To hate the phrase 'rushed to hospital'.

[HMOD]

Whenever I see it, I can't help but think 'Yeah but only to sit in the A&E waiting room for three hours with a cut finger/split lip'...hardly the stuff of gripping Casualty episodes.

Seems like people say it to make a situation sound more dramatic than it actually is! And as for checking in on Facebook at 'Local Hospital'...do not get me started.

Am I being unreasonable?

[Bogeyface]

And he was happy with the picture being in the mag Limited?! Wow!

My favourite was "My husbands brain exploded during sex!" I had sent exDH down to get me some mags when I was recovering after my appendix going pop. I said to get me Cosmo, Marie Claire etc and he came back and said "I saw this and had to get it!" We were both sorely disappointed when it turned out that the mans brain had not in fact exploded during a session of rumpy, but he had had a mild stroke several hours later. He made a full recovery and I felt rather cheated!

[beitou]

When we blue light someone into hospital it is serious. We do not use blue lights without reason as emergency response driving puts the ambulance crew and other road users at risk.

When we fisrt get a job on our ambulance screen it is coded as a red. This is a life thretening emergency that requires a blue light response, we aim to get there in seven minutes. As the call taker speaks to the person who made the call they will get more information about the naturte of the emergency and the job may get down graded to one not requiring a blue light response. You will sometimes see an ambulance put their lights on and get through a traffic jam then turn them off again. We hate it when this happens as it looks like we are just trying to get through the jam. Sometimes we will get stood down for other reasons, usually because there is a nearer ambulance.

We are supposed to have our sirens on at all times when we have the lights on unless we have a good reason not to. A good reason is usually because it is distressing to the patient in the back or because there is a hores in the road. Some crews don't use sirens much and just rely on people seeing the blue lights. I use sirens a lot, I want people to know I am coming and get out of the way. We turn of the sirens when we approach the job so as not to alarm the patient.

Once we have arrived at the patient we have to asses if they need to go in to hospital on blue lights. Some jobs we attend we are obliged to use blue lights. The classic example of this is cardiac related chest pain. The pat may seem okay but because the chest pain has cardiac sounding symtoms we have to give certain drugs and get them in on blue lights. Other jobs are what we call GLF, go like fuck jobs. These are the serious ones, life threatening or life changing or requested by a Doctor. Examples of this include major trauma, reduced GCS, major bleeding, sick children. Sick children can be dceptive as their bodies can compensate for the emergency then suddenly they go off with very little warning. We all hate working on sick children and want them in definitive care as soon as possible, they are all GLF jobs.

When taking someone in on blue lights we drive more carefully then when going to the job. We have a paramedic in the back who might be working on the patient. We try to keep the spped below about 40mph and take corners and bends smoothly. So if you see an ambulance going slowly on blue lights please have patients and let it pass, it is serious. Once we get to the motorway it is in the outside lane and GLF.

If you see or hear an ambulance approaching with blue lights and sirens on, please please please please, indicate left and STOP to let us past when it is safe to do so. Please do not do the awful thing of slowing down with no indicators on and thinking we can get past you, we can not. Before we can overtake another vehicle we have to see 3 out of the folowing 4. A change in speed, a change in direction, brake lights coming on and and indicator coming on.We are trained to be looking aheaed all the time so if you indicate and stop we can look ahead and asses the next hazard. Please dont flash your headlights at us or wave your hand. We can not react to those signals, we have to asses the situation and you might not be able to see what we can, some people get cross when we don't react to their signals. We have no legal exemption to undertake you, so again pull over to the left if possible. if your are at a traffic lights and we come up behind you we should keep our blue lights on but trun our sirens off. This is so other road users do not feel pressured into going through a red light, we have legal exemption to treat a red light as a give way, other road users do not. If you go through a red light you can be prosecuted and if their is an accident you will be to blame. All crews are trained to do this and understand it. If a crew sits at a red ligh with sirens on please feel free to complain to the ambulance service, they will respond to your complaint.

On the motorway we are trained to get over into the outside lane and stay there, we can be seen and heard from there. If you are on the motorway please let us past by pulling over into the inside lanes. Do not try to keep pace ahead of us. An ambulance weighs 5 tonnes and needs a lot more distance to stop than your car so you may well be in our stopping distance. Please do not try to tailgate us. Most cars are quickers than our ambulance so please if we are doing 90mph in an outside lane please please please do not undertake us, my attention is looking ahead im am not expecting a car to come up my inside. The bast way to think of it is try to give us a bubble around the ambulance that you do not enter, just let us past and in 2 minutes you will be able to carry on as normal. If we are in an inside lane and travelling slower than the speed limit it is again because someone in the back is working, feel free to overtake then as normal on the motorway.

A long post but I hope it explains something about blue light driving.

[OddFodd]

No way, limited - that's brilliant :o

[jimijack]

I hate it too, that and "the critical list".
Wtf is that all about?

[TeaOneSugar]

My DH always says the ones he "rushes in" are the ones who usually don't make it.

[FennellaSage]

YY Valium - I was wondering. What is the fracture/break problem? If you have fractured your arm can you not say you broke it?!

[Golddigger]

If the phrase is used correctly, it is exactly what happens. Dont see anything wrong with the actual phrase.

[DefinitelyPeppa]

I hate 'blue lighted' because it's so showy and pretentious, like you're trying to shove the fact that you had an ambulance with sirens etc in people's faces, and I say that as someone who has been genuinely 'rushed' to hospital with ambulance, lights, siren and the works - the ambulance even stopping at an RTA to swap one of their paramedics for a more senior one who had to give me a drip there and then because the hospital was too far away to wait (only half an hour from my house at normal driving speed so must have been bad). Now that, imo, is being 'blue lighted' but I STILL wouldn't use the phrase. In fact I'd only tell the dramatic story if I fancy a bit of a share, would generally just say an ambulance took me to hospital, end of.

[MistAllChuckingFrighty]

Fracture/break = exactly the same

So you can say fracture or break

but not "It's not broken, it's fractured" (usually in the dramallama context of a fracture being somehow worse than a break)

[IceBeing]

beitou That was a really informative and useful post! Can you also say whether or not ambulances can use bus lanes? We have one near I live that runs right by the hospital and into town. I don't know if one should pull into the bus lane or leave it clear??

Basically it is a three lane road. Normal two way (narrow not much chance of passing) and a one way bus lane on the extreme left of the road. Ambulances come out of the hospital and head down this road and noone knows what to do.

[IceBeing]

As for why some people minimize and others maximize...it is a human function to try and operate within normal limits. Outside of illness no one is fantastically happy all the time or fantastically miserable regardless of what has happened in their lives.

We are all a bit happy, a bit sad, a bit stressed, a bit relaxed, a bit frightened and a bit angry all of the time. That is the normal functioning state of the human brain.

People who have a lot of real drama therefore minimize it in their heads in order to cope in a more or less level way. People with absolutely no drama in their lives make up things to worry and stress about in order to hit the same 'normal' level.

[CFSKate]

MistAllChuckingFrighty - to me, fracture sounds less serious than break. Fracture sounds like, just cracked a bit, break sounds like, snapped right off.

[OddFodd]

That was indeed a v good post beitou

I think fracture sounds a lot less severe than a break. Why would anyone think it's worse?

[beitou]

Ice. Yes ambulances can use bus lanes, both on blue lights and under normal driving conditions. You should not pull into a bus lane to let an ambulance past if it is not on blue lights. If you go into the lane you can still be fined. If the ambulance is on blue lights and it can gain acess to the bus lane then don't pull into the lane, the crew are trained to look for the access point. If the ambulance comes up on your right and the traffic is still moving, put your foot on your brake, your brake lights will come on, put your double flashers on and stop. This will allow a gap to open as the car in front moves away from you and the ambulance can use to get into the bus lane. If the traffic is not moving or likely to move soon, not at a traffic ligh and you can open up a gap by pulling into the bus lane to allow the ambulance in and then pull back into your lane then do so, you will not be fined if it is on blue lights and you can get back into your lane. If you can not get back and block the bus lane or follow the ambulance, yes lots of people do this, then you could be fined. Hope this helps.

[MistAllChuckingFrighty]

I can only say how it's been presented to me (many times)

"fracture" as in "fractured into little pieces" I think they mean

[MistAllChuckingFrighty]

I do panic a bit when I have a police/ambulance with flashing lights coming up behind me, tbh. It always seems to be at a really inopportune moment eg. just as i am crossing a yellow box was the last time.

(not as inopportune a moment as the passengers in the ambulance of course)

[beitou]

Mist. We do understand the effect we can have on drivers so we hang back a bit and wait for you to respond before we overtake you. If you are unsure what to do then stop and put your foot on the brake and put your hazards on. We then have clear signs of what you are doing and we can respond safetly. We are always very grateful when people do move out of our way and it can make a real difference to seriously ill people when we can get them in quickly. I will always try to wave at peolpe to thank them but I can only really do this to peolpe in front of me who move.

[MistAllChuckingFrighty]

That is helpful, thanks.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

Ice

That makes total sense,I remember telling my mum that my dd just had a broken leg, my brother took the phone off me and explained to her what the actual damage was (she had just been stablised enough to go to theatre to have her leg amputated at that point she was not described as comfortable it was the face combined with really very poorly) it was as if I couldn't compute what was happening.

[alwaysworryingmum]

Mum is forever being 'rushed' to the hospital by my dad via the supermarket...

Quick shop whilst they're in town!

I've had friends and acquaintances ask about her health when I've had no idea she's had an asthma attack and been 'rushed' etc. They must think she's at death's door and we are all heartless bastards.

Yet when she had a genuine scare she never said a word as she didn't want to worry us?

[edwinbear]

ds was blue lighted to hospital when he was 2, the ambulance was called by the GP when I took him to the surgery with cyanosis caused by undiagnosed pneumonia, the only thing bluer than the light was his face as he struggled to breath and shook like a leaf, i also had 4 week old dd with me and as the 3 of us were bundled into the back, the terminology of what i e mailed to dh to ask him to get to hospital asap was the last thing on my mnind

[Andro]

Whenever I see it, I can't help but think 'Yeah but only to sit in the A&E waiting room for three hours with a cut finger/split lip'

YABVU! When I've been rushed to hospital (many times) it's been lights, sirens and straight to resus...usually followed by time in the ICU. How would you prefer it to be described?

[Andro]

MrsDeVere

Nope, but I am curious as to how OP would prefer such a situation to be described...the blanket hatred and dismissal when just seeing the phrase appears a little over the top. Unless there is a full description of the circumstances every time s/he sees it written there's no way s/he can know the full extent of each situation.