Emergency Situations

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Richard
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Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:36 pm

Emergency Situations

Postby Richard » Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:52 pm

The following can happen anywhere these days:
You notice a person totally losing control and wandering around on the pavement, lurching in an apparent zombie or drunken state and at risk of a collision with speeding traffic.
Are they drunk, diabetic or drugged - you can't be certain so what do you do?
Despite having undergone training in 'First Aid In the Workplace' at a London Hospital, many years ago, I was quite unprepared for this situation and called nearby shopkeepers to watch over the person at the roadside while I called the emergency services.
Calling 999 the first thing you have to know is that it takes ages for the operative to understand the exact location as the call goes through to a centre in Crawley, not Hastings and you have to provide the postcode and town, let alone the street name and number.
They really don't know where you are otherwise.
The operator asks you if the person is breathing and says that you will have to carry out resuscitation, mouth-to-mouth and perhaps chest compressions if they are not.
Also that they must be placed in a coma position on their side, on the ground, if they are still breathing and have passed out.
I ascertained that the person had passed out.
I decided the breathing was OK (I could see the belly rising up and down) and the coma position is unnecessary unless they are about to vomit, which could be potentially dangerous unless they are indeed in the coma position, on the ground with head pointing downhill.
You don't want semi-conscious or unconscious people inhaling vomit if they are in an upright position!
Also you don't want to breath into anyone if they have food or obstructions in their mouth or air passages so that has to be checked also.

Eventually the ambulance arrived after I was instructed, on the phone, to flag it down as it would speed up the process.
I have never been so happy to see an ambulance and the crew took over and put the person on a stretcher and eventually went off to hospital.

The realization that these sort of events are quite rare still shows that you have to have your wits about you and even with training such occurrences are not always an easy situation to manage.
Thankfully most members of the Public will only witness or have to deal with such emergencies once or twice in a lifetime...

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