thiswillbenothingkid

It can work out. The pressures are massive, my wife and i work the same station now but different shifts (12 hours), both full time. It is a one truck station so often the kids come in with us at handover time. (exchange one set of kids for one set of keys) We see each other for six full days over four weeks, the rest of the time there is always one of us at work. Have seen many other (ems) people start and end relationships in the time we have been together. I am really lucky to have my other half. It is hard work for both of us, but it works. I tend not to do overtime with her though if I can help it. She is far too bossy and six days a month is enough for anyone

Over here it is interesting to say the least. Phone 999, the call is answered by a telecoms operator who asks which service you require and gets the callers number. The call is then put through to ambulance service, clock starts ticking at this point (before the ambulance service answer the phone) If it is a category A call then there is an eight minute response target for 75% of calls. The target in the control room is to answer most calls within five seconds, however if the call is not answered then the clever bit comes into play. If the phone call is coming from a landline then a geographical location can be matched to the call and a call apprears on the dispatchers screen. The nearest resource can be dispatched at his point. Hopefully at some point in the next five minutes the control room will get the chance to see if an ambulance is actually needed and if there is a crazed knife wielding imbecile waiting at the other end of what can often be a lot less than five minute run to the scene. To be honest it stinks, I would rather go to calls where we are needed than just be sent because someone can't figure out how to work a DVD player and to arrive before they realise that they should not have sent you in the first place. As a result what we seem to be getting are genuine calls that are actually waiting for a longer time to be dispatched because they try to weed out the time wasters and to send [s:9d28ad5657]an[/s:9d28ad5657] [s:9d28ad5657]ambulance[/s:9d28ad5657] a car to the ones who need it.

So, how easy is it to remove a rubber ball that would be round, wet and slippery from being wedged in an airway? I could see it as being a bit of a problem. Would the ALS crews have been able to perform a crichothyroidotomy?

There is a gentleman who calls an ambulance many many times a day and he lives not too far from my house. The service has a policy to send only one ambulance to the address in every 24 hour period so it seems that when this man becomes ill he will be waiting for a long time if it happens just after one of his daily visits. If he calls an ambulance at night he is courteous to his neighbours and requests that we dont park directly outside of his house and that we turn off the reversing warning. Most people who go out to him are well and truly complacent because after you knock on his door he states that he doesn't want to go to the hospital anyway. Most of his calls are because he can't sleep. One night a crew called out to him and ended up giving him some friendly advice on how to sleep before leaving him and returning to station. A little while later the phone rings and control ask the crew 'what the hell is going on?' 'we have just had a call from the gent who you attended two hours ago, he has said that the crew told him to have a whiskey and a wank and that he would be asleep in no time. He has just rung back to say he has done as he was told and he still can't sleep'

Hi guys, my first 'proper' post here, I notice the discussion about the 'airline seat' vs the bench seat, especially the post about the bench seats being so dangerous. I take it most of the ambulances over there have a bench seat then? Isn't this something that the manufacturers have a responsibility for? If bench seats are dangerous why are they even on the trucks? Over here all new ambos conform to european standards, they are voluntary standards but in the UK they wouldn't shift an ambo that doesn't conform to them. The main things that the standards cover are; space around the seating for patients, attendants or escorts, space between the side walls of the ambo and the stretcher, that all seats have the capability to face forwards or backwards. Other items of interest is that all equipment is either stowed in lockers or if on display such as monitoring equipment that the mountings can stand an force of 10G, they are tilt tested and most ambulances over here have either a tail lift or a ramp. Believe it or not there is a performance standard which, I could be wrong but I dont fancy shelling out £118 to read the standards, states that the thing should be able to hit sixty miles an hour within about 40 seconds. Also our service has the fixed bulkhead option that means that you can't slip through to the cab for a sip of coffee. Once you start rolling you are stuck with the patient, no matter how bad they smell Ah, it appears that by knowing this I may be a whacker :wink: As for the original topic, the media do have the incredible knack of jumping on a controversial subject and making it seem worse, as has been said there are only two people who know what happened on that journey.

Hello, I am an NHS paramedic from the NW of England, I will probably be a lurker here rather than a poster and I am sure I will get a lot from this site once I have wiped the sleep from my eyes. Alex