Zulu 954 - Jan '09 Blog
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Fire, fire . . .
It’s only been 2009 for just over 2-hours and Zulu 954 is called and asked to attend a house fire in a neighbouring town some 20-minutes drive away. Eight people are reported trapped in a building that is well alight, it’s known they’ve all been out welcoming in the new year and have returned to a friend’s house to carry on the party and sleep off their excess.
Like many BASICS volunteers’ UK wide Zulu 954 has enjoyed an alcohol free New Years Eve knowing that potentially the small hours of new year’s morn can bring tragedy and incident requiring his response. Arriving at just before 3am Zulu 954 joins an ambulance officer, a NHS ambulance crew and a St John Ambulance crew assisting with the New Year rush. The house is well alight with flames through the roof, fire-fighters using breathing apparatus are already in the house and neighbouring houses are being evacuated as the property is part of a terrace. The Red Cross have also arrived in their fire support vehicle and are doing their best to accommodate the shocked evacuees many in night clothes some the worse the wear for drink.
The alarm had been raised by one of the revellers arriving at the property later than the rest of the party having gone via a friend’s house to wish them a happy new year. Despite being drunk he was able to make a 999 call to the fire brigade and provide information concerning the occupants. By this time the fire crews were reporting nobody in the property at first sweep and hopes were that the merry gang were anywhere else except at home.
The simple measure of ringing the mobile phone of one of the group found them all alive and well at another friends still partying and blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding at home.
So much better than what was expected and thanks to the fire brigade no neighbouring homes suffered serious damage although one family decamped to friends until the fire brigade could confirm that their home was largely undamaged later on New Year’s Day. So just like households the country over Zulu 954 slept through the late morning – but not before he’d been called out again just past 6am to a hoax call purporting to be reporting a car off the road and upside down.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! Apart from the criminal record these idiots pick up the fun of watching emergency services rush to the scene (yep, many of these idiots stay around to watch the fruits of their nuisance call – and get caught) real emergencies calls suffer a delayed response because the nearest vehicle was assigned to the hoax, not to mention the risk to the public and emergency crews as they use emergency procedures to get to the scene.
Stop when the sign says stop . . .
Late afternoon and past dusk a car and van have collided in a neighbouring village with one person reported trapped. A 20-minute drive later through country roads with updates from scene confirming the occupant, a young female is trapped in a car squashed between a house front and the van.
Working with fire crews and an ambulance crew Zulu 954 assesses the casualty who although conscious is in agony with an obviously fractured and deformed thigh. From the impact area (the van had driven into the side of the car at around 50mph as the car pulled out without stopping at the mandatory stop sign) and the amount of intrusion into the casualties car it is strongly suspected that her pelvis may also be fractured and because of the general mechanism her neck is protected in case she has suffered a neck injury. Despite the initial reports of her car being squashed between the van and a house front there is room to get to the casualty via the drivers side with a little bit of help from the fire brigade.
Because of the pain and the need to remove the casualty from the car a plan is agreed by all involved and a very strong pain killer is used to control the girls pain, it also has the useful side effect of having an amnesic effect. Whilst her condition is closely monitored the fire brigade create space by removing the cars roof so we can bring the casualty out in a straight line through where the back window used to be! This is obviously going to very painful so the painkilling drug is used again except this time in a larger dose to provide a sedative effect alongside its painkilling role. She is removed carefully but easily thanks to the entire team knowing whats expected of each of them and her fractured femur pulled straight and her pelvis splinted whilst she remains sedated and unaware of what is happening.
As part of the routine the casualty is re-assessed again and despite the properties of the drugs used her blood pressure is dropping and her pulse rising as is her rate of breathing, as yet it’s not too alarming but the concern is that she has internal bleeding, perhaps in her chest cavity or within her abdomen. A careful but rapid examination from Zulu 954 draws attention to her chest on the same side as her broken leg (the side of the impact from the van). Without delay she is transferred to hospital and continues to slowly deteriorate further as her chest continues to fill with blood slowly but relentlessly.
The hospital have been pre-alerted and are ready to meet her, Zulu 954’s handover provides insight into the mechanism of injury so that attention quickly focuses on the casualties chest to resolve the growing respiratory embarrassment. The early detection and rapid transfer of the casualty to a waiting trauma team mean that the girl rapidly improves after relatively simple and early treatment whereas if her transport had been delayed or her slowly worsening condition was not noted the outcome could have been very different.
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Road sense
Driving with blue flashing lights and sirens sounds exciting but in truth it is at times harrowing and on occasions dangerous! Why; well look at a couple of examples from a single 4-mile journey today.
First of all the driver who decides to accelerate around the cars pulling over (probably totally unaware of me coming up behind him), and then pulls over on the approach to a blind bend to let me pass! Then the pedestrian who looks at me and decides she can dash across the road (complete with shopping and toddler)! And to round things off the car that when the driver sees me indicates to move into the left but instead moves into the middle of the road and stops expecting me to pass on the inside (quite surprised the opposing traffic as well)!
On behalf of all emergency drivers can I politely request that any drivers reading this take time to think of what they do when they become aware of an approaching emergency vehicle:
1. First of whatever you do needs to be safe for all involved – so no emergency stops please (no joking I’ve had cars do an emergency stop in lane 3 of the motorway before now expecting me to go round them).
2. Remain alert when you are at the wheel; not only will this help you plan to assist us in our passage but it’ll make your own journeys safer.
3. When you are preparing to let an emergency vehicle pass pull over where they can safely pass you, if you are approaching a blind bend and it would be unsafe to overtake keep going and pull over when through the bend. The same applies on the approach to the brow of a hill, keep going and pull over when past the brow.
4. When you do pull over don’t maintain a rolling roadblock! You’ll be surprised how many people pull over to the kerbside but continue to drive into oncoming traffic narrowing our opportunity and at times blocking our progress.
5. Pull over so we can pass; don’t pull in alongside a traffic island or opposite a parked vehicle so ypou obstruct the road!
6. Please don’t use an emergency vehicle as your personal escort through congested traffic; you’ve read of the problems we encounter, the last thing we need is someone sniffing our exhaust!
Now you’ve read this you’ll be thinking this is all common sense, it is but it does seem to be lacking in many people’s driving these days.
Many thanks for your consideration when you encounter an emergency vehicle.