Had To Call 999 Today

Its quite surreal having to dial 999 on your mobile/cell. Not sure if I have even had to do it before. Have you?

This isn’t my normal type of writing but I thought that I’d share the experience.

After having a bit of a frustrating morning, trying to get some work finished so that I could head off to gym. I finally rushed off much later than originally planned.

Heading out of our small village, I noticed something odd going on. There was an elderly woman lying on the pavement with a man leaning over her. He was sort of asking me to slow down I think.

I recognised that this was something that had just happened and driving on was not an option. I jumped out my van and he asked me to call for an ambulance. Hence the 999 call.

Another woman had come to help from down the road while I spoke to the 999 operator. I was trying to get and relay information about exact location and her age, condition etc.

The man trying to help her turned out to be her son. Spare a thought for him as it must have been terrifying.

The woman who had the fall was currently unconscious and bleeding from a head wound.

She started to come round slowly as I was finishing the call and they said it would probably be less than an hour for the ambulance to arrive. Bearing in mind it is raining and this poor woman is lying on the wet pavement.

Also bear in mind they are probably just saying its going to be less than a hour when in reality it will probably be longer.

Regardless, our elderly patient had now woken up. She kept repeating help me, help me from what we could tell. Over and over again.

Normally, you wouldn’t want to move a patient until an ambulance arrived but she was desperately trying to move so we sat her up.

We then sat her in a chair that had been brought out from her house. The problem was she kept trying to stand up. She was also talking incoherently.

Kept saying, “Oh God, I can’t do it”. We were just trying to get her to sit still and be calm.

She wouldn’t listen to anything we said. Just kept grabbing at us and trying to pull herself up. We were literally having to hand fight her to keep her sat in the chair.

Turns out she was 87 and super feisty. She was still talking incoherently and not responding to us. It was very stressful as she continued to grab at us to try and stand up.

I called 999 again and told them the situation was now worse as we were struggling to manage her. The operator asked me all the same questions including have any limbs been amputated. Now I understand they have to follow a script but I was very clear as to what the state of things was and the head injury etc.

I can honestly see the operators being replaced by an AI bot in the very near future. They just seemed to follow their script regardless of what I said.

Meanwhile the patient’s ginger cat made an appearance to find out what all the fuss was about. Didn’t seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation if I’m honest.

Miracle number one was a first responder literally lived across the road from her and he suddenly appeared with all his gear. He had just logged on for work when the emergency services called him about the incident. Miracle number 2?

Another miracle was woman number 2 arriving. She knew the patient and was telling her things to try and get her to remember who she was and snap out of the delirium. Her grand children and the recent coffee morning etc.

She was really good in the situation and gave me the sense of someone clearly operating in their genius. Which is something that I love and respect.

By now there were quite a few people all helping and the first responder called the ambulance crew to chase them up. He would have a lot more influence than me.

It was at this point that my usefulness had climaxed which was handy as I was actually starting to get cold being in my gym kit which wasn’t ideal for being out in the rain.

I left her in the capable hands of the others. I think she was actually starting to be more coherent by the time I left which was a huge positive and made things a little less stressful.

It is quite scary when you think about your own mum and I had to push that thought out my head. I will try and see if I can find out how she is doing tomorrow.

She was complaining about her hip so I am concerned there may be something wrong with that. I just hope she pulls through ok.