Where not to go if you need an ambulance!!!

StaffordMad

StaffordMad

A few posts under my belt
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Thehooperman

Thehooperman

Well-Known Forumite
StaffordMad said:
I can see why the Landlord doesn't want police & ambulance in his pub constantly because this can put his licence at risk when it comes to renewal. But a one-off incident would not cause any problems.

I also see his point about wasting ambulance time. They are there for strokes, heart attacks, asthma attacks, cardiac arrests and other serious conditions, not for anxiety attacks. Since the closure of Stafford A&E at night, the nearest ambulance to a cardiac arrest might be coming from Wolverhampton or Stoke-on-Trent if the only resource in Stafford is being dealing with a panic attack. I really think the public have unrealistic expectations of how many ambulances are on duty across Staffordshire at any one time.

There is some serious lack of first aid knowledge in the general public if they cannot coach and re-assure somebody having an anxiety attack until it stops. This is all the ambulance crew can do...there are no magic drugs to stop it and oxygen will do absolutely nothing for a panic attack.

Fair play to the police for using some common sense, cancelling the ambulance, re-assuring her and sending her off home with a friend to watch over her. All the excitement amoungst her friends probably didn't help resolve the situation.

Unfortunately, had an ambulance arrived, it no doubt would have coded as a Category A 'Breathing Difficulties' call (everything is over triaged just in case it is an asthma attack or similar), so perhaps a community responder, rapid response paramedic and double crewed ambulance dispatched to the scene. No doubt all these blue light vehicles and uniformed people milling around on scene would have made her panic attack even worse, so the crew might have taken her up to A&E in Stoke just to 'cover their ass' (very, very, very rarely, a panic attack can be confused with a small blood clot on the lung, but in these instances they rarely return to a normal state of breathing on scene), she would have spent all night in A&E having her bloods taken, ECG taken, chest x-ray done, and sent home after 12 hours of sharing a cubicle with a drunk when everything comes back normal.

Sorry for the rant, but it is very annoying that people think a 999 ambulance is the right response to every medical incident that occurs out-of-hospital or in a public place, whether that's for a cut finger, panic attack, stomach pains etc. There is always the option of getting the pub or shopping centre's first aider to crack open a box of plasters, take them to A&E or (OOH) GP in your own car (or taxi) or even call NHS Direct or pop to the local pharmacy for some basic advice. All of these options keep the (ever diminishing) number of ambulances free for life threatening emergencies such as heart attacks, strokes, life threatening bleeding, serious car crashes etc, instead of forcing the crew to explain to a dead person's family that the reason the ambulance took 40 minutes to arrive on scene was because they were busy doing the endless amount of paperwork involved with treating a panic attack on scene and leaving them at home. The irony is that the genuinely ill people and there relatives never moan about how long the ambulance takes but those who call for a cut finger are constantly on the phone to 999 wanting to know why the ambulance hasn't arrived within 5 minutes.
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You are probably correct that, in hindsight, an ambulance wasn't required but the point is the Grapes staff did absolutely nothing to help.

I have basic first aid training but didn't have a clue what the right thing to do with someone who was shaking, hitting themselves, unable to speak properly and seemed to be having breathing difficulties. Hence why we thought medical assistance was the best solution.

The Street Pastors would probably have been the best assistance we could have got for her but we didn't know about them or the good work they do and Eddy would have probably stopped them coming into his pub.
 
StaffordMad

StaffordMad

A few posts under my belt
Lunar Scorpion said:
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Panic-disorder/Pages/self help.aspx

It is physically impossible for anxiety of that level to continue indefinitely - they usually last up to 20 minutes, but can be longer.
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Worst case scenario, the lack of carbon dioxide in the blood will cause pins and needles in the patients extremities and eventually the lack of CO2 will cause them to pass out, stop breathing for a few seconds and then come round again when normal CO2 levels are restored. This would be less than 30 seconds and will hopefully stop the panic attack, but it has been knoqn for people to continue in cycles.

If a panic attack doesn't resolve after a significant period of time despite a calm environment and plenty of re-assurance, then it is time to see a health professional, either a GP appointment (if you can get one within a few hours) or a trip up to the hospital. If the patient does not have a history of panic attacks and is clearly struggling to get air in and out then by all means call for an ambulance. It is not unheard of for very pro-longed attacks to require a sedative.

The biggest difference is that during a panic attack, oxygen levels are higher than normal so the patient will be a good colour, whereas genuine breathing problems lower the blood oxygen level and can cause blue-ness around the lips or nail bed etc. Sound and positioning is also a big clue. Asthmatics will be making an obvious pro-longed wheezing sound on expiration in the initial stages, and will adopt a tripod position to maximize air entry. Quite a lot of panic attack patients seem to lie down on the sofa/floor during their attack which is something you wouldn't be able to do if you were genuinely fighting for breath.

I won't comment on the actions of the Grapes landlord as I wasn't there and I do not know his level of knowledge. Employers are required to have first aid provision on site for their own staff who will normally also help the public, although surprisingly employers aren't required to count customers in their first aider ratio.

Most of the panic attacks I see involve somebody who is in drink and has had an argument with their other half, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was a common occurance for many landlords!
 
proactive

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
StaffordMad said:
Worst case scenario, the lack of carbon dioxide in the blood will cause pins and needles in the patients extremities and eventually the lack of CO2 will cause them to pass out, stop breathing for a few seconds and then come round again when normal CO2 levels are restored. This would be less than 30 seconds and will hopefully stop the panic attack, but it has been knoqn for people to continue in cycles.

If a panic attack doesn't resolve after a significant period of time despite a calm environment and plenty of re-assurance, then it is time to see a health professional, either a GP appointment (if you can get one within a few hours) or a trip up to the hospital. If the patient does not have a history of panic attacks and is clearly struggling to get air in and out then by all means call for an ambulance. It is not unheard of for very pro-longed attacks to require a sedative.

The biggest difference is that during a panic attack, oxygen levels are higher than normal so the patient will be a good colour, whereas genuine breathing problems lower the blood oxygen level and can cause blue-ness around the lips or nail bed etc. Sound and positioning is also a big clue. Asthmatics will be making an obvious pro-longed wheezing sound on expiration in the initial stages, and will adopt a tripod position to maximize air entry. Quite a lot of panic attack patients seem to lie down on the sofa/floor during their attack which is something you wouldn't be able to do if you were genuinely fighting for breath.

I won't comment on the actions of the Grapes landlord as I wasn't there and I do not know his level of knowledge. Employers are required to have first aid provision on site for their own staff who will normally also help the public, although surprisingly employers aren't required to count customers in their first aider ratio.

Most of the panic attacks I see involve somebody who is in drink and has had an argument with their other half, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was a common occurance for many landlords!
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So a couple of slaps followed by shouting "Pull yourself together" wouldn't be the correct response then?
 
littleme

littleme

250,000th poster!
Gramaisc said:
'Minor cuts' - Should be at the Urgent Care Centre, Walk-In Centre or Minor Injuries Unit - do we have this sort of thing? Is that what the thing on North Walls is?
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I cut my hand last year on a broken glass whilst washing up, only about an inch long but quite deep.....I drove to the Drs, who then told me off for driving there, and said they couldn't treat me, and sent me off to A&E.........
 
StaffordMad

StaffordMad

A few posts under my belt
Stafford doesn't have an MIU/UCC and such patients should continue to attend A&E at present. Cannock Hospital has an MIU and so does the community hospital in Lichfield.

If Stafford A&E closes as planned then it is likely to be replaced by a nurse led MIU or GP led UCC.
 
joshua

joshua

Well-Known Forumite
The clinic on north walls will be gone when the morrisons build starts, the immediate access in town is laughable we desperately need a walk in centre in the town centre but would that damage the income/profits of the existing doctors surgery's ?
 
darben

darben

Well-Known Forumite
joshua said:
The clinic on north walls will be gone when the morrisons build starts, the immediate access in town is laughable we desperately need a walk in centre in the town centre but would that damage the income/profits of the existing doctors surgery's ?
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It is so difficult to get a reasonably timed appointment at the wolvo road surgery that if a walk in was available somewhere else in town and it did impact on them it would be their own fault!
 
Daniele

Daniele

Well-Known Forumite
Lunar Scorpion said:
You have too much respect for authority. They are only human, so trust them no more than you would any other human (and probably safer to trust them less because their interest and your interests rarely match up).
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Yes Lunar, you are right. But I think that if you decide to cover a certain kind of role, you should have a behaviour a little over than a "common" human being.
You can't face those kind of jobs as a "common" job, when you are involved with people you must remember that they are not a piece of metal, a brick and everything else that you can manage easier than a human being.
 
flossietoo

flossietoo

Well-Known Forumite
littleme said:
Isn't that thing on north walks an emergency dentist?
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A dentist? Is it? I always thought it was a family planning clinic.
The Blind Centre was somewhere near there. An old boyfriend was mortified when he discovered what it was. He'd had a Saturday job at a handyman shop and whenever a customer had enquired about roller blinds, he'd helpfully sent them to North Walls.
 
littleme

littleme

250,000th poster!
flossietoo said:
A dentist? Is it? I always thought it was a family planning clinic.
The Blind Centre was somewhere near there. An old boyfriend was mortified when he discovered what it was. He'd had a Saturday job at a handyman shop and whenever a customer had enquired about roller blinds, he'd helpfully sent them to North Walls.
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:) There's defiantly an emergency dentist there, I've been twice - but I think they keep it a secret.....also speech therapy (or there was about 15yrs ago)
 
Withnail

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
I think a lot of the children's services that were once based there have now transferred to the new place the other side of Crooked Bridge Road.

There definitely was, if not still is, an emergency dental practice there - i'm beginning to think that whoever 'they' are, 'they' are quite happy to keep it as hush hush as poss.

P.S. probably not the best place to go if you want an ambulance :)
 
Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Withnail said:
i'm beginning to think that whoever 'they' are, 'they' are quite happy to keep it as hush hush as poss.
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I am becoming convinced that it must be full of North Korean agents. I have no idea what it's for - in fact, I'm quite surprised to see how big it is, now that I've looked properly. You could assemble a fair-sized missile in there.
 
Withnail

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Now that you've 'looked properly' your life is in danger.

It might be worthwhile to look properly into where to go, if you need an ambulance.
 
Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
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