I have in my possession an ambulance benevolant fund* diary, which is something I'll never use, as I have shiny technical tools for planning my life.So, I think I'll be giving it away to one lucky reader.
The competition is as follows…
Tell me, via comments or email, an amusing tale of seasonal injury or illness.
Stories may be real or fictional, my decision will be final. Closing date will be next Monday, 12 noon GMT. The winner will receive one (1) diary (worth approx £1) delivered via the cheapest post I can find anywhere in the world. Entry is non-binding, no purchase necessary, etc, etc, etc…
Just a bit of fun.
This is also the first post from my new mobile/pocket pc, so if the formatting is weird, I'll have to change it later.
*The benevolant fund is something we all pay £2 or so into, and it funds good things for sick ambulance people. Well worth the money, and you hope you never need to us it.
I'm not entering the competition, but wish I also had one of those silver shinny things to organise my life, maybe even do my driving!Looking forward to some interesting stories.
Any chance of a picture of the prize?
The Driving Instructor
I work as a CFR, in the United Kingdom,I get a call, to someone having chest pains at a local restaurant, Pt, uncommunicative. Now as a CFR this is the point where you start shitting yourself, and rapidly start running through the arrest protocol. What shall I be asking when I get there,(I am assuming the worst).
Now I have a great many questions I feel I will want to ask you(if you can answer), along with assessing the DRABC's and PQRST coupled with a full low down on DCAPPBLSTIC stuff, then making a wild interpretation of what it all could mean(Secretly hoping just 'cause I made it here before the ambulance, they surely will follow about 2 seconds after I arrive)
Anyway, I gets to the scene, thinking “THIS IS IT”, I will be ok.
Stroll in confidently (Or so I think), “Did someone call the Emergency Services?”, “???? I think they are upstairs, whats the problem?”
Well, not having a side line in telepathy, I don't know, but brave as I am, I am going to check.
Did I hear “THEY”?, I had heard an “A”, is in non-plural when I got called. Now I am truly bricking it. THEY, means them.
So off I go up the stairs, Not entirely sure what is going to confront me. Looks ok to go in, hear moaning and groaning from one of the rooms (that doesn't sound too heathly.) I, duty bound, open the door and declare who I am, to find to old wrinkles having a shag.
George who was non-responsive and uncommunicative, now appears fully alert, surprisingly so infact, telling me in no uncertain terms to F off, or he will ram my ambulance up ma arse.( Although Gerorge I feel at this stage, perhaps is not the right time to mention, that I don't infact have an ambulance, or even that where I come from, I couldn't possibly fit back THERE, even if you were so kind to offer the use of a ram)
So imagine the scence, as I imagine it and describe it, here I am standing with Old Georgie, who to be honest must be 60 plus, with a lob on that would put most younger men to shame, his wife/partner in crime, legs akimbo,offering the world to George, totally oblivous to me (Think she fell asleep, rude to wake her really) My mobile goes off, where am I ? , am I on scene ? Err… Yep, @ blah blah blah on xyz road. Well the crew can't find you, asked to check up on you (Fair do's lads n lasses, thanks for covering me)
RELAYING INFORMATION: @ Blah Blah, ON XYZ road. (Oh bollocks) The sudden, sad helplesness that can wash over at these moments in time, is really quite astounding.
I don't know how funny this one is but here I go.Last year Dec 23 2004 house full of family and kids.
I felt my chest getting tighter and tigher and having difficulties breathing. It never really clicked that as an asthmatic, this might be a problem.
I made a lovely dinner for about 10 people then said I would like to go lie down for a while. While in my bedroom I decided that I was definately having difficulties breathing and talking and in my hypoxic state thought 'Ambulance'. I managed to get one and laid down in bed waiting for my rescue to come.
I forgot to mention to the rest of the family that i had called an ambulance.
Very shortly afterwards, apparently (mum told me this bit) they all noticed some great blue lights as both a car AND an ambulance arrived outside the door. Like most people on our street, when there is an ambulance, curtains start twiching. In their interest to find out who was poorly, the family stood at the front window ignoring the knocking at the front door. When my husband finally decided to investigate who it was that was interrupting their 'snooping', he found one of his physio patients standing at the door wearing a green outfit with a green Santa hat that had flashing lights. His response was one of '[we'll call her xmass Carol] what are your doing here?' Apparently this person had DNA'd him that week so she took one look at him and started to apologise for blowing off her appointment with him. He than asked her why she was here – did she need some treatment?
Carol said no- they had had a call from this house about a 37 year old with breathing difficulties. The light went on in my husband's head that it had been me and the paramedics, the kids, the family, my husband and the two dogs all ran upstairs to where I was starting to panic and have EVEN more difficulties breathing.
I was sorted out that night but as usual refused to go to hospital where I knew I would wait for a while then be discharged.
Unfortunately I had to go into hospital on the 24th with my asthma and my poor husband sat with me until I signed myself out at 4am on Christmas morning. I couldn't be in hospital when my kids woke up!
We thought this was the end of our Christmas misadventures but then on Christmas day, we got snow. This kids went out to play and my niece fell down and knocked her front teeth out. She found one of them and began running home with it but then fell down and lost it again! We had to take her to A&E because NHS Direct told us to (but they always tell us to go to A&E). So my husband spent the night of Christmas day back in the hospital where he subsequently ran into Carol again.
It all really happened….
I have always been the one to come forward and offer to help even when not on duty, even when I was a teenage first aider….One Christmas in my youth I was volunteered to be part of a seasonal am dram production with some members of my church. So there we all are practicing ready for our debut on the high street. Someone comes in saying a woman has collapsed by the toilets in the car park. I go off with due haste hoping they aren't in cardiac arrest or worse (can you get worse?).
What I didn't realise was that the patient had slipped on a large patch of ice, the patch I was now moving rapidly across. I slipped landing on my knees and slid across the ice, stopped by the patients legs. “I slipped on the ice. ” the poor woman said as I looked at two badly broken wrists. “Yeah slippery isn't it. ” I replied. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” I asked.
“I've done both my collarbones in as well. “
So I arrange for someone to call an Ambulance and do my best TLC etc. Ambulance duly arrives and out gets the rather well built paramedic carrying kit bag and starts walking towards me….. across the same ice….. The words “Watch the slippery ice” stick in my throat as he slips and hurtles towards both of us dropping his kit bag as his arms do a windmill impression.
I stretch out an arm and just about stop him landing on me and the patient. His partner follows him and bends over to pick up the bag as he walks across the same ice….. his partner falls flat on his face. Moments later a passing police car stops and out get two female officers who come over to assist.
The second ambulance guy takes the offered hand to get back up and promptly causes the first policewoman to slip ending up beside him. After a couple of minutes everyone picks themselves up and the patient is duly and carefully loaded into the ambulance and away they go. “I'll need your details. ” one of the WPCs calls out, so I walk across the same patch of ice… momentarily forgetful and proceed to go flying again.
Thankfully the police, ambulance staff or me ended up with more than injured pride but it was a close run thing. Even now 16 years later I remember that day every winter when I need a quick pee.
Don't know what happened about the formatting in that post.Sorry.
A similar thing happened to me in a car park, but it involved 2 firefighters. While I found it hysterically funny, the firemen werent so impressed.
I was visiting friends and family in December 2002 and I was at the final stop of a very long day. I was at my mother's next door neighbours house and sitting on the couch talking. On the fireplace surround where a lot of those fiber optic christmas decorations.WEll after about 40 minutes I started to feel very very strange. I was getting tunnel vision, my left arm and left side of my face was going numb and I felt that I was in a hole and people were talking to me from a great distance. Being out in the countryside we didn't call an ambulance but I was driven to hospital, went through A&E triage and was immeadiatly seen. They did the usual blood work, ekg, etc.
A Doctor came in and said that he suspected it was one of three things: A heart attack, A stroke or meningitis. I was scared stiff that it was meningitis as I really hate needles and just knew that they were going to have to do a spinal tap.
After about an hour, they came back and said that all of the tests look clear, I hadn't had a heart attack or a stroke and they didn't think it was meningitis. They decided to keep me in overnight just in case.
The next morning, a new Doctor came in and said that I had probably had a very severe migraine and that I could go home.
Well the head nurse decided that I could be discharged after lunch, so I got to enjoy Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve courtesy of the NHS.
Seasonal story.Here goes,Many years ago there was an office Christmas party at a large hotel ballroom.Large Swiss company doing business in the United States.All the top guys in the company along with the staff in the Nashville,Tn office.We were all very intimidated and on our best behaviour.We being mostly young good looking women.One of our cute blonde co-workers proceeds to get very drunk and announce to everyone in the ballroom using a microphone that she and her husband are trying to get pregnant,she is that night her most fertile and also very horny.Her husband was not there,she disappeared with a good looking German sales rep and had a gorgeous child nine months later that looked like a miniature German sales rep!Happy Holidays!
Well, this true story did happen in the early winter months and it is (sort of )about an injury, so I think it counts. It happened to a friend of mine, the local head of the community visiting nurses. She had a much beloved family dog- a black and white border collie. She came home from work during her lunch hour one day, only to find his terribly mangled body out on the road in front of her house. Apparently he had escaped and gotten onto the street and been killed by a passing car. Understandably she was devastated. Her older teenage daughter came home from work an hour later. They cried together, and then they both dug a hole out in the back yard and buried him, along with his favorite old blanket that he loved to cuddle with. All in all, it was a really sad afternoon. Along about supper time her husband comes home to find both of them, still in tears, out in the backyard near fido's grave. He's somewhat speechless when they tell him how their beloved pet had been killed by a car and how they had buried him the back yard. Well, he's speechless at first, then he can't stop laughing at them, since he had just seen fido in their garage- vey much alive. They had buried some other black and white dog in their back yard- along with fido's favorite blanket!
This is a true story and was submitted to the Louisville Sentinel contest to find out who had the wildest Christmas dinner.Christmas with Louise
As a joke, my brother used to hang a pair of panty hose over his Fire place before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them.
What they say about Santa checking the list twice must be true because every Christmas morning, although Jay's kids stockings were overflowed, his poor pantyhose hung sadly empty.
One year I decided to make his dream come true. I put on Sun glasses and went in search of an inflatable love doll. They don't sell those things at Wal-Mart. I had to go to an adult bookstore downtown. If you've never been in an X-rated store, don't go. You'll only confuse yourself.
I was there an hour saying things like, “What does this do?” “You're kidding me!” “Who would buy that?” Finally, I made it to the inflatable doll section. I wanted to buy a standard, uncomplicated doll that could also substitute as a passenger in my truck so I could use the car pool lane during rush hour.
Finding what I wanted was difficult. Love dolls come in many different models. The top of the line, according to the side of the box, could do things I'd only seen in a book on animal husbandry. I settled for “Lovable Louise.” She was at the bottom of the price scale.
To call Louise a “doll” took a huge leap of imagination. On Christmas Eve, with the help of an old bicycle pump, Louise came to life. My sister-in-law was in on the plan and let me in during the wee morning hours, long after Santa had come and gone, I filled the dangling pantyhose with Louise's pliant legs and bottom. I also ate some cookies and drank what remained of a glass of milk on a nearby tray. I went home, and giggled for a couple of hours.
The next morning my brother called to say that Santa had been to His house and left a present that had made him VERY happy but had left the dog confused. She would bark, start to walk away, then come back and bark some more. We all agreed that Louise should remain in her panty hose so the rest of the family could admire her when they came over for the traditional Christmas dinner.
My grandmother noticed Louise the moment she walked in the door. “What the hell is that?” she asked. My brother quickly explained, “It's a doll.” “Who would play with something like that?” Granny snapped. I had several candidates in mind, but kept my mouth shut. “Where are her clothes?”, Granny continued. “Boy, that turkey sure smells nice, Gran,” Jay said, trying to steer her into the dining room. But Granny was relentless. “Why doesn't she have any teeth?” Again, I could have answered, but why would I? It was Christmas and no one wanted to ride in the back of the ambulance saying, “Hang on Granny, Hang on!”
My grandfather, a delightful old man with poor eyesight, sidled up to me and said, ” Hey, who's the naked gal by the fireplace?” I told him she was Jay's friend. A few minutes later I noticed Grandpa by the mantel, talking to Louise. Not just talking, but actually flirting. It was then that we realized this might be Grandpa's last Christmas at home.
The dinner went well. We made the usual small talk about who had died, who was dying, and who should be killed, when suddenly Louise made a noise that sounded a lot like my father in the bathroom in the morning. Then she lurched from the panty hose, flew around the room twice, and fell in a heap in front of the sofa. The cat screamed. I passed cranberry sauce through my nose, and Grandpa ran across the room, fell to his knees, and began administering mouth to mouth resuscitation. My brother fell back over his chair and wet his pants and Granny threw down her napkin, stomped out of the room, and sat in the car.
It was indeed a Christmas to treasure and remember.