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A tale of many blood pressures on the A421

By Brad Smith
September 30, 2009 at 9:38 am

Well, my Grass Track duty at the weekend proved eventful. Not only did I get to witness the fastest Mini on grass, I also dealt with my first on-the-road incident in the back of one of our ambulances.

My crew mate and I were on the way back from hospital with a couple of former casualties in tow. However, along on the A421 near Bedford – half way back to our base for the weekend – one of them took a turn for the worse. Richard, my crew mate (and esteemed mentor) thought it was casualty #1 feeling nauseous. Fat chance.

Casualty #2 was starting to faint. My training kicked into gear. I started to put him on oxygen and we kicked the other casualty off our trolley cot. We laid him down in the vacant space, raising his legs, and took regular readings of his vital signs. His blood pressure had gone through the floor and his pulse slowed – further indication of his condition. I also opened the ambulance door to try and get some fresh air in the cabin – don’t worry, we weren’t moving at the time!

Thankfully, over the next 15 minutes or so, his condition started to improve and once back to base we were happy to let him go, with the obvious proviso being that if his condition deteriorated we should be summoned again immediately.

You might not have oxygen and blood pressure monitors to hand but if you see someone that’s suffered a faint, losing consciousness temporarily, perhaps sweating with pale, cold skin, simply lie them down, raise their legs and give them plenty of fresh air until they recover. And if they don’t recover, start treating them as a collapsed casualty.

Image © Caters News

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Tags: ambulance, blood pressure, fainting, first aid duties, first aid training, grass track, Oxygen

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