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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Ambulance/999- was I being unreasonable?

105 replies

NoRainbowsWithoutRain · 08/01/2022 01:49

I’m an overthinker so I could be worrying about nothing, but I’ve been so anxious about this recently and just wanted to get an honest opinion so thought I would post here.

I was involved in a bad horse riding accident where I was thrown onto the ground from a height [the horse was jumping and had thrown a few bucks when I was thrown off] For anyone who knows about horses he’s about 16.2hands high, so pretty tall. I don’t remember much about landing apart from landing on my shoulder and thudding my head off the ground. I was lucky my friends were there to help me and they saw the entire thing and said it was a really bad fall. The last thing I remember is thinking woah why is my horse broncing?! Then boom my head and shoulder hit the ground. Then I remember lying and crying because everything hurt and my shoulder and neck were particularly sore.

An ambulance was called straight away and I was taken to a&e and got X-rays. Thankfully nothing was broken so I was discharged with a concussion and painkillers.

I feel like such a time waster because there was nothing broken! I know I didn’t know at the time, but I still feel so guilty. I think I was so full of adrenaline plus the shock of what had happened. I’m just so worried I looked like a time waster! I didn’t have any major swelling or bruising at the hospital (about 6 hours after the fall) and I’m worried I wasted everyone’s time and resources, especially as it was a particularly busy night at the hospital. It wasn’t an urgent ambulance as we had to wait a while (I’m not complaining at all about that, just trying to say it wasn’t an immediate emergency type ambulance) but I couldn’t get off the floor because my shoulder and neck hurt so much and even though I knew my neck wasn’t broken as I could move my limbs, my instructor said whenever you hit your head you should always get checked no matter what, even if you have your riding hat on like I did.

Don’t know why I’m posting this really, I just feel so guilty and worried that they’ll have thought I was a drama queen because it wasn’t broken or bruised or badly swollen (it was very bruised the next day but not the night it happened!) . Honestly, it was one of the sorest falls I’ve had! The doctor said it was probably a whiplash-type of injury causing the neck pain and a concussion as well. All the staff were seriously amazing, especially given how busy and stressful the hospital was, and I can’t stop worrying that I wasted their timeSad

OP posts:
ShopTattsyrup · 08/01/2022 02:35

As an A&E nurse this is absolutely a sensible course of action and not time wasting! There could be so many serious injuries as a result.

For most of us we want to be able to have a patient with severe mechanism of injury and be able to give them the good news that (thankfully) they are fine, for us that is an absolute best case scenario!

Please don't feel like you wasted our time, this is absolutely what we exist for. Smile

Original poster
NoRainbowsWithoutRain · 08/01/2022 02:35

@OzziePopPop

Please also remember to replace your hat!

So expensive but sooooo essential.

So glad you’re okay 💖🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎💖

Thank you, it’s so important to replace hats! I went straight to the tack shop as soon as I could to get a new one (and spent a ridiculous amount on LeMieux matchy matchy clothes while I was there Wink)
OP posts:
LadyinRead · 08/01/2022 02:41

You could have had an internal injury and bled to death if you hadn't been checked out.

You don't need to apologise to the paramedics. They're doing their job and have heard it all before.

Could you learn to fall better? There are techinques you can learn to minimise the chances of injury.

Spermysextowel · 08/01/2022 02:45

Maybe a hobby like knitting or crochet would be less stressful for you, your parents & the horse…

JugglingJanuary · 08/01/2022 03:03

I had an accident mid 2021. I didn't fall as far as you did, but I couldn't get up. I waited 2hours for an ambulance (on the road, with lots of people gawping and cars having to be directed around me. They gave me morphine,gas & air lots of it! Then peeled me off the ground & up into the ambulance. By this stage I felt totally fine and asked them to take me inside my house (100 yards away) but they said no, I needed X-rays. What they didn't say, but must have been abundantly clear, was that I'd need several replacement parts I waited in A&E over night, not seeing a nurse, a doctor or anyone other than other broken people. Next day they found me a ward bed,X-rays,tests & a fabulous surgeon who stripped out fragments of bone from all over the place & gave me some new parts.

You could have been far more damaged than you seemed, and if they'd had more seriously ill people they'd have attended them & you've had had to wait. They do triage, not you, so when they came to you, THEY judged that you were currently the person in most need of them.

I'm glad you're riding again, my 'best achievement' today has been grating a piece of cheese, it's only taken 8 months to get to that! 🙄🙄🤣🤣

SleepyRich · 08/01/2022 03:24

Paramedic here for what that's worth, but sounds like a decent mechanism so no judgement about you getting an ambulance especially with neck pain. Trust me u go to far far far more minor jobs then this, I kid you not tonight I attended to a patient hit in the face by a cushion and it felt 'tingly'.

But that would have been an emergency ambulance you got, the urgent care/pts wouldn't goto trauma like that they would only do transfer type jobs that have already spoken to a gp and booked for admission. With how busy it is at the moment response times for cardiac arrest is typically 10-20minutes, heart attack/stroke 1-2 hours. Fall from horse with neck pain and a possible loss of consciousness would likely have been cat2 which is the coding for stroke/MI/severe shortness of breath. So you were considered an emergency, emergencies just have to wait a while unfortunately.

ladycardamom · 08/01/2022 03:31

I work in A&E. Dont worry any more about it. You were quite right to get checked over with that mechanism of injury. Definitely not time wasting.

SleepyRich · 08/01/2022 03:31

Or one of my other patients tonight whom decided that after waiting in a&e for a while and not liking the queue time drove home and called 999, with a plan of being seen faster/skip the queue. The reason I knew this was that she didn't see anything wrong with telling me, or make any attempt to cover it up and was incredulous when I told her she needed to make her own way back.

Rangoon · 08/01/2022 04:02

Are there techniques you can learn to minimise the chances of injury when falling off a horse? I'd always thought you were doing well if the horse didn't roll on you. It really does happen in a split second. One minute you're gripping on with all you've got and suddenly you're on the ground.

Prescottdanni123 · 08/01/2022 04:03

Being able to move your limbs doesn't necessarily mean that you haven't done serious damage to your neck or spine. Of course you were not being unreasonable..

I hate that the 'ambulance police' on mumsnet of been so vicious that they have made people in real medical emergencies feel guilty over calling for help.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 08/01/2022 04:36

ABsolutely the right thing to do.
Horseriding is still one of the most dangerous sports out there!

I have friends who ride who've been kicked in the head (ambulance needed), fallen on (horse fell over onto the rider - his feet slipped and he couldn't stop himself, she couldn't jump clear - ambulance needed), and who missed the horse after jumping a stone wall - still not sure how that happened but they came down on the ground in a sitting position. That last one, there was no getting an ambulance to the person - they were put in a landrover and driven to hospital - fractured spinal vertebrae in 3 places. VERY lucky that the landy didn't do more damage! Really they should have been airlifted out by air ambulance - they could have ended up in a wheelchair.

If you have a fall like that, or on your head, you should definitely get checked at hospital, even if you can get yourself there - but ideally you should call the ambos because you don't know if you've got more damage than you think.

A NYE party I was at - drunk guy bounced off a trampoline into a soft flowerbed, but landed on the back of his neck/head. Passed out briefly, then got up and said he was fine. Several of us insisted he go to hospital, and one of the designated drivers for the evening took him. He'd fractured his neck in two places - but felt fine.

Again, ideally an ambulance probably should have been called so he could have had his neck braced before being moved - it was certainly braced after he got to the hospital.

2 lucky escapes there with moving someone with spinal injuries - some people wouldn't be so lucky.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 08/01/2022 04:38

@JugglingJanuary

I had an accident mid 2021. I didn't fall as far as you did, but I couldn't get up. I waited 2hours for an ambulance (on the road, with lots of people gawping and cars having to be directed around me. They gave me morphine,gas & air lots of it! Then peeled me off the ground & up into the ambulance. By this stage I felt totally fine and asked them to take me inside my house (100 yards away) but they said no, I needed X-rays. What they didn't say, but must have been abundantly clear, was that I'd need several replacement parts I waited in A&E over night, not seeing a nurse, a doctor or anyone other than other broken people. Next day they found me a ward bed,X-rays,tests & a fabulous surgeon who stripped out fragments of bone from all over the place & gave me some new parts.

You could have been far more damaged than you seemed, and if they'd had more seriously ill people they'd have attended them & you've had had to wait. They do triage, not you, so when they came to you, THEY judged that you were currently the person in most need of them.

I'm glad you're riding again, my 'best achievement' today has been grating a piece of cheese, it's only taken 8 months to get to that! 🙄🙄🤣🤣

Wow, that must have been quite the fall you had, even if it wasn't from so far! Hope you're improving steadily. Thanks
AngeloMysterioso · 08/01/2022 04:48

YWNBU, you don’t fuck around with potential head/neck/spine injuries. Ambulance every time.

tapeandglue · 08/01/2022 04:55

For a fall like that, of course you had to be checked out.

After all the awful things that are happening right now, I'm sure it was nice for the hospital staff to be able to give someone good news for once. 'Got your scans back, and it all looks good!' is a much more fun conversation than 'Got your scans back, and you need to prepare for the worst.'

At the end of the day, they did their job like they should, but they got to have a good outcome. Who doesn't like good outcomes? No one.

I'm glad you're OK. Just adding to the other voices that are questioning why you want to keep doing this (with the same horse?) if horses and you aren't getting on very well at the moment. At the very least, I think you need to have a proper debrief with your instructor to figure out if there was any way you could have made either situation safer with the glorious benefit of hindsight!

Alip1965 · 08/01/2022 05:03

Yanbu. Medics wouldn't have taken you to hosp if they didn't think you needed it. X

Onehotmessiah · 08/01/2022 05:20

Google Bert Trautmann. It is certainly possible to break your neck and still move your limbs.

FluffMagnet · 08/01/2022 05:32

@Rangoon you want to roll as you hit the ground, a bit like when you watch people doing parkour. I guess it is a more gradual slow of momentum rather than a juddering halt. As a kid I used to manage the roll quite naturally, but I haven't fallen in so long that I fear I've lost the technique and will be fairly hurt next time I take a tumble.

Ceramide · 08/01/2022 05:42

There are many people who waste A&E's time. You're not one of them.

Idontgiveaf324 · 08/01/2022 05:47

Worrying that you would think that this was time-wasting. Without being as harsh as the above poster, I’d be inclined to agree with the point that this post could make others think they aren’t sick/injured enough for hospital. If a serious fall where you hit your head on the ground is potentially not serious enough in your book, what do you think actually is? Should people who have been in car accidents also have qualms about getting medical attention? And also, your description, ie falling from high height, smacking head on ground, suggests you know it’s serious so I wonder why you felt the need to ask.

Aroundtheworldin80moves · 08/01/2022 05:56

As a teenager, DH once entered A&E on a spinal board, and walked out a few hours later with a broken finger. But they didn't know until he was xrayed etc that was the extent of his injuries.

As an adult, he came of his motorbike. Got back on it, rode home... and a couple of hours later needed the ambulance as the swelling from the break and ruptured ligaments caused the pain to hit him and the adrenaline wore off. He was in hospital 3 days.

Pixxie7 · 08/01/2022 05:59

My daughter has had so many riding accidents a lot potential serious, pre Covid she had a horse charge at her and ended up with a fractured clavicle the question of calling an ambulance was obviously needed. It is the current Covid crisis that is making people feel guilty. However hospitals don’t revolve around Covid, you had a nasty fall that could have been so much worse, so don’t even consider that you were in the wrong.

Winter2020 · 08/01/2022 07:20

Why not do some fundraising towards your
cost to the NHS? Or make a private donation if you can afford it (horses aren't cheap). People often do this when they have used the services of the air ambulance or lifeboat.

Personally I think we should have to take insurance for dangerous sports (like you do on holiday if you want to be covered for skiing or going on a banana boat etc). However we don't have to so you are all good. The same rules apply to you as anyone else and your medics will have treated hundreds or even thousands of patients since you. You will be a blur in the mist of time for them I am sure. You were no more or less deserving than anyone who injured themselves through sport of which there will be many.

Prescottdanni123 · 08/01/2022 07:43

@Idontgiveaf324
I do not think that this post will put people off calling emergency services. I think that it is so sad that OP feels guilty for calling an ambulance when she was suffering a medical emergency and that she is worried that it wasn't necessary (which it was).
There have been a few posts lately with people asking if they were unreasonable for calling an ambulance, many of these people also in desperate need of medical help and there has been some rather unpleasant replies from mumsnetters accusing them of wasting NHS time and unnecessarily calling ambulances. I hope that it is not these recent comments on mumsnet that have led to OP feeling guilty.

crimsonlake · 08/01/2022 08:22

I would understand why you might feel guilty, but not in this case since it was not you who phoned 999??
You had a shock and luckily were not badly hurt, time to put the 999 call out of your mind.

FluffyBooBoo · 08/01/2022 09:21

even though I knew my neck wasn’t broken as I could move my limbs

You didn't know that though. Someone I know was in a car accident, and a doctor was on scene. He checked her and said she could go home, but she went in the ambulance just to get checked over.

You absolutely did not waste anyone's time.

She had a broken neck.