Bad manners

Six emergencies. One cancellation; the rest went by ambulance.

Sometimes I will go to a call and the family will behave strangely towards me, almost as if I am the enemy. I know that this is simply a different way of reacting to stress, especially when worried about a loved one but it can be unnerving and a little annoying when you are asking questions and getting nothing back.

My first call was to a '67 year-old male ?CVA'. He had a history of stroke in the past and now he stood in his kitchen looking confused and very flushed about the face, with his daughter and son-in-law . I asked him a few simple questions about how he felt and his answer was always the same.

‘I’m alright now.’ He’d say.

I checked his blood pressure and found it to be very high. I asked him what had happened and he wasn’t clear at all. I knew I was looking at a possible CVA but I wanted something a bit more conclusive from the history, so I asked the daughter.

She looked at me as if I was a gate-crasher at her birthday party. I almost felt there were issues between her and her father that were being left unsaid. It’s difficult to do the job properly with obstruction and that’s how it felt now. She wouldn’t give me a direct answer about anything, except to tell me that he was a drinker. She looked almost disgusted with him but at the same time worried. Maybe it was both and I was taking it too personally.

I continued my obs and questioning until the crew arrived. Evetually we were told that he had collapsed in the garden and called his daughter, telling her he was in trouble. He stood in his kitchen denying anything was wrong now, however.

Then I realised that she was so concerned and angry that I was just a necessary shadow in the world she currently inhabited. She didn’t like me or my colleagues being there because we reminded her of an issue she had obviously been avoiding for years. I was currently a see-through person and could only be answered if I asked loud enough. I was never to be spoken to voluntarily.

The man had a high BP, unequal pupils and was flushed. Regardless of what he said, he was going to hospital.

A 42 year-old woman with itchy skin and stinging urine walked out to meet the ambulance crew when we arrived at the same time on scene and I wasn’t required.

Then a vulnerable lady who had an epileptic fit and banged her head at home. She was nervous and tearful about me being there. She felt guilty because she didn’t call us, someone else did. It took me a while to convince her to go to hospital because she believed the staff at her usual hospital didn’t like her. I arranged to have her taken to an alternative hospital and she relented.

Luckily my next call wasn’t as serious as it could have been; my navigation system thought it would be funny to send me the longest way around to a 74 year-old male with DIB. By the time I reached the address, a crew was on scene and I wasn’t required.

A 29 year-old female who was ‘shivering and ? fitting’ needed an ambulance, so I sped to the address a few miles away and leaned on the buzzer. The call description had stated ‘when asked questions, caller said she didn’t know or care because she is drunk’. Now, I wondered if the patient was the caller or someone else had called and was describing themselves as drunk or the patient as drunk. Either way, it didn’t matter because after twenty minutes of leaning on the buzzer, chatting to the crew who had now arrived, banging on the entry door to the block of flats and requesting a ‘ring back’ to find out what was going on, the patient decided that an ambulance would be inconvenient.

‘An ambulance crew is standing outside the main door to your building, can you let them in please?’, Control had asked

‘Na, don’t need one now.’ Said the caller and promptly hung up.

I should have been furious but I was strangely calm – not like me at all.

Anyway, the shift ended with a call to a ‘diabetic, coughing’. I would have suggested no relationship between one and the other but who am I to argue?

I got on scene at the same time as the crew and went inside the building to the world’s smallest bedsit. As soon as we stepped over the threshold we were showered with a viral-filled mist from the man’s cough. He had to be asked three times to cover his mouth. Why in God’s name do people do this to us? If you have a cough, cover your mouth and don’t spread it to me – I don’t want it. Honestly, I don’t. It takes me ages to get over a cough. I still have the residue of a cough from the beginning of the year.

I could see that I wasn’t needed so I took off before I got any more of his unhealthy welcome. One day, I'll go home with a dose of bird flu. That's not even funny, really...

Be safe.