Free Memoirs of an Emergency Nurse by Elizabeth Nicholl Page B

understood that she was still struggling to breath and was tiring and more technical interventions may be made. I called ICU the next day to see how she was doing and they told me she hadn’t been intubated and had stabilised overnight. She was being moved to the medical ward that day for further investigations.

My day with the Paramedics
    During my days as a student nurse, part of my emergency department placement was the opportunity to experience a day with the paramedics. It is usually a foregone conclusion that they would get no call outs the day that I am there and that I would sit in an ambulance all day with nothing to do. I hoped this would not be the case.
      I made my way enthusiastically to the ambulance base that morning and was greeted with faces full of smiles. I am a petite 5 ft 6 and they gave me a bright yellow luminous jacket which happened to be a large male size which hung over the ends of my hands.  Nevertheless, I folded the sleeves over and was happy that I would stand out at any accident scenes, even if I looked like a kid wearing her dad’s jacket. My first job was to get a tour of the ambulance and check everything was in working order with my paramedics.
    I had never seen inside an ambulance before and it was so neatly packed, with cupboards full of securely fastened equipment. Each space had something in it. The ambulance was cold from spending the night in the ambulance garage and I thought of how different this working environment was from the emergency department. I became familiar with where the oxygen cylinder was and masks and tubing, syringes and medication; all the same equipment I had seen in emergency but hidden from display. No sooner had we finished checking the equipment and restocking, than the phone rang and our number was called and put into action.
    As a learner, I didn’t know exactly what I was meant to do and what would happen next but I was indicated to sit down and buckle up in the back in the one seat facing front next to the trolley. The two paramedics climbed in the front and within thirty seconds, we were on the road. It was definitely a case of phone rings, seatbelts on, and on the road without delay. I found the back of the ambulance was very noisy and rattled a lot. We had packed the back with everything that we would need and every available space was cramped with something. It was all securely fastened, but at the speed we were going, I thought everything was bound to fall out and roll around on the floor. The paramedics discussed the route they needed to go and they decided the back roads were quicker or they would have to double back on the motorway. I couldn’t believe how fast the ambulance went. The passenger paramedic had a clipboard and was writing notes. I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing but he shouted back, asking if I was ok and I said “yes.” The sirens were very loud, it amazes me how people cannot hear them a mile off.
    We were going to attend a person with chest pain, so making progress was essential. Any delay and there was the risk his condition would deteriorate into cardiac arrest. The ambulance hurtled along the back roads, the height allowed visual clearance over the short cut hedges and the blue lights and the yellow and white flash made cars stop in plenty of time. I was being bounced around in the back with every bump in the road we went over and being pulled right and left around every corner. I was very pleased to be belted in.
    At one point, we were about to go over a narrow bridge and a Volvo driver was coming the other way, not leaving any room for us to get past.  The dead weight of the ambulance just about stood on its nose as it was pulled to a stop by the skilled paramedic driver. We all looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief that the ambulance had good brakes.
    We were getting nearer to the location we had been given and up ahead, we could see the fast response paramedic car had beaten us to the scene.