From crew room to reality

Sitting in the crew room as a newbie ambulance technician (or any other new starter in the ambulance service) you get to hear alot of stories from the existing experienced staff. Alot of the stories you hear seem to be fairly obvious and you could believe that it does happen with alot of them supported by stories you hear in the newspapers, such as the popular "lets assault the paramedic" headline. But there are some you think "no, that can't really happen surely!"

As I am going through my weeks now of actually getting out there and experiencing this brave new job, the myths are slowly becoming reality. I focus specifically on an event that happened today. My crew mate and I were dispatched to a category A "Red" Call (this is a call that requires the most immediate level of response within the ambulance service, which we have to reach within eight minutes of being deployed).

On our arrival we found a PRU (Paramedic Response Unit - a car which carries a solo paramedic or emergency medical technician to the scene of an accident, usually quicker than the 4.5 tonne ambulances), we had no other option to park in the centre of the road, as the road was quite narrow with cars parked either side.

We enter the premesis and deal with the patient. Now the patient is not as serious as first thought, but our clinical impression is that she is generally unwell - e.g. she has something wrong with her but nothing that can be detected by the investigations available to ambulance staff, and nothing that requires immediate intervention but does need to go to hospital.

Anyway I deviate from the main point. Due to our ambulance being parked in the middle of the street we have blocked a car in. This person was not there as we began to settle our patient into the ambulance, but was shortly after thus only waiting a short length of time. The PRU clincian was now getting a volley of abuse from the member of the public, for blocking the road and we had no right etc. (i could go on).

Now from the banter in the crew room I could not believe that individuals could be so callous. But they can. Now this has not been the only crew room tale that has turned into reality. Unfortunately this is the reality of being a newbie technician, those "hard to believe it is true" tales that happen in the crew room gradually occur in real life. It is an exciting yet sobering time when you realise that alot of stuff like this does happen in real life.