Ambulance Ride

I was on a ten hour shift today with the Tasmania Ambulance Service. We started at 0730 in the morning and the sun was just raising. It started out slow and I had time to sit in the lounge to have my subway breakfast.

Our first stop was just nearby to the pier with a pair of tourist from the mainland who fell down the stairs in the hotel last night. She woke up this morning and the pain was too much, so she rang the ambulance. Sent her to the royal but she felt that the two hours que was too long and is willing to go to the private hospital. So we drove her round the block to the private hospital next door. One way streets only is a bit of a waste in transport time when you need it.

We then attened to a lady who had heavy chest pain which subsided when we go there. Still we sent her to the hospital just in case it was a myocardia infarct.

Then we were sent to an elderly male who waited three hours for the ambulance. He was not priority anyway. We were told that he had back pain and could not walk. Reached the destination, he was standing up and about to make some breakfast for himself. Haha. Sent him to so nearby private hospital so that he can have better pain relieve than his paracetamols.

When back to headquaters to catch some lunch. Lucky me, they had some volunteer paramedics training. In other words, free lunch for me. Yeah. Haha. Then we when to the library to play with the internet while waiting for the next call out.

Our next call out is to a nursing home in a rural area. Elderly lady who had been vomiting for the past three days. The nurse there says that she had been feeling pain for the past three days too, all over her body. The elderly is demented you see. Hence, she can't tell us much.

Right on que is a call out to the opposite side of Tasmania in a rural community. The lady had fell down, flat on her face. She had been lying on the floor for the past two hours before her carer came back from the shops and found her in that state. She seems to hurt everywhere and it keeps moving. Her hand was in pretty bad angles but that hand was fine though. A really huge bumb on there head and a bloody nose. Still, we sent her to the royal cause she hit her head. Trying to transfer her from the floor to the stretcher and from the stretcher to the reclining chair was a painful task. For her and us.

Then on que again, we when out to someone who fell off a roof while trying to fix a satilite dish for cable television. The catch is, he was fixing it for someone else in another house. He fell and was transported to his own home. Instead of staying in where he fell. Oh well, any harm is already done. Nonetheless, took off his homemade bandage, a pretty well done one. There is a huge piece of skin missing from his calf. I'm amazed that the bleeding even stopped. Re-did the bandage with some nice clean ones for him. He didn't want to come to the hospital initially but was convinced that he had to come along or he would lose his foot to infection. So he came along with a ride in the ambulance to the hospital.

That was the last call of the long long day. I didn't even stay till that guy got amitted. I was supposed to but it was 1800 at night. I was meant to finish at 1730. Pick up my gear, thank the girls and caught the bus back to the hostel.

All in all, I had a great day. Tiring and sleepy, but still great. Would do it again if I get a chance to. Now I need to go catch up to prepare for tomorrow's whole day of tutorials.

love,
kathleen