For everyone that dies, someone else is born

I had a baby this week, well not be personally, but I helped deliver one over the phone to a slightly shocked but delighted father.

When the call came through the father managed to get his address out before suddenly announcing that his girlfriend was pregnant and the baby’s head was out.

I have never delivered a baby before either on the phone or in person, and while you can train for it all you want, nothing prepares you for when it actually happens.

I managed to keep myself together and managed to give the opening instructions for the delivery, then the father said the baby had the cord wrapped around its neck and was looking blue.

Again instructions were given and the mother herself managed to loosen the cord and gently pull it over the baby’s head. unfortunately the baby still wasn’t making the noises you want it to.

Again instructions were given and soon followed the sound of a healthy pair of lungs. The sound of relief for the father could be heard across the room.

Mother and baby were duly wrapped up and kept warm and the RRV arrived on scene with out much work to do.. The paramedic found a stunned father a proud grandmother and a tired mother and healthy baby girl on scene.

After a week in which I took a call from a mother whos daughter was found unconcious in her bedroom and sadly didn’t make it, it was nice to get the other side of the job, the happy side.

Psycological Damage

There are some calls which stay with you and not just the morning after.

I had the call most call takers dread, the distressed mother/father who has found their child unconcious. In my case I had the mother on the phone.

Initially she had only managed to blurt out the address and that her daughter was hanging before she put the phone down on me, now I feel guilty for getting irritated because at first I thought it was someone mucking about, but I at least persisted and called back, thankfully she answered and I explained that if she stayed on the line I could do my best to help while the ambulance was on the way.

The mother was boarder line hysterical, the type of call we don’t like because they simply can’t be controlled, but on explaining to her that she had already taken the first step to helping her daughter she started to calm down and within a minute she was an oasis of calm among the pandemonium in the background.

A neighbour had heard the commotion from next door and ran in to assist offering his first aid skills and started the process of CPR.

Wether I subconsciously needed to keep the mother on the phone to keep her away from the scene I don’t know, but I managed to convince her to stay with me to keep me updated as ‘it will help the ambulance crew as I pass all this information to them’ She was in short fantastic and the model of maternal virtue, she managed to keep the family dog under control, her 11 year old son who was there by saying he could watch his Doctor Who DVD as long as he helped keep the dog quite and all while giving me regular updates on the unfolding events.

Me, I was like the swan, graceful above water, but kicking away like a person possessed underwater in order to remain afloat. Even the mothers calmness while on the phone to me has me convinced everything would be ok.

I did make one mistake though, I stayed on the line while she went off to let the crew in. I should have put the phone down then, but I didn’t, she and the crew could be heard running up the stairs and then the sounds of her breaking down at the sight of the daughter is something you can’t forget, you don’t have to even be there to know what she saw. But I still had some belief that everything would turn out for the best, perhaps one of my rare optimstic moments, but then we all need them once in a while.

It wasn’t to be however, a short while later the girl was declared by the crew on the scene.

For me I will move on, I can it doesn’t directly affect me, but that family will never forget the events of that night and they will never truly move on. But they did what parents do from the moment they know they are expecting, they fought for her, they did everything they could, but there will always be the feeling from all of us that we could have perhaps done that little bit more.

Friday night WAS alright for fighting

So after a hetic few days working (more of which in a new post) last Friday was indeed what we expected, a bloody pain in the arse.

So for me this is how my tally ended up.

• 7 Assaults
• 12 falls (9 of which non injury where the carer had a ‘no lift policy’…I hate those!)
• 8 Chest Pains
• 2 Hoax Calls
• 3 RTCs
• 9 Overdose (that number includes those who have OD on excess drink)

Well that was my 10 hours, as for the rest of the room, much of the same really. A busy night was had by all to the point where we didn’t have time to even order the takeaway!

Friday nights alright for fighting

Yes it’s another Friday night, and another Friday night on control for me.

So lets run a bit of a book on the types of calls I will be receiving tonight. So let me start.

With in a 10 hour shift I think it will go something like this.

5 assault, 10 falls (from either elderly people or drunks), 2 RTCs, 3 chest pains and at least 2 hoax calls

So see what you can come up with, I will keep count during the course of my 10 hours, you can guess and I will update you tomorrow!

Education, education, education.

‘Education, education, education’ so said Tony Blair in the famous mantra at the Labour Party Conference in 1996, just months before being elected to power.

And while I may have fallen out with the party over many things since that time, education is one thing I still passionately believe in, even if the Government don’t.

But I also think education needs to extend beyond the classroom, it should be part of our everyday lives, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It doesn’t matter what form it takes, but we should be striving to improve ourselves all the time.

And education needs to extend to those who what are stupid phone calls to the 999 service. People need to be educated in what we are there for.

This kind of education needs to start as a child and continue throughout life, people need to be reminded that we are not a big white taxi service because they feel a little peeky, that you cannot verbally abuse call takers who are just trying to find out what the problem is in order to help the crew, that it is wrong to verbally and physically abuse ambulance crews who are there to help and that hoax calls are just not funny (of which we had 12 last night alone!) and can be dangerous.

More action also needs to be taken by the police when people make hoax and inapprioate calls, and not just when the calls are made to them, but when ourselves and the fire service also put in complaints against people. Publicity needs to follow that we will no tolerate misuse of the service and it all needs to be backed up with education on what justifies a 999 call.

Perhaps then we might start making headway and I might not get emergency calls from a man in a pub wanting a new pair of crutches!

A quite night in

Summer seems to have come late to this next of the woods, yesterday the weather was fabulous, wall to wall sunshine and a warmth not felt since last summer.

Sunshine for me however isn’t a thing to be celebrated, firstly because I’m fair skinned I burn to a crisp at the merest site of a bit of sunlight, but also because it brings out the idiots who fall over drunk and then phone us up and give us hastle demanding their ambulance and demanding it NOW!

But last night was almost eirely quite, only a few drunks and only one regular caller claiming she had drunk nine bottles of vodka. Everyone else actually needed an ambulance for serious problems.

Everyone in the room found themselves sat there bored, the Chinese takeaway meals were actually eaten hot, conversations could be held and finished with little interruption, dispatchers had enough crews to cover all the jobs and some crews were even complaining of having nothing to do. It was weird.

As call takers and dispatchers we are so geared up to all out insanity on a Friday and Saturday night that anything else is a disappointment.

Surely it can’t last….can it?

It’s been a while…

Indeed it has, but then I have had a bit of time off.

Because of the way the shift rotas work within our control room we have the luxury of 8 days off around every six weeks, a welcome relief for everyone on the team especially after a tough and busy summer.

But for me this last eight day break wasn’t really a break with running around like a blue arsed fly trying to catch up with the things I hadn’t got around to over the previous six week block. In another six weeks it’ll all happen again, and just before Christmas too.

Anyway to matters of work. Saturday night was tough, everyone said it, it was hard going, every idiot seemed to take to the sunshine and do stupid things. A double shooting, hoax calls (as is per the norm) the usual smattering of overdoses, people wanting to go to the mental health hospitals and those with coughs and sneezes who suddenly need an ambulance because they ‘feel a little poorly’.

The calls were non stop all night and ambulance crews were haring around the region like their arses were on fire.

But then it’s the simple jobs that can be the ones that really kick you in the guts because they are the ones which affect you personally. Like the one where a child was knocked off his bike by a car, just 200 yards from where I live. Not so bad in itself you may think, but 21 years ago I was the child knocked off a bike at the same location, it felt like history repeating itself and I had to take myself out of the room for a while just to clear my head.

Everything else that night was easy in comparison, nutters, assaults, stabbings whatever, one simple minor road accident was the sucker punch.

The only thing I can say for myself is that I didn’t lose it on the phone with the caller, I could have easily done so, but training in the job and as a first aider kicked in and I went into auto pilot and did what I needed to.

The most important part however, finding out later on if the child was ok. Thankfully he was suffering a broken collar bone and dislocated hip he will recover, but he like me will find once in a while it comes back to just remind you it’s a part of who you have become, and occasionally it will kick you up the butt just to put you back into your place.

Here’s to the next shift!