Alarming accident/999 call

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snowcrew

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On Friday morning a close friend had a freak accident whilst routinely leading horses in from the field.

One horse, for some unknown reason tried to kick the other and this resulted in my friend being in the cross fire and one of the horses must have barged her resulting in her upper arm taking an incredible blow of force causing a massive spiral fracture of the arm (rotating her lower arm etc etc.)very nasty.

To cut a long story short, half way through calling her husband, she passed out - he managed to contact me as I live close by and my daughter and I managed to find her on the track to the field. She looked in a terrible way, no colour, clammy, showing all signs of severe shock etc. Her arm was very obviously badly damaged and it was tricky to know what inital first aid to provide. She pre empted this by passing out again, so I held her on the ground to prevent the arm was twisting around further but to keep her airways clear whilst she went in and out of consciousness. We immediately phoned 999. I explained clearly I needed an ambulance for a lady who had been kicked and needed an ambulance. I gave clear details i.e. the village green and the farm name and the nearest villlage - TO MY HORROR I WAS TOLD SHE NEEDED A POST CODE TO SEND OUT AN AMBULANCE!! Myself and my daughter continued to provide the operator with further details of the precise location, but sadly the post code of the track/farm I was on was not in my mind!!! In the meantime, my buddy was deteriorating, colour etc!
To my great relief, the farm owner had been alerted and had managed to find us on the track and I was able to hand/throw the phone to him to give the 999 telephone operator the bleeping post code.

Eventually the ambulance arrived and gave my friend the well needed morphine etc for the arm which was very obviously badly broken. She was taken to hospital and treated.

The ambulance service were fantastic, but I was horrified that as i could not provide a post code it was delaying despatching an ambulance despite giving the detailed location, village etc. We were so fortunate that the farm owner appeared.

It was all ok in the end, but you can all imagine how stressful and frustrating it was - what happened before sat navs???

:confused:
 
Hope your friend is ok! Sounds awful.

On the flip side, we had to call an ambulance out yesterday for a fall, and (although we gave them a postcode off the bat anyway) they were there within 2/5 minutes of calling and the nearest hospital point etc really isn't very close - very impressed :)
 
Thanks.

She is back home now, but lots of pain as they cant do much for this kind of break apart from rotating arm back into position and putting (what looks like) a reinforced tail guard on the upper arm for 8 weeks and a collar and brace to allow her arm to heal naturally.

None of this is good when you have children to care for and several horses and a job to do! But on the flip side, she lived to tell the tale!

ps ambulance service itself was brilliant - just the telephone operator was tricky!

The joys of horses!
 
Fleabite said:
Hope your friend is ok! Sounds awful.

On the flip side, we had to call an ambulance out yesterday for a fall, and (although we gave them a postcode off the bat anyway) they were there within 2/5 minutes of calling and the nearest hospital point etc really isn't very close - very impressed :)
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The NH yard I work for issues everyone with a small piece of laminated card with the OS grid refs of all the gallops & rides on it so medical help can find us. For those of us who live in the country a post code can be useless, in my village several of us share the same post code but are no where near each other if you are really talking life or death - as in heavy bleeding etc.
 
She's lucky you got to her so quickly.

We have map co-ordinates written up in the yard, but that's no good if you are in the middle of a field or out on a hack or whatever, and they are certainly not committed to my memory. Also, we have a "townland" system in parts of NI, whereby several houses over a large area maybe known by the same name, and even the regular postmen get confused so the emergency services have no hope, even with a postcode :confused:

A couple of years ago our neighbours farm buildings caught fire across the valley. I rang 999 and the operator said the owner had already rung it in but she was unclear where the fire was (as he was busy fighting it at the time:rolleyes:) and needed additional directions. Since we have poor road signage, no road names up, and live in a pretty rural area, it was ages before the fire service arrived :(
 
They wanted the postcode when I broke my back. My friend knew it so it wasn't an issue but it didn't seem to delay them as they were there within 10 mins and its normally a 15 min drive. I can't remember much about my paramedics as I was doped up!

The operator is supposed to keep you on the phone the whole time but blooming heck you don't really want to be answering 50 questions!
 
It is difficult to learn from this experience as how many of us turn out horses and/or ride out alone from private yards. It was not as if my friend was doing anything out of the ordinary - freak handling accident.

Thank goodness for mobile phones.
 
Ex was a firefighter and argued, as many did, that centralising emergency calls (to save money) was dangerous. Local operators have local knowledge so that when the address is obscure, they know exactly where the caller means.
Same with the RSPCA. Ever tried describing a field to them on the phone ? Local RSPCA officers would know exactly where you mean, but someone who sits in an office 200 miles away ? No chance ?
 
horserider said:
Ex was a firefighter and argued, as many did, that centralising emergency calls (to save money) was dangerous. Local operators have local knowledge so that when the address is obscure, they know exactly where the caller means.
Same with the RSPCA. Ever tried describing a field to them on the phone ? Local RSPCA officers would know exactly where you mean, but someone who sits in an office 200 miles away ? No chance ?
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Couldn't agree more. A few years ago my mum had a chimney fire at her house, not major but as she had heart problems and was very upset. Our local fire station is a couple of miles away and most of the retained crews knew my mum and where she lived. But I had to go into great detail giving directions (it was before sat nav) to the operator, very frustrating.
AndI agree about postcodes in a rural area, just last week a chap arrived on our drive and asked for Mrs X. I told him he had the wrong house and started explaining where Mrs X was, he was quite belligerent and told me the sat nav said it was my house. I had to tell him that yes my house was in that postcode, but it also covered around half a dozen other houses .
 
A couple of years ago, I lost control of my car and rolled into a ditch, resulting in me being trapped upside down.

I called 999 - bearing in mind I was in shock and a bit hysterical - first the operator asked me if I was joking, then I had to explain my location to them 3 time and then they called me back to get directions. By the time the ambulance and fire brigade both got there some passers
 
A couple of years ago, I lost control of my car and rolled into a ditch, resulting in me being trapped upside down.

I called 999 - bearing in mind I was in shock and a bit hysterical - first the operator asked me if I was joking, then I had to explain my location to them 3 time and then they called me back to get directions. By the time the ambulance and fire brigade both got there some passers by had helped me out of the car
 
We do try but we're not perfect!! I work covering Cumbria and lancashire but I might also take a call for Cheshire, Mersey or Manchester so obv I don't know all those areas. Postcode really helps but if not, road name or road it is off or another road so we can find it in the map. After getting that and the patient information we might ask for more directions. It's really hard when you are panicked but if you can speak clearly when you say the address it really helps!! We'll get some info on the patients condition and then give instructions in what to do. But from the moment we get the address the help is all being organised so the questions dont delay help. I know this is prob teaching granny to suck eggs but people don't always know
 
Hope your friend makes a full recovery.

Okay so what happens when an ambulance is needed for someone in a random field or for a road accident? That seems like a ridiculous rule.
 
I'm glad your friend is recovering and hope she is not in too much pain. Its always been a worry for me as my horses until recently were in a back block and totally out of sight of all neighbours.

Recently my elderly mum had a fall and broke her hip, 999 was called and an ambulance dispatched - from Milton Keynes - 44 miles and an hour away from Amersham. There were no local ambulances available.

Ambulance service here in NZ is centralised and the operator may have absolutely no clue where you are. A couple of years ago a parent was kicked in the chest by her daughters pony and was on the ground way down the back of the showground - I was on the phone in the office and I was being asked question after question which I couldn't answer as I was no where near her. The reason they were asking was to see if she was a priority case - she was on the ground with a ruptured kidney and broken ribs!!!!!!!!!!

Since when have I been a doctor?

Eventually an ambulance arrived - from out of the area and said they were delayed because they couldn't find the showgrounds - It's only on the Main State Highway - so well sign posted not easy to miss.
 
Brighthair, out of interest. Is there any "tracking" tools you can use if the person really doesn't know the location? I.e tracking the phone signal?
I think this thread serves as a good reminder, to be aware of your surroundings, should anything happen.
 
Not really... We can use mobile phone co ordinates but that only narrows it down so far and usually to a pretty big area!! We all live in different areas so somebody usually has some knowledge of at least one area so I would grab them to listen in to the call, and use the map to help me out
 
How many of you have ICE on your mobiles?

In Case of Emergency - names and phone numbers of people who need to contacted should you have an accident.

Emergency people can then enter ICE into your phone and get in touch with the people who matter most to you.
 
We has similar in April when my daughter was kicked in the face by her horse. Knew the postcode but they still couldn't locate us. Heard them go up the road past the yard and phoned ambulance 3 times to see where they were all the time giving them precise directions.It took them half an hour to get to us. Our yard isn't that difficult to find. You have to go through the cemetary to get to it and we told them to go into the cemetary and bear left (only way you can go ) the only church in the village is huge as far as churches go .At one point they were sat at the bottom of the church road and in the end the vicar ran down there to send them up!

They did however come straight to us when i had to call them again 2 weeks later..Well the local paramedic came straight to us,the nearest ambulance was an hour away at the time.

I know they do their best and all that and ashe only had half her lip hanging off so wasn't life threatening but it's scary as if it had been that 30 mins could have made all the difference.
 
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Most people don't look for ICE. Most emergency services will ring the last few people that you've rang, or "Sister" "Brother" etc. However, ICE is useful but if you use it make sure your phones aren't password protected!
 
Brighthair, slightly off topic but my son broke both the bones in his arm a few weeks ago and it was obvious it was broken.The school called me to go get him and take him to A&E.I thought they should have called an ambulance but after the event my friend said you shouldn't call an ambulance for a broken arm.Is that right ??
 
Maybe they were trying to keep you on the phone in case they couldn't locate you? It makes sense I guess in the event of them getting to a location and not finding the person. (Or perhaps it was a new controller who thought they had to have postcode???) There must be lots of occasions where postcodes are not given.

I once witnessed a major crash on a road I travel on regularly. One car had gone head on into the crash barrier, and another 4x4 had rolled several times & was on its side. I phoned the ambulance, and it was probably shock but I had a total mind blank - I couldn't even remember what road we were on. They were great, asking me for landmarks, road signs with numbers on etc and I assume they would have found us that way. Luckily it was a major road, so I'm sure other people had also rung for an ambulance and after 30 seconds or so my brain started working again and I could give them a proper location!
 
With re the person who said about carrying a grid reference card for hacking, I read something in the paper only this week about all this, and how with sat navs emergency services were now trying to get postcodes rather than anything else and the issues this was causing. Cited the examples of experienced walkers who are used to using grid references in this kind of situation and have little alternative half way up a fell.

What I don't get is if you so desire, you can enter grid references into my sat nav anyway *confused* And I've only got a basic cheapy model.

Re the school/ambulance thing - at our equine first aid training we're always told to get ambulances for that sort of thing, and at the bottom line for any concern at all. I guess if the rider's mother is present anyway for example she might be happy to take a broken arm to hospital, but I think the point they're drumming into us is that it's NOT ok for us to take anybody who isn't next of kin to A&E in our own transport.

Hope your friend is better soon OP!
 
As a school First Aider I always ring an ambulance if we cannot get hold of parents/carers immediately and we think the situation warrants an ambulance. I would rather be in trouble for calling an ambulance unnecessarily than not calling one in time.
 
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