30 Oct 2010

Thespian or attention seeker

Green1 Allocated (67YO Female fell in street)

It was only 0.2 miles away from our location, which was the ambulance bay of a west London hospital so we arrived pretty quick. Here's how the job went.

Park up next to her and say "hello love, i'm jack how are you" "f??king awful" she replies, I say "what happened" "I tripped over that poxy curb didn't I" she replied. So I assessed her injuries and she didn't seem to have any so we placed her in our chair and carried her into the back of our truck for some observations. All Obs were fine apart from her blood pressure being a little bit elevated. She was also FAST Negative (Passed the Stroke test). She was a difficult old stick but seemed OK and was a little lonely.

As I was completing my paperwork and finishing off a second set of Obs she said "oow I'm feeling dizzy and I can't move my arm" I took a look at her face and saw some droopiness in her lips. Worried! I took another stroke test and this time she was FAST Positive with weakness down one side of her body and facial droopiness plus slurred speech and a severe headache. Being only 0.2 miles from A&E we immediately placed a blue call (Hospital Pre-Alert) and fired up the roof travelling on blues and twos.

Wheeling her in to resus with a team waiting we placed the lady on the hospital bed and changed her from our o2 to the Hospitals o2 system which is behind the bed. On handing over to the Doctor he asked me how I had come to the decision that she had suffered a CVA (Stroke). I explained my findings and he said "well take a look at her now" I walked around to the front of the bed and she had none of the symptoms, absolutely none. Doctor told me that I must have been mistaken. I replied that she must be a really good actor practising a new role because I have seen a few CVA's and this was the most convincing.

I walked in with her feeling good that I was helping her, but walked out feeling like a twat.

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