AIBU to stop helping after injuring myself lifting elderly neighbour?

I don’t think you’re unreasonable at all. Each and every time you are called to help you should ring the kids and tell them they need to come and help. Rinse and repeat until they get the message that their parents aren’t able to live without support any more.

My DM is 90 I cant force her to use the keysafe..............she refuses.
I cant force her to use hearing aids..........she refuses
I cant force her to use the falls alarm.............she refuses and wouldnt be able to hear someone talk to her (see point 2)
I cant force her to get a stairlift installed........she refuses.
Too late to downsize and she wouldnt have done it anyway.

Now how can the mental capacity laws be broken to enable this? Anyone there at the back blaming the adult children got any ideas? Id love to hear them.
GP surgery often doesnt get an answer when they phone her or do home visits because she cant hear the phone or the door. Then they phone me and ask me to contact her because ive apparently got some hidden magical power that will make her hear me when she cant hear anyone/anything else. Guess as its nearing Halloween with a bit of luck maybe i will be able to tap into this power 🙄

You've had a lot of good advice but I just wanted to add that it's quite concerning that this man was able to fall out of his wheelchair inside a van, and then the wheelchair was able to roll away and cause you an injury. It doesn't sound like he was in a safe or secure situation there at all.

We are a rural road of 5 houses. One house is lived in by an elderly couple one of which has dementia and the other is paralyzed. Over the last few years the gentleman who is paralyzed has fallen frequently and the rest of us have been called and gone and picked him up. We are all 60 plus except for one lad in his 20s.

This afternoon all the male members of the 3 closest homes were out. He fell from his wheelchair in his mobility van and as the only 2 people available my female neighbour and I were summoned by his wife. She and I couldn't get him up so rang another elderly male neighbour. He came and he worked from the front whilst I pulled him from the back. We got him into the wheelchair but it then slipped back into me propelling me backwards down the ramp and off it onto the tarmac drive. Hes fine but I've had to go to a and e and I've got ruptured ligaments in one knee and bruising rand cuts to both and I'm struggling to walk. I'm unlikely to be able to drive for a few days and I'm self employed.

My husband is livid and is saying that he will call the couples kids tomorrow and tell them we are no longer available to pick him up. This will include DHs brother who Is one of 5 houses. Is that unreasonable?

From some of the responses on here, I reckon you are just not trying hard enough. If you cared a bit more and just put that effort in,
your parent would start to shape up. Single parent with a school age child? Just leave ‘em home alone while you assist your parent. Taken a sip of alcohol so can’t leap in the car immediately? Well shame on you, you drunkard. Need some sleep so not on call
24/7? Lazy. And as for going on holiday, well, you can forget about that you selfish gad-about.

I think many posters on here have led a charmed life… either not experienced elderly care or lived very close or had a suppprt
network and compliant parents who took sensible decisions. I think others pick up snippets of info like lift teams, pendants etc and see this as solutions when they are either not widely available (lift services) or simply lock the ball down the line (pendants).

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of not lifting if you don't feel it's safe or you're not physically able, the idea that you cant/mustn't lift anyone from the floor is nonsense.

Firstly - theres absolutely no legal risk in rendering first aid measures in the UK, helping someone up is absolutely first aid and no one is coming after you - you're extremely well protected. It would only be a risk in something as mad as "please don't move me I can't feel my legs", "don't worry I know best I'm going to pull you up into this chair, stop screaming, you'll be fine when I get you up...".

Secondly, and I say this as someone who works in the ambulance service frontline and on the phones - we probably aren't going to come until they've been on the floor so long they start deteriorating and becoming unwell. Unless you live in an area with falls teams (often volunteers), or its particularly quiet.

That's why you occasionally hear about 90yr old Dorris who slipped on the driveway in January and couldn't get up, left on the floor by ambulance service for 8 hours.... It got to the situation where there are so many frail people living on their own falling multiple times a day we just don't have the capacity to cover it, if there's no injury then not classed as an emergency and goto the bottom of the list. If it's busy then who ever called will get the no send script, if the person is on their own then we call neighbours etc to see if they can help. If it's a care home following a 'no lift' policy we have to make them aware that as they have lifting equipment in the home, they have the means and a duty of care to look after their residents, that because there is no injury apparent we can't come until it becomes an emergency (long lie/over an hour on the floor can cause kidney failure -our response time is commonly 4-6hrs), can I take your name because I need it documented who's refusing to get them up which is likely to lead to patient harm...I advise you to make sure you've got a copy of the no lifting policy and be sure that your employer really has taken on this duty of care for themselves."

What makes it worse though is that we are all blue lighting around to 30yr old with 4month history of back pain (some triage tool thinking it's a heart problem), 4yr old with fever (very mobile, just needs running upto a&e in the car and if it does turn out to be meningitis then you'll be seen at least an hour sooner by making own way). Just doing my drugs audit for the year last month - I'd only had to administer medications to patients 23 times in the last 12 months - of all the patients I'd been sent to only 23 needed treatment beyond a chat and a ride.... Oh and a good chunk of that 23 was oral paracetamol.

We absolutely should be prioritising elderly fallers over the nonsense we spend our careers going to. But you've got to remember that in a city of 500 000, you will have around 30 ambulances on duty in the day, 20 at night. If we are the only ones picking up elderly fallers we are not going to be doing anything else.

You've had a lot of good advice but I just wanted to add that it's quite concerning that this man was able to fall out of his wheelchair inside a van, and then the wheelchair was able to roll away and cause you an injury. It doesn't sound like he was in a safe or secure situation there at all.

this comment makes me so mad. I care for my parent as well as I can whilst living 20 miles away, looking after my own family and working full time. You know who I am
responsible for? My child. End of. Not my parent. Stop villainising children.

I spend practically all my spare time
assisting my parent. I can’t make a person of sound mind do anything they do not wish to do and I can’t be there 24/7.

some of the ‘helpful’ suggestions here make me think im living on a different planet. the magic solution of a pendant - yes that rings through to a call Centre who call a relative who also can’t lift assuming they can even get there so then a call to 999. My area and my parents area has no specialist lift team. It’s an ambulance or nothing. And sheltered accommodation and carers… as already pointed out, doesn’t stop falls happening. Moving into a care home … again falls can happen. Local authorities will do all they can to keep an individual in their own home. And, it being a free country for those of sound mind, no one can be compelled to move into a care home. You assume the children have a lot of influence here.

None of this means the OP should put themselves at risk but don’t put this on the children and demonise them.

I’m not demonising anyone and your own situation, with which I sympathise having done it myself, is not universal. I’ve had similar dealings to OP with an elderly neighbour, and his children, who didn’t want to know until their dad had a bad fall which entailed hospitalisation and surgery, and he was no longer able to look after himself or live alone. Up until that point they were quite happy to leave it to the neighbours. After that, it became a question of whether his care fees would swallow up their inheritance, and the best way to get around it - without having to have the poor bloke live with and be cared for by them of course.

My mum was living at home with us and had a hospital bed in a downstairs room. She had dementia and kept falling out of bed. Because of the laws on deprivation of liberty they wouldn’t provide cot sides and when I asked what we were to do because it was happening every night and neither of us could pick her up, they said call an ambulance. Every single time.

I’m all for helping out but this isn’t your issue. Your neighbours need to sign up to a warden type service where they have an alarm button/ pendant that actual carers can go out who have lifting equipment and training, and won’t be in their 60’s.
They can call an ambulance if necessary. You don’t injure yourself helping someone else who won’t help themselves, I’m not surprised your husband is annoyed.
The elderly couples kids can sort them out some proper support.

My mum was living at home with us and had a hospital bed in a downstairs room. She had dementia and kept falling out of bed. Because of the laws on deprivation of liberty they wouldn’t provide cot sides and when I asked what we were to do because it was happening every night and neither of us could pick her up, they said call an ambulance. Every single time.

Bed side rails are a form of restraint but more importantly are really dangerous for people with impaired cognitive. There have been several deaths due to people becoming trapped / falling over top of them so they can only be given out following a very detailed risk assessment. Dementia will most often mean that they cannot be given unless the person has 24hr supervision. This is not a “computer says no” situation. It’s from the MHRA following a ton of evidence on the risk rails pose.
The alternative is a Floor bed and crash mats / bed sensor alarms. If someone is st thd srstr where they are rolling / falling out of bed every night even with this in place, then it’s time for either 24hr waking care or residential care, sadly.

When I was in hospital a few years ago, I was woken up in the middle of the night from a very deep sleep by someone standing over me trying to talk to me. Because I was in such a deep sleep and I was ill, I didn’t know where I was or who this person was. I was very scared. I really could have struck out. The person was another very elderly patient, who had dementia and gone wandering. I asked the nurse if the sides of her bed could be put up so it wouldn’t happen again and they said they couldn’t as it would deprive her of her liberty. It seemed like she had rights but I didn’t.

When I was in hospital a few years ago, I was woken up in the middle of the night from a very deep sleep by someone standing over me trying to talk to me. Because I was in such a deep sleep and I was ill, I didn’t know where I was or who this person was. I was very scared. I really could have struck out. The person was another very elderly patient, who had dementia and gone wandering. I asked the nurse if the sides of her bed could be put up so it wouldn’t happen again and they said they couldn’t as it would deprive her of her liberty. It seemed like she had rights but I didn’t.