Morning Mist Part 2

The mist is back this morning... Calm, beautiful, like the last breath of air the earth ever takes.

He lies in the grass, motionless. He's been still for quite some time, and the mist has claimed him as her own. Two dogs - his dogs - bark at the gate a meter away, one excited by this strange new game his master has come up with, the other angry that these two men were probing their master, connecting strange things to him and shaking their heads slowly.

They were young dogs, with many years left in them. Their master, also young, unfortunately did not.

The two men walk back to their van, nodding to the other men, police, that the job was done. Their breath mists in the cool morning, tiny clouds fall and vanish almost before you could acknowledge them...

Two dogs bark, the men drive away, leaving the master in the care of the mist.

Car vs Pole

Pole always wins.

It was towards the end of a day shift, it was becoming dark and we were looking forward to heading home for the night. Dispatch, as usual, had other plans for us.
"We're going to send you down to a MVC, no details at present - unknown patients unknown status".

The Mobile Data Terminal (MDT) flashed with the job and we ran lights and sirens to it. I threw on my fluorescent safety jacket and gloved up - I hate jobs marked 'unknown status'... Even though the descriptions are usually wrong, they put you in the mindset of what to expect. Unknown means you might get there to find a parade of elephants storming through... or maybe not.

We arrived shortly after, a crowd had gathered around a car wedged between a brick wall and a pole - the opposite side of the pole to the road... Now that takes effort. The car was empty, and it took a moment for people to respond when I asked 'Was anyone hurt? Who was in the vehicle?', a young male sheepishly walks forward.

On examination he seemed fine, and although we made numerous offers to take him to hospital he refused - our examinations only go so far, there may have been internal trauma we cannot possibly detect without scanning equipment, found only in hospitals. Still, he was happy enough to make his own way home via his girlfriend - but what really got to me with this job was his attitude.

"Yeah... this'll be the second time I've done this..." he laughs. "No scratches, I'm fine."

A grin on his face, as if he's almost proud of what he's accomplished.

"Lucky there were no pedestrians nearby - this would have killed them. School finished only a little while ago..." My eyes betray my disdain, I care about his welfare but it's obvious it's not about him as a person. People like this who have no regard for others or the impact of their actions make my blood boil. It will take another accident and a life lost before anything will sink into his head.

The smile is wiped off his face, he mumbles something about going to his girlfriend and we head off. It was our last job, and I went home wandering how the story might have unfolded if any one of a million variables were even slightly different and was glad that they weren't.

I doubt he spent the night the same way.

Kids are indestructable... almost

So there we were, two ambo's driving around minding their own business when all of a sudden our terminal flashes.

We have a job!

Usually this would be cause for groaning and mumbling (joking, I swear) - but this call would lead us into a late meal and thus more pleasant pay packet. There's always something to celebrate in life.

We head down for a '?#' - possible fractured limb. The destination is a sporting oval that my TO knows well, and as we head down we see a game of under 12's rugby in play - this is going to be good. Coming from a different state, I never really got into rugby - but from what I've been able to gather the game essentially consists of one team trying their best to kill another team.

We knew then that if this was going to be a fracture, it was going to be done properly - and we weren't disappointed. We pull up at the windmill (otherwise known as a person frantically waving at an ambulance * see note below) and see not too far off a boy around 12 holding his arm and looking rather sorry for himself. His arm shows us why. He'd managed to break both bones of his forearm, the Radius and Ulna, the limb distal to this break flopped painfully with each movement he made.

He still had good circulation and sensation to the hand, something very important to check - because if the break has somehow damaged the vasculature or nerves it's going to be a very speedy trip to hospital for emergency surgery. I gave him some meds for the pain which almost knocked him out. The parents were a little worried about his decreased level of consciousness, but a quick chat convinced them it was for the best - what we had to do next would be something he probably wouldn't want to remember. As gently as possible we maneuvered the arm into a padded cardboard support, the poor boy still let out a semi-conscious groan of pain, and we slung it into a supported position. The meds are fairly quick to wear off, and as we drove off to the hospital we were able to have a bit of a chat and he told me about the game, which for the record ended in a tie.

I'm not sure exactly how many people have been inside a moving ambulance, but I'll give you a hint now that they're bumpy. We kept the poor boy on pain meds but still each pot hole and bump in the road left him a little sore.

We left him with the lovely doctors and nurses who promised to take good care of him, with a promise of ice cream being heard from a nurse as I walked through the exit.

He was going to be just fine...

* Note: To people who insist on waving to an ambulance while the lights and sirens are on - please don't do this unless you're the person we're going to - or at least going to take us to the person we're going to...

Nothing like a good night jog

We were called to a male pedestrian hit by a car. It's night, so we have our sidelights on as we scan the area for the accident - unsure if the driver has fled the scene or not. Two men flag us down, we assess the scene as we approach. Something about this job seemed odd from the get go, we're not taking any risks.

The men tell us they saw the incident, the car is down the road but the pedestrian - hit by the car at a relatively high speed - ran off down the opposite direction.

My TO looks at me with a look of disbelief on his face, I mirror the look to our flagging-down friends. The MDT flashes with a new notice, that the patient had ran home around the corner and called 000 from there. The look of disbelief stays with us as we head to the given address.

I'm treating officer for the night, so I grab our oxygen and first aid kit and head inside, a woman is waiting at the door and guides me to her husband. He sits in a dining table chair, a red towel pressed against his head. I swear silently to myself and start my assessment - the towel was, but half an hour earlier, white.

He was normotensive and seemed fairly stable, alert and oriented, full recollection of events and denied loss of consciousness - but he had an egg on his head that would serve a family of four. It bled fairly freely and took me a while to get under control, ample time to work out exactly what had happened. The car had hit him as he jogged across the road, and for whatever reason he had thought it was best he head home to call an ambulance... despite hearing the driver of the car call an ambulance. In these situations it's hard to determine if there perhaps is an altered level of consciousness or if the patient is always this silly.

He was, given the mechanism of injury, in fairly good shape, but we took full spinal precautions anyway much to his discomfort - collars are horrible to wear for any length of time. His head would definitely need a scan to check for any internal damage or bleeding, and we sped off into the night.

I'm trying to find out how this one turned out - the bump on the head was quite nasty and I'm curious if they stitched or glued the head wound and how the scans turned out. I'll be sure to let you know!

Lights and sirens

The terminal flashes, another call has come in. It wasn't the first for the day and we knew it wouldn't be the last. Traffic is swelling as the day wears on towards peak hour. It's a 1B. Lights and sirens. We turn into a shining beacon of hope, a wailing beast cutting its way through the populous.

"Cherries." she says simply. "I like nougat with cherries."

Breathing problems. Pt is alert and oriented, severe respiratory distress.

"I've always preferred almonds." he replies, a vague look on his face as if he were remembering a nougat long ago.

"Chocolate." I contribute, "The best nougat is always coated in chocolate."

I can see I have impressed them. A smile spreads across her face and a fond grin on his. I was the third person on crew before being placed into probation, the ride along. I quickly discovered that the intense look on a paramedics face when driving is usually unrelated to the job, and I laugh at how much fun I'm having in this new job.

We race towards the patient, hoping to do whatever we can to make sure they survive another day.

After all, we don't know nougat do they like.