In praise of Ambulances

[Bicycle]

There was a piece in my local paper this week: Woman of 20 overturnd car in 'torrential rain' on a rural lane but walked away. Called 999, ambulance came and she went home after a night in hospital and some stitches to arm and face.

Sounds an excellent outcome. But No! Not so!

She and her grandmother have complained officially and gone to the press: They say the ambulance took 40 minutes to arrive, although WMAS records show it was 20 mins and 49 seconds.

Grandmother says: "I am extremely angry; she was bleeding profusely and these were vital minutes that could have been the difference between life and death".

But they weren't, madam.... She lived. And your numbers don't tally with those of WMAS, who are required to log these things. Your grandaughter flipped her car (no other vehicle involved) and was resued by an ambulance crew, treated and kept in overnight.

... And you are complaining! The photos of victim and grandmother suggest people unlikely to complete the Times crossword in under seven minutes. I might be wrong.

In the past 12 months I've has roadside treatment from an ambulance crew after being tipped off my bicycle and called and ambulance for a motorcyclist I saw take a big hit.

Both crews were excellent. Almost perfect, I would say.

Over the decades I've had the fortune to meet many ambulance crews in the course of their daily work and have never had anything but praise for them.

This press story looks like Mrs. Stupid&Greedy looking for a pay-out, but while it's on my mind I'd like to see if I'm alone in thinking UK ambulances to be just about the top of the tree in terms of service, care, promptness and all the rest of it.

What are members' experiences of ambulance responses in the UK?

(Neither I nor any of my family work for an ambulance service ).

 

[NeilEB]

Thankfully I've had cuase to use the Ambulance service, but I'll give them a big "thank you" anyway.
Difficult job, and they do it well, most of the time.

 

[slugonabike]

I don't remember anything about the time when an ambulance crew got me out from the back of a crashed car, but I am very thankful that they did!

 

[funnymummy]

One of my best mates works for SECAmb, I know how hard she & her colleagues work. I have nothing but praise for them.
I have had to call out a bus on several occasions for my children, all have arrived swiftly, although the wait does seem forever at the time I know it wasn't actulay that long.
The other day #1 took a tumble from his bike, he had just passed a petrol station & an ambulance was filling up - They rushed over, checked him out and brought him & his bike home - Even though he was within sight of home, they insisted on the full service to make sure he was ok.

It states the drivers where on a rural lane, I am presuming this means they wern't actulay close to a station or hospital.

Grandmother says: "I am extremely angry; she was bleeding profusely and these were vital minutes that could have been the difference between life and death".
I am aslo presuming from this post they don't carry an emergency first aid kit so could have at least stemmed the flow of bllod until help arrived..I may bit a bit anal, it may be because i'm a mother, it may be because i'm a teacher - But I never go anywhere without a little green bag of bandages, plasters & such.
So TBH 20 mins although may seem a wait, seems perectly reasonable to me if in the 'middle of nowhere' - can't all be lucky enough to live right next door to a station or just ahppen to have a bus passing at that moment.

 

[Wednesday]

I've only called an ambulance once and was surprised how quickly they arrived to see to a guy who'd hit his head on a friday night (but then I didn't have panic to make the wait seem longer).

I used to read a few LAS blogs (not my local service) and it's fairly worrying lately. Two have left, one is still there but has been banned from blogging and has started to hate the work. It seems to be becoming progressively more soul-sapping both on the road and in the control centre, when these are already jobs that people are drawn to for the satisfaction, not the pay or conditions.

 

[pepecat]

My experiences have only been with WMAS (West mids) and they have been great. The first time NHS direct actually sent the ambulance to our house cos my o/h was having some strange symptoms which they thought needed investigating. The amublance came in about 4 minutes (we did live about 10 mins walk from A&E before they moved it), the paramedics were lovely, and took us off to hospital even though it was neither an emergency or life threatening. We were in A&E for 4 hours, but that's a different story.......

The second time was when a friend came off her motorbike, and by the time we got there, the ambulance had arrived and got her all strapped onto a board and into the vehicle. They let my o/h ride up front with them on the way to hospital - I had to stay and wait for her bike to be picked up. But again, they were great.

I think that woman and her granddaughter need to remember the following: she walked away from the accident, so it doesn't sound like it was life threatening to me...... If she was bleeding, pressure and elevation would help, even if you don't have a first aid kit.
They were out in the middle of nowhere......... of course it's going to take time to get there.
Emergencies get priority. Doesn't sound like they were one.

 

[abo]

I've only had to call an ambulance out twice and both were a good while back. The first time I was walking along the path when I saw a young lad come off his bike just up ahead, he took quite a hard hit and was obviously in some pain. The ambulance arrived incredibly quickly; I guess being about half a mile from the ambulance station helped though

The second time a mate and I were walking home from the pub, rounded a corner and came across a lady lying unconcious in the street with a nasty looking head injury. Again, the ambulance arrived promptly and the guys who responded were pretty cool.

I feel for the ambulance technicians and paramedics, they do a tough job under challenging conditions, made worse by some of the plebs they meet on a daily basis.

Never did find out what had happened to the unconscious woman.

 

[abo]

They were out in the middle of nowhere......... of course it's going to take time to get there.
Emergencies get priority. Doesn't sound like they were one.

+1 they were probably expecting the sodding air ambulance...

Have you watched that 24 Hours In A&E currently showing on CH4 (I think)? People complaining about waiting for four hours to have some minor injury attended to, while the A&E staff sort out the slightly more urgent trauma cases.

 

[fossyant]

It's very difficult to tip a car over, unless you are driving like a *** (insert what word you like).

Nothing but praise here for ambulance crews. Only used them once myself - took a rock to my nose whilst cycling home once - blood everywhere. Local housholder phoned - crew came very promptly and delivered me to A&E - I was 15 miles from home, so father came to collect me later. Collected bike from house some days later !

Fairly regular at my in-laws as both aren't 'well'.

 

[gaz]

Ambulance and fire services are the best

 

[ColinJ]

A mate of mine lives on a hillside above Hebden Bridge. One day, he had just got home when he started to projectile vomit blood. Fortunately, he managed to dial 999 before collapsing.

He was a very lucky lad because an ambulance happened to be passing along the A646 through the town when his call was taken.

The paramedics found him lying in a pool of blood a few minutes later. It turned out that he had a perforated ulcer.

He would almost certainly have died without the prompt attention of the ambulance crew.

 

[chillyuk]

My second daughter was delivered by an ambulance crew who did a superb job.

When I was burned in a kitchen fire a few years ago the fire service and the ambulance service couldn't do enough for me.

As someone who suffers from occasional bouts of psychotic illness I find the emergency services who usually have to pick up the pieces very good (it's the doctors and psychiatric services who let the side down).

Therefore my experiences 100%, without being blinded to the fact that things do go wrong from time to time. The world is run by humans and humans are fallible.

 

[Dave Davenport]

Not the crews' fault obviously, but on a club run a couple of years ago we had a guy lying in the road with a broken pelvis (on a very cold day) for an hour and 15 minutes. The police turned up after about half an hour but said they coudn't do anything to help, unless we started a fight in which case they'd know what to do.

 

[Melonfish]

I've had an ambulance out for my son a few times, he's chronic asthmatic and we've had some scares before now.

i've always found the ambulance service to be polite, cheerful, attentive and knowledgable. they're also there quickly when you need them and care deeply about the patients under their charge.
i could never say a bad word about the ambulance service and i'm thankfull they're there when we need them!

special mention goes to bill and ben the ambulance men (no i'm not making this up) who helped us get my wife to hosi when she fell down the stairs, which she has done a few times. she's about as sure footed as a newborn giraffe.

being a paramedic/technician/care nurse working on the ambulance service is very hard work, not only do you have to put up with people who honestly take the urine, but you have to be switched on and understanding at the same time whilst having thick skin, you can get attacked by kids and adults alike, you're sometimes in dangerous situations to help others and you are CONSTANTLY under extreme scrutiny by the regulators, one comment out of line of FB and your job is gone (did you know that?) or one pic of you doing something they don't like and you're gone. same applies to may professions in the NHS but the ambulance service is a high pressure job and usually under the microscope.

i praise them whenever i see them and i find what this lady and her grandmother to be doing to be utterly deplorable

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

I'm with Melonfish.
My partner is an NHS driver, working out of an ambulance depot.

She has spent days on-call with ambulance crews. 9 out of 10 calls are hoax or non-emergency, yet they have to attend, even though they can see their time wasted. Sometimes it's trivial, sometimes they're picking up pieces of people.

Any NHS driver in uniform has to attend any incident they see.
They cannot take a break in public places, like cafes or fast food stores, that's a dismissal offence.

And they have to carry personal attack alarms and wear steel toe boots in case of attack by the people they help.

They have my total respect and admiration.