DIB

The first time I thought to myself that I was becoming better at this was a rather interesting day. I was at (yet another) St John duty at an all ages concert with a crew from another division - one I hadn't worked with before and was made up of mostly cadets. This is always an interesting situation to be in, because you're never really sure what level the others are at until they're put to the test in front of you.

Who should decide to pay a visit except the Commissioner of St John Ambulance (the relevance of this shall appear in a later post).

He was having a chat with the one of the other members (I usually try and stay out of a lot of the 'politics' of the organisation) when the event radio squeals for us to head to the first floor for 'an elderly man in trouble'. I love the non-descripts.

I grabbed a basic kit, defib and threw (by which I mean of course under Occupational Health and Safety requirements, passed in a slow and safe manner) O2 to one of the cadets, not too sure of what we'd need. I called for one of them to follow me, but somehow had two when I got there.

Luckily for us, our 'elderly man in trouble' was not critical, but he was having difficulty breathing. After doing basic obs it was clear all was not well and I called through the radio to get an Ambulance in. We administered oxygen and got a wheelchair to get him down to the First Aid post where we'd organised to meet the Paramedics.

He had forgotten to take his blood pressure medication and had a very rapid, strong and slightly irregular pulse, which was (and still currently is - although I'm working on it ;) ) beyond my capabilities to treat.

I had chatted to him until the ambulance arrived, given the circumstances I did most of the talking - it helps give a touch of normalcy to the situation and also takes the focus off the symptoms, slows the pulse. He was a rather interesting old chap, I'm always amazed by the lives of those I come into contact with...

It was a simple transfer, after ten minutes the Paramedics had come and gone (and somewhere amongst all the fun the Commissioner had vanished), but I was amused to hear the two other members talking in the hallway outside the post...

"That was freaky..."
"Yeah, never had anything that serious before. The other guy was ok though, I couldn't stop shaking!"

I wasn't sure how to take it at first, I was of course feeling undeserved complimented and a little abashed - I was only doing what I was trained to do, after all. They came in later and, given they were still a little rattled, I gave a debrief and we talked through the scenario.

This was my first real taste of teaching first aid, because it turned out the other two there didn't even know how to administer oxygen. We spent the rest of the duty going through scenarios and equipment - everyone rather enjoying themselves with no other call outs.

I left that duty with a sense that I had accomplished something, not just with the patient, but with the other members - and it felt good. For the first time I felt I had achieved something beyond what I originally thought I could do, and it was around this time I seriously thought about becoming a Paramedic. I like to take my time with decisions though, unless someone's bleeding.

The other thing it made me think about was just how limited my treatments were as First Aid - both in knowledge and resources. After this case I did a lot of reading on blood pressure medications and furthered my knowledge of oxygen therapy - sometimes being in a university gives you access to some fantastic references, even if you're a molecular biologist not enrolled in the Paramedics course ;)