Green 2 Allocation, 96 YO female, fallen still on the ground.
Granny Down! We gotta Granny Down! I hate attending to little old ladies, not because I don't like them because that isn't true, but because I feel so helpless when they insist on being independent & refuse help from carers and the like.. Anyway-
We eventually enter the house once we have found the correct key-code for the outside key-safe, however while we were hunting for the code we could see her and speak to her through the window so there was no need to force entry. Once inside we were greeted by the lovely old dear who was laying on the floor after she had tripped on the rug. (They will insist on having these rugs)I take one look at her left leg and notice it has been completely de-gloved from her knee to her ankle, with no blood loss but plenty of fat loss as there was loads of white/creamy fatty bits all over the carpet & of-course my knee once I had knelt in it to attend to her wound.. While my crewmate did a set of Obs to check her vital signs I arranged an extra large ambulance dressing x 2, made them slightly damp so they wouldn't stick & applied them to her shin wrapped tightly with Peta-Haft dressings. Afterwards I had a look around and couldn't find anything that could have caused this type of injury, which left me puzzled - & then it came to me she had severe Oedema on her other leg, so I worked out that as she hit the carpet her left leg had simply burst due to her skin being under so much pressure. So as her vital signs were better than mine we decided to carry on with the job ourselves with no further assistance, but as we tried to get her onto our scoop board & trolley the little old lady asked us what we were doing and that she wanted to stay at home, her exact words were "do i have to go to hospital love" I explained that she had a wound on her left leg that needed urgent attention and that if it was on my leg I would be hysterical. She final agreed to come with us... We found out on the trip to hospital that she had been an Army Nurse during the war. The old girl was a tough as old boots, certainly much harder than us youngons........
Our Next Granny Down.....
Green 1 Allocated 106 YO Female, fallen over, can't get up - called by CARELINE.
Before I start this post I must tell you a bit about CARELINE, in most cases they are an excellent service which puts little alarms into elderly folks homes, one of them acts as a pendant type alarm around their necks, the theory being that once pressed CARELINE will speak to the Patient via the intercom in their homes & then relay information given to them by the patient to the Ambulance Service/Police/Fire Brigade etc.. Now this works mostly, but we have been to jobs where the wrong information has been given, even the wrong address. So as a crew, we do not always take what is said by CARELINE for granted..
So we approach this block of flats, built specially for elderly folks, however there is no warden or caretaker on site & we were informed that there will be one there to open her door for us.. But of-course this man is about 20 mins away and all our efforts of shouting through the door didn't pay off, we even climbed out the neighbours window and could see her but she wasn't moving, so I promptly advised control of the situation and decided to force entry in order save life & limb if needed.
So we entered her flat and found her on the floor in the kitchen after a fall while cooking her dinner, she was awake & alert albeit very upset. The reason she didn't answer our calls through the letterbox was because she was deaf, but I still feel justified for doing it. So we carry out our Obs & discover that she has no injuries at all, slightly low BP but then she is a frail old girl. She explained to us that she was adamant she wasn't going to hospital, so in this case we have to call for Paramedic Assistance to sign us off to leave the patient at home. Within five mins a Paramedic Manager arrived (DSO)did a quick ECG & signed us off. However due to her damaged door we stayed with her until the Caretaker arrived to fix it, guess what, he didn't arrive so the Police Officers went down the road & bought some screws to fix the door themselves, what great blokes. While this was happening my crewmate & I cooked her dinner, made her a cup of tea, chatted to her for a while & then tucked her up safely into bed.. But heres the interesting part, her God Father was Fred Astaire she even had pictures to prove it. Her father had been a theatre producer and had got on pretty well with Fred so when she was born Fred asked to be her God Father. She later became a top dancer in the theatre world of London & even New Yorks Broadway the pictures of her as a dancer in the 30's & 40's were just amazing, she was stunning. I will have that memory for ever!!
So here we are, these are the type of jobs I go to, I sleep soundly knowing I have hopefully made a small difference to their lives......
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