ambulance...poss broken ankle... wtf

[ghostspirit]

omg was on my way home from work. daughter calls to say she has hurt ankle she thinks it might be broken. her boyfriend has called an ambulance.... i started ranting at her that you do not call an ambulance for things like that. then she told me she was told they won't send her an ambulance for that reason... i told her to rest her foot wait till i get in and i will get her a cab... the her boyfriends mum rings her and asks her why shes not getting an ambulance... daughter says for some weird reason they wont send one. i can sort of forgive daughter for thinking they would. but then for her bf mum to ring and question why not... wtf....

There is no blanket right or wrong about calling an ambulance for a broken ankle surely. What it depends on is whether or not the injured person can physically be moved - under their own steam or with help from those around - and whether they are in unbearable pain.

When my son broke his ankle the sound he made was like no shriek he has made before or since; as was the level of pain, very obviously. Luckily I can (just) still carry him. If the identical thing happened (we were about 100 meters from a paved road) when he's 14 I cannot see any humane alternative to calling an ambulance, just because otherwise I'd have to pitch a tent over him or something - I wouldn't be able to move him to the car. He was on the ground screaming and wouldn't have been able to hop on his other leg across the uneven ground either. ..

I don't see what's so wrong about calling an ambulance for a fractured arm,Wipsglitter.They can cause problems,and the pain can be terrible.
I fractured my arm in a workplace accident. I did not know that pain like that could exist. I was screaming my head off,and didnt even know I was doing it. There's no way I could have gotten into a vehicle. I had to be carried out to the ambulance. No one thought it was fractured,but an X-ray revealed that it was badly broken. That resulted in surgery,five days in hospital,months of physiotherapy and 14 years later I still have considerable problems and chronic pain.

Yes sometimes the bones rest in such a way that the pain is bearable if not moved too much.my grandmother fractured her hip,and wasn't in a great deal of pain, but that's not always the case. I wouldn't hesitate to call an ambulance for a child who was in terrible pain with a fracture.

I called an ambulance when I broke my ankle last year (luckily I had fallen with the phone within reach!) as I was alone, ds would have been first home (12 at the time!), I couldn't get hold of my dh and anyway my foot was pointing the wrong way and there was quite a lot of blood.

I was blue-lighted to hospital and operated on (for 2 hours) just after I'd been assessed - dh made it there in time to see me as I was signing the consent form, high as a kite on morphine and gas&air. Still not walking properly!

So for some situations it's a good call.

I Say no one thought it was broken,but I did. That disconnected feeling was unmistakable even though I'd never had a fracture before.

First aid training wise, I'd call an ambulance for a broken ankle if it was an open or compound fracture, if the person was in a lot of pain, or, (and this is important), if there is no pulse in the foot or very poot capillary refill in the toes.

I broke my foot 2 years ago and although I knew it was broken I waited till the next day to go to hospital due to not having childcare. I was absolutely bollocked by the doctor for not calling an ambulance.

This is all a bit of a macho face-off I think. There are people who call ambulances who shouldn't - someone I know called one because her leg hurt. She thought it might be DVT but still, that's not an ambulance situation.

But if I thought a bone was broken, an ambulance would be a suitable means of transport if I didn't have anyone to drive me and maybe even if I did, the best means of transport if you want to avoid damaging it further.

Of course some "broken ankles" turn out to be sprains and sometimes an ambulance is not necessary. But let's stop blaming the customers here. The NHS is not in trouble because people with broken ankles call ambulances.

I'm not saying the decision was right or wrong but there's no need for moral outrage - it was a perfectly ok thing to do imho.

I've only had an ambulance called for me once in my life (thank god) and that was by NHS direct who wanted to get my daughter to hospital after 5 days of horrific vomiting. I was pretty sure she was not dehydrated and I actually could have called a cab (there's no parking at all at our hospital so you can't drive) but they took the decision for me and called an ambulance. It was helpful and reassuring.

I agree with bumwad.
I've sprained my ankle twice, I didn't even bother with going to hospital.I just put double tubigrip on it, and tried to rest it as much as possible.
I also injured my foot once, tubigripped it and limped around for a few weeks. I do have a lump there now though, but otherwise no ill effects.
I can understand why schools call ambulances for minor injuries but I wouldn't for myself ,unless it was a real emergency.

FFS, is this a martyr competition? 'My head fell off, I didn't go to hospital for a week'.
I've been an A&E nurse, if you break your ankle, there is nothing wrong in calling a fucking ambulance. It needs to be immobilised quickly and safely.

random i think people are just saying what they would do or have done in their situations :/

random I worked in A and E as well, and saw hundreds of people wait around for hours/all day, then get sent home ... in double tubigrip or taped up.That wasn't really an option for me in my situation.Personally I've got a good idea if I've only sprained my ankle. Can see why other people might want to call an ambulance though, no problem with that.

Bumwad "I speak from experience."

Well, with respect, no you don't, unless you've been privy to the A&E notes of all of us here who've reported having called an ambulance and been subsequently vindicated by hospital staff.

Just because one or two people call unnecessarily does not negate the experiences of those who don't.

YABU. Of course.
As for all the "It might be a bad break, it might need amputation/surgery/etc"...well it didn't, did it? You can look at it and realise that there is no bone sticking through your skin, you're not screaming in agony, you can move yourself around...

It was a sprain. No need for an ambulance. Of course it COULD have been worse, but it wasn't. The headache I currently have could be a fatal brain tumour, but I'm not going to call an ambulance.

Someone in my area last week waited 3 and half hours for an ambulance. And they really needed one.You think they should have waited longer while they went to look at someones sprained ankle?

Clam.

My comment was with regards to the percentage of people with '? Fractured ankle' to actually having a positive abnormality. Bearing in mind a positive can be something like a hairline fracture which doesn't require treatment to a serious one where an ambulance is required. I would say about 85% of A&E admittances for this presentation are indeed NORMAL yet the person presenting thinks they have broken it. And have called a bloody ambulance.

85%? Where is that statistic from?

I ended up in an ambulance after a suspected broken ankle. In my defence, I was 30 weeks pregnant and blacking out from shock. Also, I didn't call it myself. My foot had gone the wrong direction as I fell, though, and the ambulance crew struggled to find a pulse in it.

Turned out to be a bad sprain. Was on crutches for weeks (which was fun with a bump).

Calling an ambulance depends on the situation, I reckon.

Oh, I broke my ankle. Not trying to be competitive here, but it was broken in three places and badly sprained (the sprain happened before the bones gave way) but as it was Christmas evening I decided to go to sleep and maybe go to hospital in the morning. NO fucking way was I going to call an ambulance when it was blatantly still irrigated and I wasn't in in too much pain. I couldn't walk, but that was a side-issue.

BTW it required reassembly and pinning so not that minor. I still wouldn't have called a bloody ambulance.

Was defo not as painful as labour though but that might have been the Christmas day alcohol Comparable pain to labour was the moment after waking from the surgery but before they gave me the morphine.