You?re Never Really ?Off Duty? In This Job

Doing this job though, you?re never really ?off duty? in the way most people are from their jobs. I?ve stopped at road traffic accidents a number of times. One I stopped at was very serious. One of the passengers in the vehicle died at the scene ? no one could?ve saved her. But the other passenger I was able to help, keeping his airways open until the ambulance arrived. Sometime later he tracked me down and came and thanked me. I remember stopping at an accident that had occurred on a pedestrian crossing. Oddly, as it may sound, it wasn?t a road traffic accident; a young boy was lying injured at the side of the road. His brother had jumped on him as a prank. The boy was only four years old. His brother had pulled him backwards, he?d fallen and split his head open. We managed to get a dressing on his head before the ambulance arrived. Children naturally get into their fair share of accidents ? a result of their naturally inquisitive and adventurous nature no doubt. They can be difficult to manage though. For many of them what they?re experiencing is happening for the first time. They can be confused, disoriented and quite often scared. Agitated too. It takes a bit more effort to keep a child calm under treatment. We are strangers to them as well, so that can also be a bit disconcerting. In addition to the hurt child there is of course a worried parent, grandparent, guardian or sometimes older sibling. Often at events, there will be a whole extended family group attending together. Sometimes it?s the grandparents we have to attend to at an event, and young children can get confused because they?ve never seen anything like it before. We tend to work as a team in these situations ? one of us attending to the person who?s had the accident and the other explaining things to the family and keeping things as calm as possible. Part of our standard training is how to deal with families and those close to the person who we?re treating. We tell them what?s happening, what we?re doing and what we hope the outcome will be. Another ?off-duty? case of mine involved a young boy who fell off his bike and ended up with a greenstick fracture of the arm. Greenstick fractures happen mostly to children because their bones are softer, still developing and more flexible than an adult?s. The bone bends and cracks instead of breaking completely. The fracture is similar to what happens when you try to break a smaller ?green? branch from a tree. We made this boy?s fracture comfortable without any first aid equipment. We simply put his arm in a sling so that it was supported. Into the ambulance he happily went when it arrived. Sometimes we don?t need a lot of equipment to deal with a situation effectively. Past experience, knowledge and a confident assessment of the situation helps. There?s a lot of variation in our work. The small ?wins? can be as rewarding as the bigger issues we tackle. It?s all in a day?s work and I wouldn?t do anything else.

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