ferrit worrier wrote:Yesterday Mrs FW took a fall outside our local shops, Cause, a loose paving stone. She rang me at work at about 14.10 and told me what had happened, she was in quite some considerable pain and said an Ambulance had been called. I quickly got changed and jumped on the bike and set off for Heald Green distance about 5.5 miles getting there at 14.45 expecting to see an ambulance or to be told she'd already gone to hospital. Nope she was still sat on the footpath nursing her left arm. a couple of local shopkeepers had come out to assist, one of the local bobby's had stopped and also a nurse, so she was in good company.by 1530 we decided that enough was enough and we managed to get her onto a chair then into the car. I got the bike into the back of the car and we set off for hospital. The local A&E is quite a busy place but even so we only waited five mins or so then got triaged (sp) and attended to she's got a bad break to the top of the humorous nothing they could do last night so we came home we were told to expect a call to go in for a CT scan first thing this morning the Doctor who saw her last night rang and asked her to come in this afternoon for the scan. While we were there the nurse that was doing the scan told her that she was booked in for surgery on Monday.
I've had numerous First aid courses over the years and what has always been impressed on us is the "Golden Hour", to get the first lot of treatment, what good is that when you cant get an ambulance. I got her to Hospital and there were four parked up outside with the crews waiting with patients inside. The local bobby radioed several times asking for an eta. to be told they have a high volume of calls.
I've got photo's of the paving slabs, one of the ladies who came out of the chemists told us that she had reported the fault in the footpath several times. because people had fallen over or tripped. Just by chance we have an injury lawyer at work, so when I get back to work he's having a new client.
Rant over
Malc
Sorry to hear and hope she is ok.
One of the ways the ambulance service get around the 8 minute response target it by sending a volunteer Community First Responder, however they are also know as clock stoppers. As that what they are used for. They do a few days course and get sent to almost anything.
They are good for pts that need CPR as they carry oxygen and a defib. However they are also sent to loads of other medical conditions and trauma which they don't have the training or the equipment and drugs to deal with these types of pts. So apart from having a chat and doing the paperwork there is not much else they can effectively do.
Such as being sent to fractured legs when get don't have any pain relief. Or maybe being sent to a heart attack pt when they can't give any medication to help with this either. Or even being sent to a diabetic pt without the equipment to check their blood sugar or treat it when it's low.
So you can get a CFR and after that you get a para and/or ambulance at some point when they have one available.
The damage was worse than first thought, she'd been scheduled for an hour in the theatre but was there for 3 1/2. Lying flat in bed is a problem for her, so last night I was in the workshop and built a simple board to raise her up slightly, apart from this injury she also suffers from osteoarthritis and psoriatic arthritis 
so she needs lots of TLC. 