Life Choices

Some patients make you sit and think about the way we live our lives. These can range from the elderly with stories of their life to the drunk 13 year old girl crying because she's afraid her parents are going to find out she's been drinking.

Others just make you wonder how they made it this far.

At an all day music festival with St John I had a 22 year old male come in to our post with blood all over his face. Oh, how I wish this was a rare occurrence at such events... Long story short, he'd split his lip, eyebrow (although it didn't need stitches) and had a rather nasty swollen eye. While getting a history he'd denied taking any drugs that day (as almost everyone else has said) but I always had a feeling he was lying. Call it a sixth sense, or the fact he was agitated, his pupils were dilated (although still PEARL) and he was having trouble obeying orders to hold a cloth to his nose to stop it bleeding. Of course it was possible he was just a nervous, oddly behaving type of guy so I had nothing I could really hold him on (add to the fact he was built like a tank, myself being built more like a mini I didn't like my odds of holding him anywhere) and he was anxious to get out of the post.

The day moves on as one would expect, and after two or three hours a familiar face is found once again at my post. He'd managed to get himself into another fight - of course not his fault - and his face was once again a bloody mess. That sixth sense was still tingling, his paranoia had increased as had his pulse and respirations. Mood was swinging a little more, but after I cleaned him up again some friends said they'd take care of him.

A few more hours pass and I was dropping off a patient into the Advanced Casualty Management Team (ACMT - a 'mini emergency room' if you will we set up for big events) when who should I spot but our dear friend Mr Bloody Face being treated by one of the nurses. I let someone in there know he was a frequent flyer and it might be an idea to have him 'move on' to the outside world.

More hours pass and I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm almost ready to go home, when I get a call to respond to an unconscious male at the security office. As I get closer and closer I see a familiar face sitting in the security office. By this stage I could recognise him bloodied and bruised, after a minute with him I could see he was up to his old tricks. He'd been jumped by four guys after he'd picked a fight, although he had never lost consciousness. He was crying and kept repeating he wanted to go home, and although I got a base set of obs and was confident he wasn't in any life threatening situations, it was clear by now that my suspicions he'd taken Ice were more than likely correct, despite what everyone was saying.

It had been a long day, he was probably dehydrated as well as bloodied and bruised, agitated, anxious, paranoid and more than likely scared out of his mind being surrounded by security guards (although they weren't crowding him, the fact he was at the security office made their presence abundant) and two people with 'Ambulance' on their rather police-like uniforms - add to this Ice is known to give massive mood swings and increased hostility/aggression. I knew these things. Still, the sudden snap caught me off guard when he threw me away from him and starting swinging at everything and anything around him.

Luckily he didn't make contact with me (apart from the rather firm shove) and guards were quick to jump on him and pin him to the floor. His friends tried to calm him as he screamed and attempted to fight off his restrainers (luckily with no success). We had called in an Ambulance and Police by this stage, and as the Ambulance arrived he had calmed down sufficiently to let the Paramedics treat him under security supervision. Knowing the night was not yet over, I headed back to my post to wait for the next call until I could return to that glorious, soft bed and call it a night, knowing the Paramedics and Police would sort out our friends fate.


I've stated previously that I don't like to judge drug users, or anyone I treat for that matter. Their life is their life, and I'm only there to help when they need it. Sometimes I just feel sorry for people like the patient I've just talked about - if they could do it all over again, would they make the same decisions? If he had have known at the start of the day what would occur, would he still have done the same things? In the end we're all responsible for our own life, and hindsight is a wonderful thing. It might be that he was an otherwise great bloke, who I would have been more than happy to share a beer with down at the pub - I just caught him at a weak and vulnerable moment. Of course he could be a complete arsehole.

I just hope when he's back in his mind he has a good look at his life choices.