Living and Dying

Last night, as with most nights now, once we left the ambulance station to go on cover we then only saw it again for half an hour before the shift ended, just enough time to have a meal break. The night before, we were sent from one cover point to another, some of which were pointless for instance within 4 minutes we had been asked to go to a town 20 minutes north of us, then a town 1 hour south east, then again to another place 40 minutes to the west..... to be given a job in the first town we had been asked to cover. Well hows my carbon foot print??? And with fuel prices as they are..... Back to last night, we were busy as I have said, but two of the jobs "got to me" not in a bad way they just stayed with me until the end of the shift, maybe a little longer seeing as I have decided to blog about them... Living: A young man of 16, intentional overdose. This very unhappy lad had taken, not a large quantity of paracetamol but enough to seriously damage his health (and that is less tablets than you may think), he had also been self harming by cutting his arms and deliberately burning himself, he had a history over the last two years of depression and had been in and out of a specialist hospital trying to get some help. He made me feel quite useless, there was nothing I could do for this boy other than take him in to hospital to get the treatment which will stop the paracetamol from doing too much damage. (there is a limit to what this treatment is able to do, its purely luck that he hadn't taken too many, and also that we got to him within a short time frame) He told me he wanted to die, he was bold and explained himself clearly. . . unless you have experienced this you wont realise just how shocking it is to hear a child speak in this way. Dying: Midnight, a 92 year old man with severe shortness of breath, difficulty in breathing. This gentleman despite his age, had just returned home from a meeting at his local club. he had, for a couple of days been a little chesty and seeing as he had suffered two bouts of pneumonia in the past his wife decided that tomorrow she would take him to the doctor or at least get the doctor to make a house call. Once home from the club his breathing got bad and she decided to call for us, we could hear his chest sounds without a stethoscope. His lungs were not able to process enough oxygen for him (sats of 70%) we gave him some medication which we add to oxygen to help open the airways (salbutamol neb) and managed to raise his oxygen levels to 84% then got him onto the stretcher and prioritised him into the nearest hospital. Blue lights all the way! About halfway there he began to deteriorate nothing I did was keeping his oxygen levels up, more medication (Salbutamol and Ipatropium Bromide) slight increase then rapid deterioration. I had to start using a bag and mask to breath for him, but rapidly his heart gave up the struggle, I asked Tepic to pull over and he came into the back and helped with CPR and getting paddles onto the patients chest before calling the hospital to upgrade the priority. At the hospital the staff were ready and waiting, opening the back doors as soon as we had stopped. Sadly for all our hard work and all the drug intervention both in the ambulance and at the hospital this gentleman who was still living life to the full at 92 years old passed away. Yes he had lived a long life, but he was still enjoying it getting out and participating. I said to my crew mate as we were clearing the debris of our efforts out of the ambulance "I hate it when they go off on you!" he agreed, turning up at a patient and getting on with CPR is much easier than having to work on one who you have been chatting to! Just one other thing, Tepic, if you ever read this, when the patient took the knife out from under the mattress last night, thanks for hearing the word knife and appearing so fast!