Would you make a complaint about these paramedics?

[WatermelonWaveclub]

I went to my GP the other day as I kept fainting when coughing. The GP said my HR was sky high. Then I coughed and fainted in front of the GP. Afterwards I couldn't move my legs properly. She phoned the hospital who said I need an ambulance. The GP got someone to get me in a wheelchair and take me to the nurse's room where I was put on a bed in a cubicle.

Anyway a few minutes later the ambulance crew turn up (3 of them). They did an ECG - ok but tachycardic. I said my legs were feeling ok by then. They did a lying and standing BP and checked I could feel both sides of my face, could hold both arms up, checked pupils etc. So they say they need to take me to hospital. They start heading off and so I follow them on foot. They're all walking ahead of me, chatting away, not one seeing if I'm ok. So consequently we get into the car park - I have a coughing fit and next thing I know I'm waking up on the car park floor.

I can't stop thinking about it. Were they at fault? Should they have used a wheelchair or at least someone walked with me? At the hospital they wouldn't even let me go to my scans etc in a wheelchair, I had to be taken in my bed. So if GP and nurse wouldn't let me walk was it right that the paramedics did?

@Tahinii

I laughed WAY, WAY too hard at this!

P.S. My great-great-grandmother is STILL waiting for the ambulance! She called in 1917!

You want to complain op so complain.
You have legions of support here telling you about how awful the ambulance team are and complicit in anything that's happened to to you and how they should be admonished and punished.

Most ambulance trusts cover a huge geographical area. Mine, for example, covers 4 counties. It’s hardly outing to say which Trust. But, your prerogative . I’ll leave you to crack on and find the contact details yourself then.

It made me laugh too 😂 I tried to laugh gently, though!

I’m really sorry to hear it was a stroke and hoping you have a rapid and comprehensive recovery. .

For the NHS’s sake I’m “glad” that the fall didn’t cause the bleed. I”m not a neurologist so don’t know how head trauma affects haemorrhaging strokes. My limited understanding is that the blood is “leaking” in a different place inside the brain/skull in strokes than in traumatic bleeds so they are not connected tbut you could certainly ask this question to your neurologist. They will have a duty of candour to answer truthfully and if they feel the trauma worsened the bleed they will have a duty to raise this as an incident for you. If that is the case you could also consider legal action.

Either way you must complain/inform the ambulance trust. What so many posters don’t seem to get that this isn’t a simple unpredictable faint in someone who got too hot at a festival and needed to just sit quietly for a bit and you and the GP were waisting their time You had a stroke and were repeatedly loosing consciousness- they must have known an stroke was suspected and that you had already lost consciousness once from the 999 call/GP handover. Their risk assessment was well off. Please don’t blame yourself for following them and walking - your brain was literally not working properly at this time.

Or back to reality, people have said it is good for them to receive feedback and learn from mistakes. Slight difference.

Noone has said they are complicit in everything that happened to me. I mean I don't blame them for giving me whooping cough (they didn't know what it was, let alone had it themselves), I don't blame them for me coughing so hard I gave myself a brain bleed. But they knew I was likely to have a fall and did nothing to protect me from the consequences of that...yes, I blame them for that.

It's a pretty major fuck up on their part. I don't think complaining has to be nasty, but they should be told that in a similar situation in future they should use a wheelchair. I'm sure you could phrase it politely through the proper channels. They need training.

I hope your okay.

Thank you 😊

@Skycrawler

What a lovely, kind and informative post. 💖

It's just sad that some posters are being snide, crude and rude. What unhappy, empty lives they must have to go after the OP, who has had a VERY rough couple of weeks!

As you say back to reality, you want to complain so complain!

Yes, I do want to, I know I have a duty to do so, so hopefully this doesn't happen to someone else.

Yes do complain. I don’t understand why not - it is how services improve. If a complaint means paramedics are reminded of the need to ensure safe transfer of patients stopping other patients falling then that could have a huge impact on another patient.

So sorry this has happened to you. They should have taken you on a wheelchair, you had just fainted. I'm a nurse, there's no way I'd let a patient walk who just not long lost consciousness.
Hope you are soon feeling better.

Thank you 😊

DH is a paramedic. I told him your experience (pre TIA and whooping cough info). He says they should have walked with you.

It’s the kind of cautionary tale they use in training. Please feed back.

They should have walked with you or put you in a wheelchair, definitely. You're completely right and gently raising this point is NOT unreasonable.
Feel better soon.

I wouldn't complain in this instance because you seemed able to walk at the time. I agree they should have paid you more attention and not walked off, but I think this is a minor human mistake. It's not like they left you to die or gave you too much morphine, etc.

Yes, well said!

I sometimes think MN has some really contrary people on it who like to be deliberately provocative and mean.

It's not like @WatermelonWaveclub was drunk, {which some people could possibly say ''this is your own fault, self inflicted. ''- nor was it a simple ''faint''.

A relative of Mum's ''Fainted'' after a walk in the snow in 2010.
It turned out to be the first sign of something really serious. {She died a few months later, obituary in the Guardian, a tiny part is here}..It was described as a ''fall'' but it was a faint and brief unconsciousness.

A''faint'' can be much more than just a simple passing out.

Until it happens to you, you will have no idea as to the fear it can cause, especially if you have children.

you’re right, if there’s a risk of you randomly passing out then you shouldn’t have been left alone, let alone left to walk by yourself unmonitored whilst they walked ahead of you. They should have constantly observed you. Accident waiting to happen otherwise. Although their version of events may be different to yours? They might have thought you were waiting for them or that you wanted to walk? Maybe they were going to move the ambulance closer or get equipment?

I once got into a car accident but was essentially left with a sore leg. The NHS still called an ambulance out to check me over and the paramedics still made sure I was okay to walk before leaving me alone to do that. They definitely were risk averse under the circumstances as it was a really minor accident so it’s odd your paramedics weren’t as risk averse. But again, their version of events may be different especially as you were unwell at the time and fainted so your recollection may not be perfect. Their version of events might be different

Gosh I hope you are feeling better and recovering well. I don't see any issues in preventing this happening to another person by raising the issue. I actually think it was a serious fault on their part.

''A minor human mistake''?

You use a morphine overdose as an example, but it happens, I personally have been given an extra box of 'controlled drug' painkillers- I handed the extra
box back when I noticed {same day} to a shocked and grateful pharmacist.
{It was their first day at the pharmacy}.

The paramedics had no idea what was going on with OP.

Doctors don't call out ambulances for fun, they know the service is under huge pressure.

IF OP was capable of getting herself to the hospital safely, the GP would have suggested a taxi, not an ambulance.

Medics can and do make mistakes.

This was a negligent mistake that led to OP falling and banging her head {after already having a brain bleed} Would you like that happening to you or your loved ones?

Course you wouldn't.

@oakleaffy I've recently been left half blind after an operation that was designed to save my sight. I think my perspective is possibly more refined than your "theories".

This fact is totally irrelevant to the topic at hand. Your experience has nothing to say to that of the OP unless you believe that there was some negligence involved in your treatment. If you do perhaps you could spend dome time reflecting on the ways in which catching and correcting errors in treatment is a systemic issue. Handwaving away medical errors and poor care is a kind of foolish “cheap grace” which benefits no one: neither the patients nor the hardworking paramedics who know what their fucking job is.

@pikkumyy77 Thank you so much, for your kind and thoughtful response.

I guess you can dish out the judgments but can’t take them.