hours in a day!

I hope you all had a peaceful Christmas and New Year, and that 2008 has started as well as mine has!

I'm Exhausted!

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:28:00 +0000

Wow!!! I've just done my first mentored shift - a night shift, 1030pm to 6.30am - and it was brilliant! I can't really remember many specific calls, I answered at least 15, but one call in particular stuck with me. It was from a mother whose 3-month-old baby was having breathing problems. I went through the script, and at the end she thanked me! I know it probably shouldn't have come as any great surprise, but to be honest, it did. I've listened in to plenty of calls, and that was about the 5th that I had taken myself, but she was the only person who was grateful and said thank you. I definitely think I'm in the right job, because for the whole drive home I had a huge grin plastered on my face, despite the fact that I'd been up for 21 hours!

I'm off to do it all again in a few hours too - bring it on!

My First Live Call

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:21:00 +0000

Yesterday morning at 7.53am, I took my first live call. You can tell it was important, because I noted down the exact minute of the call!!

I set off from home at 5.30am, absolutely bricking it, and I realised - the person who will be at the end of the line doesn't even know that they're going to be dialling 999 yet, let alone having me answer the phone! Poor thing.

I sat down with my trainer at 7am, so that I could listen to her take some calls before I took one myself. We got 3: an elderly gentleman who fell over in the kitchen, a police call to a custody suite where an 18yom had decided to fall unconscious in the back of a police van when he was arrested, and a single-vehicle RTC.
Anyway, onto my call! As soon as I heard the beep in my ear and I started saying "Ambulance emergency..." a young woman shrieked down the phone that her little boy needed an ambulance. She sounded very distressed, so I was unable to get control of the call by using repetitive persistance. I couldn't even get the location of the emergency! She gabbled into the phone, and then decided that she'd drive the kid to A&E herself and hung up. I phoned back, and it was answered by a man, sounding equally as upset as the woman, who confirmed that they didn't want an ambulance. That was a bit of a strange first call, so my trainer let me take another one.
This was an easier call, because it was from the receptionist of a GP surgery, who was calling to report that a baby was fitting. I got the initial information down (chief complaint etc.), and started to go through my questions. This is where she started to get upset, because she didn't know the answers. The baby's mother had just brought him in from the street, so they weren't even patients at the surgery. I explained that I had to ask the questions to keep the computer happy, and ended up just putting 'unknown' as most of the answers. I thought the call went quite well, because I managed to calm the caller down, and hopefully the baby was just having febrile convulsions (where the baby gets too hot and has a fit, it's quite normal, but worrying if you don't know what's happening).

One of the other people on my course had a nightmare first live call - she had to talk someone through CPR! She did very, very well and we all gave her a round of applause when she came in, because our trainer explained what had happened. We found out today that the crew were really impressed with the effective chest compressions and thought the patient stood a good chance of survival, so they continued CPR until they got to the hospital. Unfortunately he died overnight, but at least his family got to say goodbye.

Roll on Monday night, I'm let loose on the public!! :-D

On the other side of the fence...

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:12:00 +0000

Well, what a fun Saturday night I had!! I'd planned to go to the cinema with my friend while he was back from uni for the weekend, we were going to see Fred Claus to get ourselves in the Christmas spirit - even my very cute Christmas tree in the corner of my room fails to make me Christmassy, I have no idea why! Then I was going to get very drunk in Wetherspoons with my other friend, but my flatmate decided she was going to be ill, so being the very caring person that I am I cancelled my plans and looked after her.

We were driving back from town at about 3.30pm and she made me pull over so she could throw up. She did that again on the way back, and even went blue round the lips so I tucked her up in bed. When she threw up twice more and shivered uncontrollably I phoned NHS Direct. As soon as I mentioned the fact that she'd gone blue earlier the call-taker told me to phone 999. I was reluctant to do that, because I didn't think we'd be taken seriously, and also my friend refused to let me. Then she threw up again so I phoned anyway. Vomiting once or twice can be normal, but she'd been sick five times! A single responder came five minutes later (well within the ORCON time!) and he was concerned enough to persuade her to go in. I followed in the car, which I felt guilty about because it would have been just as easy to take her in the car myself. I offered, but the paramedic said it would be better for her to go with him so he could keep an eye on her. They were short on ambulances (not surprising on a Saturday night!) so she went in the paramedic's car.
We were taken straight to a cubicle when we got there, and she had an ECG tracing. The nurse hurried out of the room with it, which worried me, but apparently it was OK. After four and a half hours of trying not to go insane staring at the same four walls, the doctor finally came and discharged her. They put it down to hyperacidity, because she had an acidic taste in her mouth, but we weren't convinced.

She was no better by this morning, and had been sick several more times through the night, so I almost had to forcibly drag her down to the hospital to see the out of hours doctor. The GP gave her a prescription to stop the vomiting and (touch wood) she's been on the mend ever since.

So there you go - I spent the week learning how to answer 999 calls, and end up making one at the weekend! It was funny being given the PDIs (post-dispatch instructions) and being given the standard "I'm going to ask a few more questions, but they won't delay any assistance," line - I could have saved the poor EMD the bother!

I take my first live call on Thursday, I hope I get a nice easy call like that, rather than a CPR attempt!

On the Computers

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:35:00 +0000

We started using the computers this week, which was fun. The cardsets are fairly easy to use, but if I'm honest, I'm more of a computer buff than a cardset buff! ;-D

We learnt how to use Pro-QA (the programme we use, is it service specific or used nationally?) on Monday and Tuesday, and today was mainly spent practicing scenarios. I felt sorry for the person I was working with - he delivered a BBA who was breech, with the cord round his neck and not breathing, and just as everything was OK with the baby, the mother haemorrhaged very badly! Luckily, the ambulance crew came just as she stopped breathing. What can I say? I like throwing people in at the deep end! ;-D

Then this afternoon we had our Pro-QA assessments. I passed mine with flying colours apart from the fact that I didn't use the Echo protocol when I found out that the patient was hanging, which would have been potentially serious but luckily it was just a scenario, and if it was in real life I would have had a mentor beside me to remind me.

Hopefully I'll be back up in the EDC at some point this week, so I'll have something remotely interesting to tell you about! We were supposed to go up this afternoon after our assessments but it was extremely busy and everyone was stressed, so we did some quizzes instead which was all very fun.

As an aside, if you have any suggestions for my blog, please feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to know what you like/dislike, and what you'd like to see on my blog.

Up in the EDC!

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 13:50:00 +0000

Today was a more relaxed day at work, because the main exam was yesterday.

We did 3 tests on the PC, but they were easy because there were 20 questions with a pass mark of 80%, but you could do them again and again until you got 100%. I did two of them more than once, but eventually I got 100% all 3 times, so I look a lot smarter than I actually am!

The rest of the day was spent either upstairs in the EDC (Emergency Dispatch Centre, where the 999 calls are received) or in the town centre for lunch. I had fish and chips from a decent shop we found, nice and healthy!

I listened to several calls when I was in the EDC, some interesting and some not quite so. We got 3 or 4 calls for elderly people who had fallen and could not get up, including one from a couple of district nurses who had been to visit an elderly man and found him on the floor in a confused state. He told them he'd 'tripped over the dog', despite the fact that there wasn't a dog on the property!
Next up was an ASHICE (age, sex, [medical] history, injuries, consciousness and ETA) from an ambulance crew who were transporting a very unstable elderly gentleman to hospital. I could hear sirens in the background, so if they were transporting him on 'blues and twos' he must have been in a bad way.
A 27 year old male was up next, it was a 4th party call (the caller was in an entirely different part of the town to the patient, and didn't know him personally) from a crisis team to say that the patient had taken 7 days worth of antidepressants.
The most interesting, and potentially tragic, call we received came from a woman whose husband was having a tonic-clonic (aka grand-mal) epileptic fit, which is the most serious and life-threatening one there is. He was watching TV on the sofa when he suddenly started having a seizure. Naturally, she panicked and was near-hysterical when she got through to us. The call-taker I was observing used the techniques we're taught to calm her down, which started to work until she was told to go through to the sitting room and check if the gentleman was still breathing. When she came back, she was experiencing a 're-freak' event, which means that the seriousness of the situation hits her, so she got very distressed again. The lady's husband stopped fitting so we told her to drag him off the sofa and onto the floor, so his airway could be maintained. We stayed on the line with her, until eventually the ambulance arrived. Hopefully he'll make a full recovery.

So there you go, two hours spent with one call taker on a Friday afternoon - what's a Saturday night going to be like?!

It's official!

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:46:00 +0000

Well, it's official!! I'm a qualified EMD. I took the exam at 2pm this afternoon, and I passed with flying colours apparently.

The exam itself was quite easy, we were allowed to use the cardsets so if there was a question which involved having to use the triaging system or something, we had the correct card with us.

I'm really enjoying the training, most people are really friendly and the work itself sounds like it will be exciting too. The best bit about the whole thing? I get paid to talk!!!

Welcome

noreply@blogger.com (Petrolhead) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:47:00 +0000

Welcome to my blog, people.

I started training to be an Emergency Medical Dispatcher (EMD) on 19th November 2007. I really hope I'll be able to make a difference to the lives of people who use the ambulance service, but I'm also all too aware that it gets abused by people who are unaware that they are NOT the only person in the entire county who isn't 100% fit at that precise moment in time!

Join me to see what life is like for an EMD in the 21st Century - you never know, it could be interesting!