Calls to learn from...

gdiza said:
One of my colleagues who knows about this thread sent this to me to share:

We got dispatched to a patient collapsed unresponsive.
On arrival at the address we escorted into the complex to the residence of an elderly couple.
As we walked into the house we noticed an elderly male lying lifeless on the floor. We asked the wife and daughter what happened. The wife informed us that she was at the local clinic picking up their chronic medication. When she was done she phoned her husband to come and fetch her, living around the corner it unusually takes him about 5 minutes to get there. After 10min of him not arriving she tried phoning him again but there was no answer. She phoned her daughter to go check and a neighbour to pick her up. The daughter and her grandson arrived at the residence… nobody opened the door but the car was still there. The grandson jumped over the wall and climbed through the second story window and went down the stairs to open the front door. The husband and grandfather collapsed and died at the front door while on his way to fetch his wife. They then phoned us to come and assisted but it was to late.

The wife informed us that the previous night while lying in bed her husband had a nasty cough (he has had it for about at week at this point) but refused to go to the doctor, she told him, u need to take care of yourself, you can’t leave me now, never knowing it will actually be her last night with her beloved husband.

His medical history was that he was known with Atrial fibrillation (Google it!) and hypertension (high blood pressure)
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*Subscibed

Exactly same case with my dad....history of cardiac episodes, and old family faithful hypertension...had nasty cough for about 48 hours..., put it down to the cold, he was recovering from ....-went to the store to buy feed for his chickens...dropped dead while waiting to pay....
 
You should know your own body, and know what pains and symptoms are normal for you. My doctor always advised that the time to visit the doctor is when symptoms are unusual, persistent or getting worse. Going to the doctor for every niggle will quickly get you labelled a hypochondriac, malingerer or something similar.

gdiza said:
One should have nothing to do with the other.
As you get older, things change in your life and body - thus why you need to go for checkups when things / feelings / pains etc come / change.
When you have HYPERTENSION, taking the medication gets / keeps your BP to be lower so if he didn't take his meds, he'd have a HIGH BP and that's dangerous.
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You can't say this person would have had high blood pressure. Blood pressure medication does not even work on everyone. They also have many unpleasant side effects.
 
nthdimension said:
My doctor always advised that the time to visit the doctor is when symptoms are unusual, persistent or getting worse. Going to the doctor for every niggle will quickly get you labelled a hypochondriac, malingerer or something similar.
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Do you believe in the regular annual medical checkup? I ask because I am sceptical that it does any good unless, as you say, you are aware of something unusual. Apparently there is a growing body of doctors who also believe it is counterproductive as it results in people having all sorts of tests, biopsies, scans and surgeries often for things that they'd be better off not even knowing about. I'm not sure if it's true, but I've heard that, for instance, a high percentage of 70/80 year olds have some kind of nascent malignancy, but it will probably never kill them as they are likely to die from other age related causes before it becomes more serious, so why subject them and the system to all the stress?
 
Had a interesting call last night.

Sadly the patient was DOA but there was aspects to it that made me think, especially for the Muslims among us.

The patient was known with high blood and a few other medical conditions, but due to the fact he was fasting, he didn't eat / drink and didn't take his medication.
Obviously, many muslims really respect their religion to a point where they risk their health because they follow it 100% - others understand and adjust accordingly.
He had chest pains all day, but didn't do anything about it, went to have a shower and collapsed in the shower.

So... thoughts or comments? :)
 
gdiza said:
Had a interesting call last night.

Sadly the patient was DOA but there was aspects to it that made me think, especially for the Muslims among us.

The patient was known with high blood and a few other medical conditions, but due to the fact he was fasting, he didn't eat / drink and didn't take his medication.
Obviously, many muslims really respect their religion to a point where they risk their health because they follow it 100% - others understand and adjust accordingly.
He had chest pains all day, but didn't do anything about it, went to have a shower and collapsed in the shower.

So... thoughts or comments? :)
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I am a bit sceptical that missing a few doses would have changed the outcome much. It sounds like he had a heart condition and his time was pretty much up.

But I do think that people are stupid to not consider their health in these circumstances.
 
gdiza said:
Had a interesting call last night.

Sadly the patient was DOA but there was aspects to it that made me think, especially for the Muslims among us.

The patient was known with high blood and a few other medical conditions, but due to the fact he was fasting, he didn't eat / drink and didn't take his medication.
Obviously, many muslims really respect their religion to a point where they risk their health because they follow it 100% - others understand and adjust accordingly.
He had chest pains all day, but didn't do anything about it, went to have a shower and collapsed in the shower.

So... thoughts or comments? :)
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Islam takes this into account, he shouldn't have been fasting in the first place, if on chronic meds.
He should have also broken his fast at the first sign.

Normally, people will take their meds in the morning at Sehri.
 
Then I can't explain why he didn't take his meds TODAY "YET" because in his room, the meds were lined up neatly like someone who is pedantic about taking meds - anyone who is like this knows exactly what I'm talking about.
 
Okay, I did a call the other day (as per always! HAHA) and (example) the call came into the control room at 13:33 and I was dispatched to the call at 13:35 (call details were incomplete but I had the address, but this happens with priority 1 calls, basically, they get the most important information, dispatch me and complete the call while I'm responding) and got to the call (arrived at alpha) at 13:40.

Took me 5 freaking minutes! 5 minutes from Cape Town to Gatesville...

Family member told me they couldn't wait anymore (I took too long) so they took the patient to hospital...
7 minutes from call coming in to me arriving, and that is considered too long?!? OK... fine... That's not really the issue...

What about calling back and cancelling the ambulance?!?

So please guys, if you do call for a ambulance and don't need it, please call back and cancel the ambulance.
 
Thanks for the reminder, I think sometimes people get too caught-up in the mixup and end up forgetting to call the ambulance again
 
I've been asked this, so for those interested;

We have to come to a complete stop when arriving at a red robot and then only if it is safe - proceed, even while responding - our higher management is hectic on us (at hearings) if we have accidents if we didn't come to a complete stop and then getting into accidents - They check the trackers (all our vehicles have trackers fitted)

The official stance is that when it comes to the speeds we drive, we have to stick to the speed limit of the road, so if it's 80, we drive 80, if it's 120, we drive 120.

I'm sure that most EMS providers (Private/Governement) are the same regarding the traffic rules.

Speed kills kids! :)
 
MickeyD said:
Not here in PE, boet. To start with, 99% of all emergencies are allocated to private EMS and they dice to get to the scene first.
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The menace in PE comes from the tow truck drivers who think they're emergency response vehicles. I've seen them cut off ambulances racing towards the scene of an accident. :mad:
 
bwana said:
The menace in PE comes from the tow truck drivers who think they're emergency response vehicles. I've seen them cut off ambulances racing towards the scene of an accident. :mad:
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Very true. Almost got taken out on the way to the airport a few months ago. Millimetres away from a very high speed collision (I was going 60, he was not!).
 
bwana said:
The menace in PE comes from the tow truck drivers who think they're emergency response vehicles. I've seen them cut off ambulances racing towards the scene of an accident. :mad:
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Don't worry, that happens here in Cape Town too but it's worse... here, the tow trucks assault each other if 1 comes out of his area into another (I've been on 2x scenes where this has happened! It's scary because on 1 scene, they took the driver and his girlfriend and god only knows what happened to them)

I've been to scenes where there are 2 cars involved but there are 8 different tow trucks and they fight and argue about who will take what car - some of them won't even move their vehicles to allow me to park my ambulance closer to the scene - I don't get upset, I just ask a SAPS officer or TRAFFIC officer and they quickly move.

But yes, also remember, any 'call' where the private services can claim from RAF - they will do their level best to get too first.

Up country, there is so many EMS provides (private)... here in CPT, we only really have (off the top of my head) about 5.
 
My partner got Gastroenteritis over the weekend and we thought it was flu. Same symptoms except for the stomach cramps.

Yesterday afternoon he was boiling hot (39.6 degrees) so I took him to the hospital and they had him on a drip to get his temp down.

Just comes to show how easy it is to misdiagnose something yourself.

I haven't been that scared in my life.
 
Where I live the towtruck drivers even have their own *taxi rank* kinda setup!
 
Method said:
My partner got Gastroenteritis over the weekend and we thought it was flu. Same symptoms except for the stomach cramps.

Yesterday afternoon he was boiling hot (39.6 degrees) so I took him to the hospital and they had him on a drip to get his temp down.

Just comes to show how easy it is to misdiagnose something yourself.

I haven't been that scared in my life.
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And this is why you don't do that.

ice_cubes said:
Where I live the towtruck drivers even have their own *taxi rank* kinda setup!
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*shakes head*
 
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