Blood, Sweat & Tea, page 89 by Tom Reynolds
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To be honest I don't blame them, the A&E department rarely has any surprises - the hospital is normally forewarned about any 'nasty job' we are bringing them and to suddenly have a seriously sick patient turn up without any warning is always a bit of a jolt.
Now the patient was unconscious the nurses were able to do those vital observations that I was unable to do - and they were all normal. His pulse, blood pressure and blood oxygen levels were all better than mine, his blood sugar was also well within normal limits. There was no obvious reason why he was in such a deep state of unconsciousness.
He was quickly intubated, and we left the department. I've spent some time wondering if I missed anything - if there was anything I would have done differently - but to be honest I don't think there was. Even if I had managed to get a full set of vital sign observations, they would have all been normal and there was nothing that indicated his condition changing so quickly. I can't 'assault' a patient who has refused a procedure (such as observation taking), and all I could do was exactly what I did do - watch him while we took him to hospital.
The current idea is that he had taken an overdose of some sort along with the alcohol, and that it had started to work. Because the patient hadn't spoken to me, I had no way of knowing if he had taken an overdose.
I never did find out what had happened with the patient - it's one of the poor things about this job, that you can't always follow them up.
Protecting Little Old Men From The Police?
We were asked go to the local police station to help with arresting someone. The arrestee (is that a real word?) was an 80 (or more)-year-old male who was accused of recently committing a crime that I would suggest required some amount of physical strength. We were to follow along because the person had heart and breathing problems - so much so that he had bottled oxygen in his house.
We met with the police officers (nine in total, and