To think this was wrong?

[StressedD]

My friend was walking back from the library at uni last night (she'd gone in to finish some resit assignments and needed to use text books that were reference only). Around 11PM, she posted on fb that, while walking home, her left leg had started dragging and so she sat on a wall outside a shop for a few minutes, only she had been there 30 minutes and couldn't stand. When she still couldn't stand after an hour, she looked on 111 and followed the advice to call 999. We chatted on messenger while she waited for the ambulance to arrive. When it still hadn't turned up at 1.30 am, she called again and was assured the ambulance was on it's way. By this point I was getting worried about her, but I don't live anywhere near her, so couldn't do much to help. Friend told me that, there wasn't much I could do, the ambulance probably wouldn't be much longer, I should go to bed, and she'd let me know how things panned out. It turned out that she was found still sitting on the wall by university security at 2.45am and, when their control room couldn't get through to the ambulance service to get an estimate of how long it would be, they physically lifted her to her feet, put her in their van and rushed her to A&E (5 minutes from the shop she had been sat outside). Thankfully, all her tests showed that she hadn't had a stroke and she was sent home at around 7.30am. My friend keeps saying she was wrong to phone for an ambulance, and feels like a fraud.
I know Saturday nights are busy, but leaving someone who couldn't stand sat on a wall in the cold and rain for over 3 hours isn't right?

@Justme1234567 Did you miss the part where I stated repeatedly that she could not stand? How was she supposed to get a taxi when she couldn't stand? Every firm she phoned hung up on her as soon as she mentioned that she couldn't stand. Do you really think Uber would be any different? Also, if she wasn't a priority, why would the ambulance service call her to apologise for not getting to her sooner when she was taken to A&E by university security who, had they not been going past on their way to another campus, might not have even seen her

Which university library is open until late on a Saturday night in August? Even for resits?

My University library is open 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

The ambulance service will apologise to everyone when they have to wait, it’s not an admission that she should have been attended to quicker.

That’s it though she wasn’t in a life threatening medical condition, she wasn’t displaying any other stroke or clot warnings and could talk/breathe clearly I’m assuming. She made it to a wall to sit so couldn’t suddenly not move at all or she’d be arse over tit on the ground.

You don’t need to tell a taxi your having difficultly standing.. just hope it’s a human with a heart not a twat.

Yep the wait time is crazy, if my paramedic didn’t make a snap judgement after the first cancelled ambulance at 2am (2 hours after calling with chest pains and struggling to breathe on blood thinners) it’d have been 5am before the next ambulance.. would it have been called to a cardiac arrest? Who knows. He decided solo to load me up in the front once I’d stabilised with the help of dp and take me himself risking his own arse but in a what’s worse situation.

They don’t count alone in a bad area or weather into it often if you’re conscious.

Id wonder if she’d even tried people on foot who could help her into a cab etc.. where theres a will there’s a way kinda thing.

Odd the legs still dragging though. Perhaps they seen she’s anemic so mentioning low iron was like saying waters wet, they don’t tell me I’m anemic or have low iron and it’s been that way for donks.

@StressedD calling back is a thing they do, also to check the patient hasn't worsened. Crews will also apologise for delays, it doesn't mean she should have been prioritised or indeed that she wasn't, just that there are delays

I've been the one sat on the phone to an emergency, praying there is an ambulance coming free soon because I know the patient needs one

Two months ago my frail 82 year old mother collapsed with severe stomach pain so I called an ambulance. She had been vomiting blood and passing blood in her stools for the past week. She hadn't eaten properly for 10 days.

She was incoherent, waxy complexion, very cold and clammy. We waited three and a half hours for the ambulance.

I phoned 999 three times as mum grew weaker and on the third call ambulance control stayed on the phone with me (an hour and a half) until the ambulance arrived.

At no time were they able to tell me where the ambulance was or when it was likely to arrive. The ambulance that came had been sent from a hospital 40 miles away as all the ambulances attached to our hospital were busy!

When she got to A&E she was seen immediately, scanned, x rayed and diagnosed with a perforated duodenal ulcer and sepsis and they operated (and saved her life!) straight away.

Everyone we spoke to was compassionate and professional but the system is broken.

.

why would the ambulance service call her to apologise for not getting to her sooner

That’s not how it works. They called to check her status. They do this for everybody waiting for a long time, it in no way indicates she was a priority.

@Lunafortheloveogod I think my friend knows better than you whether she could stand or not. She sat down and could not stand back up. She had no power in her legs to stand. She tried asking people passing by and was ignored. She told me and I quote: "It was like I had an iron bar between my hips and my feet. I could flex my toes, but every single time I tried to stand, I just couldn't get my legs to work. When I'm walking, my left leg still doesn't feel right."
If you think that's normal and not an emergency, fine.
She actually saw her results because the doctor showed her when she mentioned about her anaemia. She used to work in a laboratory and knows what a normal hb is. That's why she's looking at having them repeated by her GP surgery.
The actual words of the ambulance service were "we shouldn't have left you waiting that long."

Well no, nobody should be waiting that long! It doesn't mean she was a priority
She would be below cardiac arrests, hangings, drownings, anyone not breathing, asthma attacks, chest pains, unconscious patients, heroin overdoses (mostly), severe bleeding... there's a long list

we shouldn't have left you waiting that long.

Because EVERYBODY except you perhaps? knows it’s an impossible situation. When they say this, they’re saying it shouldn’t be this way. Fact still remains she wasn’t a priority and there will have been very many people that were and they had to get to.

If you want to blame somebody, look at why this is happening.

That wouldn’t have been their exact words ffs....

@Nicknacky do you know my friend? Do you have her phone bugged? My friend is very good with remembering conversations, she knows what was said to her. Those were the exact words, unless you have a recording of the phonecall?

You have went from not being certain as to what happened to knowing word for word what the ambulance service said?

They will have apologised to her, yes. That’s that’s an automatic statement when people have had to wait and is not an admission that they have neglected her or failed her.

@StressedD well if she really needed to get to hospital she would have crawled a meter away to get inside the cab, and yes Uber would have helped because the drivers are solely focused on money and need to be paid for the ride and normal cab company’s would have helped because they aren’t getting much work because of Uber! And of course they re going to apologise for the wait, because she’s has been waiting, that’s it they have more important calls at the end of the day YABU

The clue is in 'accident and emergency' - she hadn't been in an accident, and this wasn't an emergency.

Gawd, there's always one of these. Sudden loss of use of the legs is potentially indicative of serious problems and certainly is an emergency.

I don’t think it’s wrong she called for an ambulance. I was having difficulty breathing & vomiting & knew something wasn’t right (also 33 wks pregnant) & phoned 111, they told me to call an ambulance but I didn’t want to as embarrassed/didn’t want to make a fuss. No way would I have had called for a taxi as wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving/relying on someone. Luckily dh works fairly close so he took me to hospital. I hope your friend gets better soon.

@Nicknacky Because I asked my friend. The same as how I asked her about the taxi, because you kept on about it.
@Justme1234567 She could not stand. Every single taxi firm she phoned hung up on her. So you just expect her to force herself to fall forwards and then drag herself (because she couldn't get her legs to work) on her hands to a taxi. It took both security staff to get her in a standing position and carry her to the van and then to carry her into A&E. But you obviously think sudden loss of power to the legs is something that happens on a daily basis, so nevermind.

If she phoned so many taxi companies which told her they wouldn't pick her up because she couldn't stand, wouldn't she have been better not to have mentioned the not standing thing to the next taxi company she phoned?

Sorry to be sound unsympathetic, but I'm just perplexed. I have had a similar loss of use of leg, due to a fall, and I was still able to walk dragging the worst affected leg. In my case it was due to nerve damage in my back, and equally the NHS were almost completely disinterested. I didn't go to A&E, I saw a chiropractor and got an MRI scan eventually following private physio. It wasn't considered an NHS emergency at all. I was surprised, yes, but not so surprised that I would have sat all night on a wall in the cold and wet waiting on an ambulance or being unable to somehow get some form of transport in all that time.

Sorry, but this really isn't ringing true for me as the complete story here. It just doesn't make sense. Not all of it anyway.

Almost scared to post this as you are becoming so angry and aggressive towards posters but honestly I do not think this would have been a good use of an ambulance in this case if there were other priorities, as you often do get on a busy Saturday night.

I do hope there turns out to be nothing seriously wrong with your friend and it turns out to be a one off occurrence.

I've been in your situation with my DB with heart attack symptoms, just months after he had, had a stroke. I live 300 miles away.

It is the most terrifying thing to be waiting for help with them in spirit, but not see them IYSWIM & it makes it all the more nerve wracking.

It took over 3 hours for DBS ambulance to get there & it was the longest 3 hours of my life. He was fine though. It was a heart attack like episode but no damage. I understood it afterwards that they assess how critical things sound on the phone, plus crew available & allocate accordingly.

To them it's something they do everyday, to us it's the scariest thing, that we've probably never experienced before. Ideally there should be crew to get there fast, but then theres budget cuts that mean that is no longer reality. So in an ideal world YADNBU, but you're a little BU in current circumstances. Though leaving a lone female, who can't walk in a dark place late at night on her own isn't exactly great either

This is common. A lot of people have died because ambulance services in Britain give false information re ‘an ambulance is on its way/will be there soon’ etc. The courts tale a fairly dim view of it.

I agree with PP that OP is getting quite aggressive.
Reading her posts feels as if no one is allowed to have any opinion other than sympathy for OP’s friend and how apathetic ambulance/NHS is.
I think OP needs to calm down and accept that other posters may have questions.

@QualCheckBot If my friend had posted this would you question her and call her a liar?
She could not stand without being physically lifted to her feet, so how was she supposed to walk? Once she sat down, it wasn't one leg, if you actually read my posts, it was both legs. She couldn't even straighten her right leg to stand on that one. She lost power in both legs. She's still unable to explain exactly how it felt because she's never had anything like it happen to her before. There was no injury to her leg to cause the issue, it started as she was walking along. She didn't trip or fall before it started. She is still unable to walk without dragging her left leg, but you've decided she's a liar. Firstly because you don't understand how university libraries operate, and secondly, once it had been explained to you how university libraries work, you've decided that, it can't be true because you can't make sense of it.
I've got defensive and angry because people don't want to understand what I've told them, they want to put their own spin on the facts. If my friend had been able to stand or walk, she would not have stayed sat on that wall, she would have got a taxi. But way too many have decided that, because she was OK with her right leg before she sat down, that means her right leg was OK the whole time. It wasn't. Like her left leg, her right leg felt like there was an iron bar between her hip and foot. She could move her toes but not her leg, she couldn't straighten it to stand. I'm not sure how many times I need to repeat that she could not stand before people actually understand it. If you don;t want to believe what happened to my friend, then carry on, I can't stop you from believing that your version of events (whatever you think it is) is more correct than the facts. My friend doesn't exaggerate about her health. When I spoke with her earlier, she didn't sound like my friend, she's tired and just wants to sleep all the time but at the same time she's worried about what happened and is scared of it happening again as she doesn't want to be admitted to hospital.

QualCheckBot
It took two men to lift her into the van.

Good lord...these times are ridiculous. The average response time time where I live for an ambulance is between 4 and 8 minutes and 14 minutes rural. I mean if it takes hours, it’s not really emergency service now is it.

"I broke my leg in 4 places, dislocated my ankle and was laying in a field located less than a mile away from the hospital
As the wound was not open, and I was breathing and not in immediate life-threatening danger, the ambulance took 90 minutes to get to me.

It's annoying when it happens, but there were obviously people who needed an ambulance more than I did at the time"

Not read the whole thread so I don't know if anyones highlighted but surely multiple breaks and a dislocated ankle could've involved loss of circulation and should've been a priority incident?
90 minutes to attend sounds almost criminal for such injury