To buy a stretcher and keep it at home in case of emergency?

[Summersoon8]

I had the thought of doing this and then a few days later I read the story of an elderly man with a broken hip with no ambulances available (not even given a long wait time, just told none available at all) and his family took him to hospital strapped to a plank of wood in the back of a van.

AIBU to consider buying some sort of emergency/folding stretcher online and storing it at home in case we're ever in the same sort of situation?

I don't want yo think about the pain you would cause someone with a broken hip in a sling type stretcher without rigid sides.
They risk of further injury is really high, especially if you have to go downstairs
@OhBeAFineGuyKissMe

Would that be less or more pain/risk than putting the person with a broken hip into a taxi (as the family in the OP story was told to when they phoned for an ambulance?)

I think you’re best to invest in good quality first aid and paediatric first aid first. Follow that up with having an appropriate first aid kit for your house and activities. And include space blankets in every kit you have.

I think the only thing I’d keep in my house is a walking stick or crutches of some description. I broke my foot, have sprain an ankle multiple times and DC is dyspraxic and has sprains before so having a way for me to be mobile or make it easier to keep DC mobile with a foot/ankle injury would make sense as I’m the only adult in the house. Especially helpful to get myself or them in and out of a car/taxi to minor injuries as my neighbours are elderly.

it’s good to think practically but some things really should be for paramedics to deal with. A first aid course will help you understand what you need.

Modern defibs will only provide a shock if it establishes that there is a shockable rhythm. If there isn't, they won't provide a shock. The modern ones don't need the user to know this stuff at all, they even give spoken instructions to the user.

I suspect the family were told to use a taxi if possible As it wasn't possible then they should wait for an ambulance.

Putting someone in a sling hammock with a hip fracture would be off the scale painful. And you could cause damage so they never walk again. It really isn't worth it.

More silly or less silly an idea than calling for an ambulance but being told none will be sent out and they need to put the person with a broken hip into the back of an ambulance, as in the case I referred to?

According to the news articles, the family said (the NHS/ambulance service didn't deny any details) that they were told no ambulance would be sent, and they should put the patient in a taxi, before putting the phone down. They didn't say anything about waiting for an ambulance, they were told none would be sent.

A close relative of mine just had to take their elderly relative to hospital themselves as there were 400 people waiting for ambulances. His body was so rigid they struggled to get him down his narrow stairs and into the car. He was diagnosed with progressive encephalomyelitis with rigidity and sepsis. A stretcher would have been very useful.

It’s terrifying that someone that severely ill cannot get an ambulance.

@OdeToBarney

Yes he is fine thanks for asking.

DH has been ill for about a week with cold/cough symptoms. Not Covid (been testing as on chemo). He rang docs in morning, shut, but thinking there would be an on call doc. All he had wrong was he extreme pain in one ear and had gone deaf in it.

Rang 111 was waiting online for an hour and 50 mins. Fair enough, understand they are busy.

Where it went wrong was they insisted on an ambulance coming out to him. He told them he could drive to an appointment. They consulted a clinician and said no, he needed an ambulance.

The ambulance arrived in less than 10 mins.

Total waste of resources. He didn’t need one.

I don’t know what the solution is. But I think 111 needs a big overhaul.

@AreOttersJustWetCats yes. That what I mean. I don't think people realise that shocking may not be indicated and that you have to do CPR.

This makes me think back to when my PFB was newborn. I was adamant that I needed a defib in the house. Just in case. I researched them endlessly. I'll add neither the baby or anyone else in my family had ever had and heart conditions.

I actually had a separate savers account for it.

Thankfully I snapped out of the crazyness.

The ambulance service won't comment on individual cases, so no comment doesn't mean the comments are true. Remember newspapers want to write it up as shocking as possible.

When there is high demand call handlers will tell everyone to take a taxi if possible. An ambulance would have been sent but there might have been a long wait.

The family are lucky they didn't do more damage.

My relative was told that it would take so long to wait for an ambulance that they must take their relative themselves as it was clearly an emergency.

If you plan to start moving injured people onto stretchers, you had better a) take a course on how to do it and b) insure yourself against potential claims arising out of incorrect handling.

When there is high demand call handlers will tell everyone to take a taxi if possible. An ambulance would have been sent but there might have been a long wait.

Yes and the problem is when not even an estimation of time is given, so how long does someone have to wait, 24 hours, 48, 100? At what point does it become more risky to leave them there and less "silly/stupid" to use desperate other measures to get them to hospital?

Funnily enough I live around the corner from a parade of shops, one of which has just put in a defibrillator in case of emergencies. I was glad on of my neighbours pointed it out to me.

They seem to have them everywhere now.

I'm not sure putting an injured person on a plank of wood or a ladder and popping them in the back of a van is better than manoeuvring them into a taxi. One will cause a lot of pain. The other is insanely dangerous! Imagine experiencing the worst pain of your life and then sliding around in the back of a van - or worse, that van being rear-ended/crashing. And you've been moved and tied up by people who don't actually know what they're doing.

If you cannot secure that stretcher in your vehicle it's not doing you any good, is it?

According to the mum in the aforementioned case:

"I ended up, with my partner and mum's help, getting him onto a plank of wood and into the back of the van we bought to transport our dogs. To make matters worse, when we did get him to hospital the staff there told me that had we followed the advice we'd been given over the phone, he could've died.
"They told us that had we sat him up in a taxi the break in his hip would've likely ruptured an artery and been catastrophic for him."

I thought the thread where posters were listing huge quantities of supplies to be kept in a bag (or bags) by the door in case of a hospital trips, including pillows and blankets, was bad enough. Now this. YABU OP.

Some of these media reports just trigger mass buying. Something lasts for a short time or doesn’t happen and people have various things piling up just in case.

Good to know the NHS crisis is only short term and not a long term issue or a yearly winter issue either.

Stretcher is not a lot of use on its own, unless you're thinking of one of the ones the paramedics use that are comfortable thinner beds with wheels, that fold up to get into the (neighbour's) van. Really it's unrealistic.

Flu is really big this year and Strep A - mostly due to pandemic reaction

My mum was lucky in only having to wait 5hrs on the floor for the ambulance.
(And then another 23 in ambulance/a&e before being transferred to a bed but that's another story.
The problem is that that wait caused additional issues from not moving on the floor for so long so her simple injury has become complicated.
I think that there is very little you can do except be aware that the problems exist.
Our main issue is that we have had to have family in the hospital with her constantly for the past 2+weeks and counting because they don't have the staff for the care a person with high dementia needs (feeding, being her voice, helping move her, calming her down, stopping her fiddling with stuff) which is really difficult when we have families and jobs of our own. If she had been able to access physio & proper support etc she may have been able to go back to the care home by now but the long time in hospital has worsened her mental health.

How are you going to get the stretcher to the hospital?
By popping it on a couple of skateboards attached to the back of your bicycle with you shouting WEE WAAW as you pedal?

I actually hate how hilarious this thread is. I've been laughing for a good hour now!