"88 year old female, DIB"
For those that read my blog regularly, you will be able to tell the mood I was in by the following three pieces on information:
1) It was 06:55
2) I'd had no coffee
3) It was raining
Not a good day thus far! I was tired, grouchy and awful company. Luckily for me, the crew mate is also not a morning person and we know each other well enough, not to have to make small talk. We communicated with nods and grunts until such a time we are awake enough to function! Getting a job tends to wake us up so being sent to a local care home woke us slightly.
If we were still struggling with being alert, the update we received to say the patient was now in cardiac arrest snapped us out of it. We made our battle plan, we knew who was doing what, so when we arrived we each grabbed our designated kit and went in. As the driver, I was about 20 seconds behind my crew mate as I had to get some of the heavier stuff out the back of the ambulance. As I entered the room, he was starting CPR.
We started going through the routine, I took over compressions while he attached the pads, checked the rhythm and began to secure an airway. Once that was done, he took over compressions whilst I started to look for IV access. Still no second crew or FRU but it was shift change over time to that was little surprise! Then 7 words were spoken by one of the careers....
"We have another patient in cardiac arrest."
This wasn't part of our battle plan! We starred at each other for a few seconds then my crew mate just said "GO!". I pressed 'priority' on my radio, I grabbed the spare defibrillator, ran (yes, I actually ran) to the ambulance, grabbed more oxygen and ventilating bag, more drugs and the spare paramedic bag and ran (ambulance walk now) back inside and up the stairs!
Sure enough, lying on the floor was another patient with a carer doing CPR! My radio started ringing whilst I was asking the carer to continue!
"Red base, we now have 2 patients in cardiac arrest, we require at least 3 more resources on scene."
"Rog, understood, you have an FRU about 3 minutes away."
I attached the pads whilst the carer continued compressions then I started oxygenating the patient. I couldn't think straight! I couldn't really comprehend what was going on! I hadn't a clue what was going on downstairs! How was my crews mate doing? How was our patient?! You need more hands than what we had available too us. There is something very unnerving about being put in situations you are not prepared for. I've often spoken about how the journey to a job is crucial for gathering thought and getting mentally prepared for the worst case scenario you may walk into. THIS, neither of us were prepared for. I couldn't help my mind wondering to the patient down stairs.
The history of my current patient was vague, she had been seen this morning but then found not to be breathing. CPR was being done so I carried it on until I had some help and a chance to step back and think! Within 5 minutes the cavalry arrived, a total of 3 ambulance and 3 FRUs all descended on the care home! As it was student season most of them had a student too! The 12 of us got split between the two rooms and eventually I was able to return to my original patient!
Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we terminated the resus of patient 1 after 20 minutes of advanced life support. We cleared up our kit and headed out to the ambulance car park to request the police for an unexpected death. 5 minutes later everyone else from upstairs appeared. Patient 2 had also passed away despite being given the best chance. All that was left was a mass of paperwork.
This job will always throw curveballs at you, generally when you least expect them. Today the grim reaper won, tomorrow we will win. It was going to be one of those days.