Show Hit By Foot & Mouth..

Well.. an unexpected twist to the event I worked at last Sunday. It is an agricultural show, with the main attraction and purpose being cattle.
However, due to the sudden hit of Foot & Mouth a ban was put on transporting all cattle, so there was no way of the animals being able to be displayed.
Also the Foot & Mouth outbreak isn’t actually that far from my location, so it would have been rather stupid to have any animals at the show anyway!

Other than that, the show was pretty quiet. Most people we treated had severe sunburn or heat stroke. Also we treated loads of people who had been stung by unknown insects hiding in the grass.

There is quite of work coming up, so will blog soon about that.

Take care..

Horses, Horses and MORE horses!

Hey guys,
Well today I was on duty from 07:30hrs until 18:30hrs.. so.. one of our longer days today. It was at a horse jumping event, where basically the riders ride their horses around the countryside jumping over purpose-built fences! Yes.. it does seem pointless and to me, it is. But hey, that’s my own opinion.

There were two ambulances at the event, firstly there was myself and my colleague in the 4×4 vehicle, where we were positioned on the course and were the first on the scene to each incident.
Secondly, there was a frontline ambulance which was based off the course, we transported our patients to this vehicle after assessing and stabalising them.

All in all it wasn’t a very busy day, a few people went flying over the top of their horse, but hey what do you expect?! Also a few people got caught up underneath their horse, but all riders were fine. [Apart from the bruises that they'll have in the morning!]

Even though we weren’t too busy, we were busy enough.. and that’s always good to keep busy! Also racing all over the Surrey countryside in a 4×4 ambulance is always good fun!

I will keep you up-dated as I am working over Easter, so be sure to look back again soon! Oh and have a look at the photo gallery.

Take care,
James.

Sunny weather, Rugby & Blood…

Hey,
I said I would post a blog again at the weekend, after I’d been on duty, so.. here you go! This morning I was at my local rugby club covering a ‘league game’ for the Under 17’s. For the first half of the match it was relatively quiet, not a lot happening. Which gave me and my colleague a chance to sit and have a chat in our vehicle with a cup of tea (makes us sound so old doesn’t it?!).
Anyway, at the beggining of the second half we were called onto the pitch by the referee after a player had been kicked severely on the side of his head. Before we even got to the patient we could see that this wasn’t just a kick to the head. Blood was pouring down the side of his face!
After moving him off the pitch, so that the game could continue, my colleague and myself began to treat the casualty.
After cleaning the wound and assessing the casualty it became very clear that he needed to go to A&E, and possibly have stitches. As the players parents weren’t at the rugby club and couldn’t get there quickly (as we are in the middle of the Surrey countryside!) we had to make a descision, do we patch him up and advise him to attend A&E later on or call 999 for ambulance assistance?
This is always a tough descision to make, but this was made easier after the casualtys condition deteroiated and he began to show signs of concussion.

A 999 call was made to phone for an ambulance.

After dealing with this casualty, we packed up our equipment and returned to a our vehicle to watch the rest of the match. From then on we dealt with only two minor injuries, one of which was a nosebleed after being kicked in the face and the other was a dislocated little finger, which was quite clearly dislocated and possibly even fractured. We sent the second casualty to A&E but as he was in no pain, he made his own way there.

It was a gorgeous day today, one of those days which you love to be outside doing something.. even though for me and my colleague it was in the middle of a rugby pitch!

Take a look at my photo gallery, and in the page named “Sunny weather, Rugby & Blood” there are photos from this morning, why not take a look.

In my last blog I posted I said that I passed my AED (Automated External Defibrillator) course, this now means I am a qualified AED Operator. Which more or less promotes my level of First Aid to Advanced First Aid. This piece of equipment gives the heart a shock, when somebody is not breathing or ‘in the trade’ known as in cardiac arrest.
Being qualified in this means that I can give somebody more of a fighting chance should I ever come across somebody in cardiac arrest.

Take care, I will post a blog again soon.

James.

3 year old boy VS Concrete

I thought I would blog about an incident that I attened just over a week ago. Seeing as I am free now and have time, I thought, why not!

Well I was on patrol with my crewmate at a christmas market, when the call came over the stewards radio calling for assistance [at this point I had just sat down to drink my nice warm hot chocolate] but obviously, we had to go. Within one minute of being called… we were on the scene.
We were faced with a 3 year old boy who had fallen off a mini fairground ride and hit his head on the concrete as he fell. The little boy was really quiet which was unusual according to his calm but very shocked mother. Within a minute a huge lump had appeared on his forehead and he became extremely white. My crewmate and I looked at each other and knew exactly what each other were thinking.
My crewmate left the shop [where we were treating the littleun] to dial 999 for an ambulance. Whilst my crewmate was on the phone the little boy started to nod off to sleep, which normally most parents wouldn’t complain about but in this case his parents were frantically trying to keep him awake! I took hold of the boy and was trying to keep him awake. Luckily the ambulance arrived within about 8 minutes and I managed to keep him awake until they took over from us.

After dealing with this incident my crewmate and myself returned to our long-awaited hot chocolate [with cream and a marshmellow ] only to find that the shop had closed up and gone home
So we never did get our hot chocolate!

All part of the job some people would say.

JaMeS.