In first aid, I never had to do deal too much with terribly disastrous injuries. There was the time that a fellow had a log dropped on the back of his leg, tearing the muscle tissue off the back of his leg, and necessitating a quite extensive bandaging job before he could be shipped out, but that was probably about the worst.
Other issues probably sound worse, but didn't involve a lot of treating or bandaging. Such as the time that a guy rolls a log over on himself.
No I'm not saying that it wasn't serious: it was. This is a major issue, and involved an immediate flight out, but it didn't involve an awful lot of treatment, on my part.
I got a call from the foreman, who sounded quite panicked. He didn't give me an awful lot of details, only that a log was involved, and that someone was unconscious. This was in a camp where there were two of us first aid attendants, so I went and got the other one, who was, in fact, under the weather and trying to get a bit of sleep, woke him up, and told him I was heading out to a situation in the bush. I took the ambulance and drove out.
By the time I got to the location, the foreman was looking a bit sheepish. He was feeling that he had overreacted, because the person who had rolled the log over on himself had woken up, and, in fact, walked himself back up the hill. The foreman was thinking that this was a minor issue, and that there was actually no problem. I had a look at the person who had rolled the log over on himself, and as soon as I saw that his pupils were unequal sizes, I knew that we had a serious situation. I got on the radio and reported, to the other first aid attendant, a possible case of compression. I put the patient down on the stretcher, strapped him in, and headed off. The foreman came along, still trying to assure me that he had probably overreacted and there was no need to go to all this furor.
By the time we got back to the camp, other first aid attendant had contacted a float plane for an emergency evacuation, had packed his own bags to accompany the patient, and the float plane had arrived. We bundled the patient into the plane, the other first aid attendant got on, and the plane took off.
The foreman was still of the opinion that this was much ado about nothing. He made some comment about the other first date attendant having wangled himself a free night off in town. I told him that it wasn't an overreaction. There was a significant possibility that something would happen on the flight out, that the other first day the tenant would have to deal with, and the pilot would be unable to handle things. For example, I said, the patient could lose consciousness again, he might vomit, and then the first aid attendant would have to clear his air passages, otherwise he would drown on the trip. The pilot would be unable to deal with any significant needs for the safety of the patient. The foreman obviously thought that I was just supporting my colleague, and equally obviously didn't believe that anything significant could happen.
As it turned out, there was another flight out to the camp that night, and so the other first aid attendant returned that evening. As soon as he landed, the foreman, obviously still of the opinion that this had all been a tempest in a teapot, twitted him about having arranged a free flight to town, and then not even being able to take advantage of it for even one night.
Oh, no, replied the other first aid attendant. He went unconcious, he threw up, I had to clear his airway, it was extremely difficult the whole flight. I just barely got cleaned up in time to catch the other flight.
The foreman looked rather confused. He obviously still thought that this was a put up job, and that I had just been supporting my colleague, when noting what could go on. But, he knew that we hadn't had a chance to talk at all since the other first aid attendant got off the plane. He couldn't figure out how we had arranged to have our stories agree so perfectly. The fact that we both knew the situation better than he did never apparently occurred to him.
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-505-hwyd-alcohol.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/04/mgg-507-hwyd-copters.html
No comments:
Post a Comment