A Christmas Tear

This is a guest post by the person known on Twitter as @MadMedic1, and I thank them for it.
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A drizzly morning outside. Much like any other December morning of late. Inside, carols and banter filled the air in the warm mess room. Christmas greetings were being exchanged. It was, after all, Christmas Day.

Hoping for an easy start to the shift, we were treated to an hour or so on station to enjoy our little slice of Christmas before the world went mad and started to demand ambulances for the usual run of the mill calls such as abdo pains, chest pains and injuries sustained by adults testing kids toys/power tools/ drinking too much. One by one the crews left station, probably not to return till the end of shift, to go home and be with their loved ones.

Our turn was next. We were ready to face the day having had sustenance in the form of tea and shed loads of chocolate – surely the norm on Christmas Day? The phone rings, obscenely loud in the now almost empty mess room. No pleasantries exchanged from control. Never a good sign, especially given the day. Two words. “Cardiac Arrest”. Oh… Followed by another three words I certainly wasn’t expecting. “6 years old”.

My face must have said a thousand words. The colour felt like it had drained. My crew mate, now out of his seat as I repeated those words as I put the phone down and began to head for the garage doors, at a run. I almost never run. I’m built for comfort not speed, but I run. I run for jobs like this. Jobs where every second counts.

Soon we are flying or so it seems. Willing the ambulance to go faster. Thankfully, the roads are clear. Thankfully, my crew mate got new lead boots for Christmas, or so it seemed! Thoughts of this call being not as given run through my head. My crew mate for the day and I barely say two words to each other, which is unusual. Normally the mickey taking flows. Not now. We remain focused and hoping. Hoping this call is a mistake. We arrive on scene to find an FRU already stranded in the road outside the address. Abandoned quickly. Door not quite shut, left ajar in haste.

I grab my paramedic bag and run for the house. The front door is already open. I knock and go straight in. The scene of festive cheer in front of me immediately throws me. 4 children. Laughing. Playing. Shouting. Enjoying their day. Wrapping paper strewn within a 15 foot fall out zone that is the norm on Christmas day. For a split second I think the job’s not as given after all. Then a sudden realisation. Where is the FRU person? Where are the Parents? Remaining as calm as possible and with as much happiness as I can muster I ask the children where our colleague has gone and they point me upstairs without so much as looking up from their festivities.

Leaving behind the raucous laughter and happiness I make my way upstairs. Mary’s Boy Child by Boney M is playing softly alongside muffled and calm voices as I walk towards the bedroom door. Hung on the door, in anticipation of a morning of rejoice and celebration, a suit. Jacket, waistcoat and trousers. Festive red bow tie and crisp white shirt. All in miniature size. A size to fit a child. My heart lurches and I push the door open. Inside, the FRU paramedic is stooped slightly with her back to the door. In front of her is a bunk bed. Sat on the lower bed is a woman, rocking gently back and forth, quietly talking. The FRU paramedic straightens up and turns to me, drops her eyes and sadly shakes her head. As the FRU para moves out of the way I see that the woman is holding a small child in her arms. Gently kissing his head. His tiny body motionless apart from the rocking prompted by his mother. Dressed in pyjamas he looked asleep. Peaceful. Safe.

Mum looks up from her child and thanks me for coming, a wan smile on her face she also wishes me Merry Christmas. I nod, my gaze now dropped to the floor and I shift my feet from side to side, not knowing how to respond appropriately. Mum continues to talk to her child for a few moments more then becomes quiet, her eyes now shut. A single, fat tear rolls down her cheek. An awkward silence envelopes the room broken only when a man then joins us. Tall with a commanding presence he says hello and he too thanks us for coming. His gaze glassy but full of emotion. He is a larger version of the boy in Mum’s arms. This must be Dad. Numb with sadness and seeing that the FRU paramedic is now struggling with emotions I say that we’ll give them some time with their son but we’ll have to do some checks in a short while and we leave the room.

Stood on the landing we all have a moment lost in our own thoughts. Some tears shed, all silently wishing this wasn’t happening. Not today. Not at all. Not ever. Police and a duty officer are called to scene – formalities for situations like this. Still downstairs are the siblings. Blissfully unaware. Composure and strength regained we knock on the bedroom door. Certain procedures needed to be done. The parents leave us to do the formal part of our job and we continue in hushed tones and a great, overwhelming sense of sadness.

He had died some time during the night. He looked peaceful. Apparently, he always liked a lie in. Liked his sleep. But he had Cystic Fibrosis. A mild form that was being managed and wasn’t giving him much trouble of late. He had been well and very excited before going to bed last night. Ready for Father Christmas. His stocking hung on his bed ready…

We called the parents back into the room and left them once again. Paperwork to be completed. Such empty formalities but formalities just the same.

There was nothing left for us to do. The police had arrived and were downstairs talking to the children. Our time to leave had come. Unsure as to what to say we made our apologies and went to leave. Once more we were thanked. Thanked for coming. Thanked for giving them the time they needed. Thanked for doing the wonderful job we do.

As we left the house, all in quiet reflection, we were thankful that child had the most wonderful, loving family in his life. Bitter that his life was too short. That the outcome was so very wrong…

Early Christmas Present

Deciduous trees stand barren in the biting breeze, their branches, undefended from the airborne frost, wave a muted welcome as I drive gently down the road. It's a long dual carriageway, leading from one built up area to the next but a large section in between is sparsely built and poorly illuminated. The blue, strobing lights do more to show the way ahead than the dull orange street lamps intended for the purpose. My chances of finding the reported faller were reduced further by the fact that the caller was too vague to give an accurate location, and too much in a hurry to hang around and wait for the ambulance to arrive and show us the particular hedge in question. The only helpful detail they managed to convey was that the patient was wearing a red top.

Driving on roads that were more sheets of ice than tarmac delayed my arrival as I chose safety over speed. The rapid response unit that night would be more response than rapid, a case of better to be late than The Late. Having no exact address meant that I crawled the length of the hedgerows, bright search lights showing up the left side of the car. If I couldn't find the patient on the first run, it was a two mile run until I could turn round, check the other side and come back again. The first northbound trawl was unsuccessful. At the roundabout at the top I came across a lone officer in a police car, advised him of the call, and he joined the search. One of us would search the hedges, whilst the other would look in the central reservation.

We headed southbound, matching speeds and each blocking a lane, we drove with one eye on the road and the other looking out for our prey. During the day our slow march would have caused traffic chaos, but in the dead of night there was only one unlucky driver stuck behind us. Seasonal spirit prevailed and I slowed enough for a gap to open, and the driver, a confused look evident on his face, took his chance and snuck through the temporary opening.

I caught back up and signalled to the policeman to wind down his window.

"Does this count as heading south for the winter?", I yelled across the lanes.

"Doesn't seem to have warmed up much!", he called back and pressed a button next to him. The electric window smoothly wound its way up and cocooned the officer back in the warmth. I quickly followed suit.

The southbound drive was equally as unproductive, and the officer received another call and was forced to abandon the search. I stopped at the side of the road and asked the control room to give the original caller a ring back to try to extract at least a snippet of information that might help me in my search. A couple of minutes later they advised me that the patient was definitely on the northbound carriageway, and near the northern end of it, supposedly lying at the base of a hedge. I didn't really expect them to be lying at the top of it. But the latest update did mean skating the entire length of the ice-rink of a road. Again. Two hundred metres from the end, having almost driven straight past them, I finally found the patient.

As promised, a red top.

As promised, at the bottom of a hedge.

A sleeve and the bottom of what looked from the car to be a thick woolly jumper peered out from the hedge, and I presumed the rest of the patient was hidden in the bushes. I stopped the car by the kerb, still a good fifty metres from the hedge, called out to the patient to "Hang on, I'll be there in a second", and went to grab my kit out the boot. Still talking out loud, I finally approached and prepared for the worst. The temperature was well below freezing, they had been there for at least an hour from the original call, and were wearing nothing more than just a jumper. And just to worry me a little more, they made no attempt to move or call back.

Carrying the two bags of kit, more for balance than anything else, I slipped and skated my way across to the hedge, eventually arriving at the side of the patient. I knelt down beside them, moved to shake their arm at the top of the sleeve, only to find that the whole red arm was unoccupied.

I'd been searching for a discarded, unloved and unwanted jumper.

The shop tag was still attached to the collar.

As I was just about to call control and ask them to cancel the crew, their blue lights appeared behind me and they pulled up to help. The odds on a white Christmas were shortening as the frozen weather continued with only days to go, so I decided to let them stay in the warm comfort of their ambulance.

"We'll need the stretcher", I said, "but I'll bring the patient to you. That way you don't have to get out of the truck. They're not that heavy!"

I slid across, holding the patient gently in my arms, and presented it to the crew. It was just too dark for them to see exactly what I was holding until I was right beside them.

"Merry Christmas!" I grinned as I handed the patient over. "It's the early Christmas present you've always wanted!"

Safer

The patient we'd just dropped off at the hospital only became a patient when the police turned up. Far from being police brutality, it seems that they just seem to have an overwhelming effect on some people. Paulo had driven home from the pre-Christmas office drink, a warm up for the main event that was scheduled for mid-December. It was only supposed to be the planning meeting, but he decided to sample some of the drinks to help him decide what to make available for everyone else. Then he drove home. Well, about half way, before he met the kerb, burst a tyre and was stopped by a grass verge. A good Samaritan witnessed the incident, and as he drove past and kept going, he called for an ambulance. Paulo was uninjured, the crash and his escape a dichotomous result of his drunken state. The police turned up a few minutes later, and as soon as they said the magic words informing him of his arrest, Paulo collapsed.

Paulo fell to the ground, making sure he found somewhere soft to drop. His eyelids held tightly shut and hands making tight fists, he failed every test for unconsciousness known to any paramedic worth their salt. However, he still refused to open his eyes or speak, and therefore won the first round. The police had no choice but to send him to hospital, although rather than being let off by them, Paulo was accompanied all the way, and would be watched until he recovered from his mysterious ailment. Round two would be won by the police as soon as he woke up. Far from being sent home, Paulo would spend hours in A&E, and then more hours in a police cell. Round three would be up to the judge.

Having transported an officer and their quarry, we were then free to go back out on the road. We left the hospital, and half way back to station, saw a car veering across lanes, bouncing off the pavement, and showing a general disregard for any rules of the road. We called control and let them know that there was probably another drunk driver on the road and asked for police to attend before anyone was injured or worse. Following the car, we were given permission to use lights and sirens to see if that would help stop the driver, but both were completely ignored.

The car seemed to be accelerating away from us, and was heading directly for a line of traffic waiting at a set of lights. Assuming that our presence might be making the driver act more erratically and dangerously, we turned off the lights and sirens and slowed down. We waited for it to skirt around the line of cars, jump through the red light and across a busy junction. That wasn't even close to what happened.

The car didn't even brake. It slammed into the car at the back of the line and stopped dead, steam pouring out the hood seconds after impact. We pulled up behind the car, radioed in to let control know what had happened and requested another ambulance, as we'd probably have at least two patients. 

The blue van that had been stationary was shunted forwards a good distance right into the middle of the junction. Luckily the lights had changed, so there was no cross traffic and the car in front had already moved off, missing an impact by the thinnest of margins. The driver got out, and looking a little dazed, walked over to us cradling one arm in the other. Even from a distance we could see that he'd fractured his wrist. The police turned up at that point, and were tasked with babysitting him until we could assess the other driver.

The front of her car was half the size it should have been. She hadn't moved since the impact, and as we approached we could see that she was conscious, breathing, and seemingly uninjured. The expected smell of alcohol didn't materialise when we opened the door, although her speech was slurred, she was confused and her behaviour was erratic. Sure drunken signs, but lacking evidence, we carried out further checks. Within under a minute, we had the answer. As a police officer looked for physical clues, we searched for medical ones. A blood sugar check was all it took. Her sugar level had dropped to less than one (or eighteen for you Stateside persons). Most people I've seen with that level have been totally unconscious, and nowhere near a steering wheel. A few hundred drops of sugary water directly into her blood stream were enough to bring her back to reality, although not the one she remembered.

"What happened?"

"Well, you've had a hypo, and crashed your car. It seems that you've come out of it OK."

She took a moment to digest the information. A look of horror suddenly crossed her face. "What about the person I hit? Are they hurt?"

"Don't worry. They're on the way to hospital for a check-up." I didn't have the heart to tell her about the broken arm. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was having a meeting with some guy. I run an inn, and we were planning their Christmas do. He had a couple of drinks, maybe more than a couple, and I told him he probably shouldn't drive, but he went anyway. I hope he made it home in one piece! Maybe I should've taken my own advice too..." 

We asked about her medical history, whether she'd been eating regularly, all the other relevant questions for a diabetic whose blood sugar levels have dropped so low. She'd been doing everything right, so the reason remained unclear. There was still one thing we wanted to quiz her about.

"Do you remember the name of the person you met?" I couldn't believe the coincidence, and I didn't expect the answer. 

"Yeah. It was a foreign sounding name. Pablo I think." 

"Pablo? You sure?" 

She sat looking thoughtfully into the distance. "Oh. No it wasn't. It was Paulo. Not Pablo. Definitely Paulo." 

Two ambulance crew stared at each other in total silence, barely accepting the answer we'd just heard.

She broke the silence after a few seconds. 

"Instead of telling him to get a cab, maybe I should have asked him to drive me! It would probably have been much safer..."