To think most people who phone for an ambulance could make their own way to hospital?

[fillmeup]

Either by getting family or friends to drive them there or getting a taxi. Obviously if you’re on the floor with a broken hip etc and can’t be moved or had a severe stroke an ambulance is required but most people I’ve heard on the news recently talking about how long they have waited, I’ve seriously wondered why they waited 20 hours (or thereabouts) and didn’t just get a lift.

No worries.

Their role is still extremely challenging for a variety of reasons and not one I think I could stick at very long!!

I have been taken to hospital by ambulance twice and as I have dyspraxia and this means I am clumsier than most. I have fallen onto a brick wall and down a flight of stone stairs landing on my back on tiled floor. Both times by some miracle I avoided striking my head on the ground but both times I split my leg open down to the muscle. The first time I did it I ended up getting two layers of stitches and the scar is around 10cm long and V shaped and the second time one layer of stitches and then staples and it was the length of a 10 year child’s hands diagonally from pinkie tip to thumb tip. They could apparently have healed without medical intervention but with it I have a leg that whilst the scars mean it doesn’t look pretty I can still run on it. Should I not have gone in an ambulance?

@SleepyRich
Can I ask a question?
I posted earlier about my son when he was about six, about ten years ago. He got his leg trapped in a peice of equipment at the playground. He was fine, well, crying and a bit bruised but not bleeding or injured. He was trapped about five feet in the air and myself and some other woman were holding him up so no weight was on his leg and he wasn't hanging upside down from it. It was really hard to hold him though and taking all our strength, we couldn't have held him for long although I'm sure other members of the public would have taken over from us.
Anyway, ambulance arrived in about 90 seconds (thank God!) and fire engine was on it's way. Reading this thread though, I do wonder how they would have categorised this? My son would have been in serious trouble if he'd had to wait like that for ten hours for an emergency response although fire fighters could have freed him so I suppose he didn't need an ambulance at all.

I was haemorrhaging post partum and I got DH to drive me to the hospital with basically my tracksuit bottoms full of muslins. Afterwards people asked me why I didn't call an ambulance but he could drive me there as quickly (albeit with some danger of damaging the passenger seat) and it made me realise why there's such a demand for ambulances.

I had to get an ambulance when in labour with my 2nd as about 5 mins after losing my bloody show I lost my waters and contractions were coming too quick for me to even breathe. I had barely any sign of labour before then, infact I was in the middle of getting dressed to go to hospital after phoning maternity triage. We had planned on phoning a taxi but our hospital is 30 mins away by car. If I'd been in taxi when that all happened she'd have been born on the road.

Turned out the cord was round her neck twice and she went into severe distress so was trying to get out quickly.

They got there in 10 mins.

I also had to call when dh was in severe dka. Again there in minutes.

This has been really interesting to read.

I would never drive myself if I had chest pains because the risk to other road users is too high. Would get someone else to drive me if available though rather than call an ambulance.

Have driven DC to hospital with broken wrist, broken elbow and dislocated knee (3 separate occasions). Had to park in a 5 minute zone one time and DH moved my car when he arrived.

I would never drive an elderly person with suspected broken bones other than a broken wrist.

I would always drive someone with a deep cut that needed stitches unless it was a head injury. I’d probably drive someone with breathing issues unless I knew an ambulance would get there faster.
My neighbour has driven her DC and the ambulance arranged to meet them at a particular spot as it was quicker.

So that's an unusual call, I suspect the call taker would have flagged for a clinician to listen in/take over the call - with the concern that tailored advice might be needed to be provided - whilst fine now you know good outcome, and maybe you could see he was ok whilst being supported, but on the other end of the line hearing a child is suspended in the air from a frame would be concerning. I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being a cat 1, or 2 at least but its not the type of job attended very often so I'm not quite sure.

I've never answered the 999 calls but I've sat in for a few to listen in. All calls start off as cat1, but as you answer more questions you either downgrade yourself, or stay as a cat1. Occasionally you can say something that puts you back up again also but this isn't as common. So the first 2 questions "are they breathing, are they conscious? If yes to both of these then you drop to cat 2, then you're asked what the nature of the call is - this then gives the call taker a page to use for the questions to start from - essentially tick here for trauma, maternity, breathing problem, chest pain,... the system then gives a series of questions to get to an outcome where it guesses a diagnosis - i.e. pt has a heart problem, patient having a stroke... Depending on what it is the system will either give closing instructions to end the call - please call back if anything gets worse I need to hang up now and take another call... or they'll need to stay on the line with you - generally cat 1 which in theory would think the patient is either in cardiac arrest or is about to be in cardiac arrest - so they stay on the line in case they need to give cpr instructions.

Thank you. I was just curious how they'd categorise it. He was fine, but it could have turned bad very quickly.

Sometimes the problem is that the patient, or person with them, genuinely don't know whether it's an emergency/life threatening.

I had severe pain in my back and upper stomach/lower chest area so bad I was panting, sobbing & sweating with the pain. I couldn't sit down, I couldn't stand up, only position that was bearable at all was standing leaning across the back f the sofa. Never experienced anything like it. I live at home, it was about 3am, there's no way I could have driven myself without crashing. Though I have a reasonable understanding of illness & injury I had no idea what was wrong, so I called 111. After 25 mins on hold, I started to go through the 111 on line diagnostic thingy which said call 999 immediately.

The paramedics asked if I'd taken any pain relief - 2 30/500 co-codamol and a naproxen I'd taken hadn't touched the pain so they gave me gas & air plus morphine which just about took the edge off.

Turn out it was gall stones, but I didn't know that and I doubt there's any way I could have known. This isn't a life threatening condition but the pain was such that I needed much more than my normal prescription painkillers plus IV buscopan. Now I can recognise the signs if an attack starts and know to take the Buscopan & painkillers early, but at the time I genuinely thought whatever was wrong was going to kill me.