Alarming accident/999 call

[Ottinmeg]

That's interesting, i was half an hour away when i got the call and didn't get to the phone in time so they left me a message which i picked up straightaway.Then they called me right back again.When i saw his arm i thought they maybe should have called an ambulance.We had moved to the area a few weeks previous and he had been at the school for 3 weeks.I didn't have a clue where the nearest hospitals were! this was how his arm looked

 

[brighthair]

It is unusual for them to do that, in a way people are so worried about being sued etc they will usually ring straight away

 

[Rowreach]

There is no way I would recommend sending a child to A&E in a car with a multiple fracture like that That is definitely a job for the pros Is he okay?

 

[Ottinmeg]

yeh he is fine, the bones are mending and the cast comes off on 5th july,well he goes back on the 5th for review! We were left waiting in A&E for an hour without even seeing triage nurse when another nurse from a different dept walked past saw his arm and took him straight through. It appears they had misplaced his card!

 

[Miss L Toe]

Mrsd123 what do you mean? Should have said is helpful to get someone to ring off landline if possible as address will match. And the rumour about using 112 so your location comes up is rubbish, doesn't work

I tried to ring 999 once and I thought the mobile phone went to the local Strathclyde HQ number, as it happens I was in a non reception area so it did not ring out.
My memory is a bit hazy, but as someone happened along, I got sorted out OK

 

[Mithras]

There was a similar thing involving a farm accident a few years ago in the north east of Scotland. The ambulance drivers had sat nav but no OS maps and could not locate the precise location of the farm, despite being in the right area. Unfortunately the casualty died before they eventually got to him.

All this is very easily resolved by giving all call handlers and ambulance drivers training in map reading and an up to date stock of the relevant OS maps.

 

[brighthair]

We have maps that we can click, zoom in on, click a locatio and it puts the co ordinates in. Most crags, hills, quarries etc are also in the system

 

[Allover]

I had my accident in a field off an un-named road on deepest devon D) i rang 999 and said "in a field near so and so" operator was brilliant but obviously needed more info but as i had only been in the job a few weeks could not really help more, i asked if mobile phone signal could be used and she said it only gets them to the general area. Fortunately a passer by spotted me and the horse and took over the call. An air ambulance was hovvering above us after about 10 mins and the normal ambulance in about 15. They were fantastic.

I said they could not land the helicopter though as the horse was still in the field and would have gone crazy, possibly causing more harm to others (nothing to do with really not wanting to go in a helicopter!!!!).

 

[Dizzydancer]

Glad ur friend is on the mend.
I always thought you could ring 999 no matter if you have mobile phone signal or not. However I have heard that if you dont have signal then you wont get through to anyone. Is this true? It seems slightly daft really as there are many places that dont have a signal and if you are alone/with 1 person who cant leave because they need to put pressure on a wound or similar then how do you get help??

 

[CrazyMare]

I really had to credit the call handlers last time I rang 999 - I witnessed a head on collision on a 60mph bendy road.

I rang, and I said where I was, and the guy asked which towns the road was between (rural area) then narrowed it down by asking which villages I was between, and if I'd gone past any turn offs.

I didn't realise he wasn't local, as I'd described the area by its local name, then he'd got it by asking 3 or 4 questions. Ambulance & police were there within 10 mins, as the cars were blocking the road on a bend.

 

[ThePinkPony]

I needed an ambulance for my son not too long ago, amidst the terror for him the operator kept asking for the postcode, which i gave but explained that it doesnt take you to my house. I had to say this about 20 times before she thought to ask for actual directions so i could explain that this is the postcode but a mile before you get to the destination you go this way, then that way and follow that road and my house looks like this.

Ive had to give directions to mine today and i have to pull up googlemaps and then change the route about ten times.

 

[brighthair]

Glad ur friend is on the mend.
I always thought you could ring 999 no matter if you have mobile phone signal or not. However I have heard that if you dont have signal then you wont get through to anyone. Is this true? It seems slightly daft really as there are many places that dont have a signal and if you are alone/with 1 person who cant leave because they need to put pressure on a wound or similar then how do you get help??

it usually says emergency calls only on your phone or something similar, you can do it in a phone with no sim card as well

 

[snowcrew]

Thanks all for your well wishes for my buddy, who I wish I could say was doing well but I fear she may be returning to hospital again to be reassessed as today not so good.

I hoped my thread would trigger thoughts from all of us horse owners to consider once again the potential difficult situations we can find ourselves in working and/or riding alone with our lovely horses, when things go wrong.

Hopefully, all of us need to keep mobiles charged, friends or family aware of our movements and perhaps the post code/address clearly written on chalk boards or whatever on stables or inside gateways!!

If anyone else has any helpful ideas please do post them on this thread, as accidents do happen and we need to be as responsible as possible.

It has certainly given me a bit of a shake up

Please be sure to know I am NOT criticising the 999 service as they are brilliant, but in our rural locations we live and work in it sometimes is very hard to be specific even with a post code. This accident just highlighted a problem.

Thanks for all your comments - very interesting read.

 

[dianeholmes]

I had to call an ambulance to an injured rider on an endurance ride I organise. The 999 call was a nightmare - the ambulance driver could not find us despite detailed directions. We were on a road in a very rural area so a post code would have been useless. The vet called for the injured horse was there very promptly and well before the ambulance.

The most frustrating part of the call was the endless algorithms the operator was doggedly working through. When asked whether the rider was bleeding I said no, she then went through a list of questions relating to bleeding, was she bleeding from her head, her mouth, her nose etc etc No matter how many times I said she was not bleeding anywhere she continued!! This was repeated with speech, swellings on her head etc, her state of consciousness, on and on interspersed with directions for the lost ambulance! I needed to manage the situation as well as talk on the phone. The casualty was in the care of a fully qualified first aider who was also a very experienced A&E nurse who promptly and correctly diagnosed a broken collar bone.

 

[YorksG]

When my ex-foster daughter broke her collar bone recently, she was told to make her own way to hospital, an ambulance would not be despatched. This would have been acceptable for an able bodied person (perhaps) however she is a wheelchair user, when not using the chair she uses crutches (impossible with a broken collar bone). Her chair needs her to use her hands to propel it, so she had to rely on her partner to get her to the car, transfer to the car and then out again at the hospital. I did not think this was acceptable. We don't call ambulances willy-nilly, as I took sister to hospital in my car when she broke her ankle and sister took our, then in her 70's mother, in her car when mother had broken her ankle.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

Postcodes don't always bring the ambulance to the correct door, even when the emergency is in a house and the caller knows the postcode.
My friend rang for an ambulance for her elderly husband who was having severe breathing problems, they live down a farm track. The call centre operator who took the call insisted that the postcode which she gave was for a house about 15 miles away. The ironic thing is that actually the nearest landmark (at the top of the farm track) is a TV mast which is famous for miles around.
On another occasion a 1st responder turned up at our house when in fact he should have been about 6 miles away dealing with a heart attack victim. As he then got stuck in the snow and had to be towed out, it is to be hoped that the actual ambulance got there without incident.
We have also had a police car looking for someone in the heart attack victim's area.

 

[Rose Folly]

Couldn't agree more with Evelyn. Everyone should have ICE on their mobile - and you can have ICE1, ICE2 etc. so emergency services/helpers can always get in touch with some relative or friend of the victim.

Re emergency services, two years ago we disturbed would-be car thieves in our village at 3am. My son disabled the (stolen, as it turned out) car they had come in, so they were then on foot. Rang 999, was told police would be on their way immediately. Ten minutes later got a call from the police, en route. Where was the incident in relation to the village school and the post office?

The post office closed in the 1960s and the school in 1975!! I couldn't bring myseelf to ask what map they were operating with.

 

[MissMincePie&Brandy]

How awful. I hope your friend makes a speedy recovery.

Surely half of all accidents must happen in places where it isn't possible for the caller to know the postcode? This is really worrying.

Even with a postcode they have problems, because we had to call an ambulance a couple of years ago, and we stated the address and postcode of the yard, and thought nothing more of it. The ambulance took so long to arrive, and when it finally came it emerged they'd tried to get to the farm via an old disused private off road track a couple of miles away, which is privately owned and gated at the end!!! Their sat nav decided that was the quickest way to our yard, which was the most bizarre thing we'd heard, as our yard is just off a main road in the village, so is very easy to get to by public roads.

 

[Time Tells]

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.

I do! and I am pleased to read someone else knows about this. It really needs high-lighting.

 

[Time Tells]

Glad ur friend is on the mend.
I always thought you could ring 999 no matter if you have mobile phone signal or not. However I have heard that if you dont have signal then you wont get through to anyone. Is this true? It seems slightly daft really as there are many places that dont have a signal and if you are alone/with 1 person who cant leave because they need to put pressure on a wound or similar then how do you get help??

If the mobile has NO SIGNAL, you cannot even ring 999.
No signal means NO CALLS.

 

[brighthair]

I had to call an ambulance to an injured rider on an endurance ride I organise. The 999 call was a nightmare - the ambulance driver could not find us despite detailed directions. We were on a road in a very rural area so a post code would have been useless. The vet called for the injured horse was there very promptly and well before the ambulance.

The most frustrating part of the call was the endless algorithms the operator was doggedly working through. When asked whether the rider was bleeding I said no, she then went through a list of questions relating to bleeding, was she bleeding from her head, her mouth, her nose etc etc No matter how many times I said she was not bleeding anywhere she continued!! This was repeated with speech, swellings on her head etc, her state of consciousness, on and on interspersed with directions for the lost ambulance! I needed to manage the situation as well as talk on the phone. The casualty was in the care of a fully qualified first aider who was also a very experienced A&E nurse who promptly and correctly diagnosed a broken collar bone.

we HAVE to follow set protocols and have no choice in the matter. But from the minute the address is given, the help can be dispatched. It may be they were updating the ambulance crew with more directions at the same time as getting more patient information. If a health care professional is willing to take responsibility for the patient, that's fine, but they may have needed to stay on the phone to get the directions and relay to the crew

this is useful (and also entertaining)

http://www.neenaw.co.uk/index.php/ambulances/139/the-10-commandments-of-dialling-999/

 

[Thistle]

OP, that is really worrying, my postcode will get you about a mile away, not much use here then, esp as we are only house on that postcode.

Hope the injured person is ok. Is it anyone I know?

 

[Kat]

Dizzydancer, I think you are a bit confused. You can make emergency calls with no credit, or when your own mobile provider doesn't have a signal but another does, for example an Orange phone could borrow the o2 signal, but if there is no signal at all you can't make any sort of call as the phone can't connect to a network. It is like with phone boxes, you could call 999 if you didn't have 10p but if the phone had its wire cut you couldn't.

If you ride in remote areas it is vital to have ways of getting help. A whistle and a torch would be sensible as well ad someone knowing where you are and how long you will be. Back in the days before mobile phones we would leave a note of our route and times so that if we hadn't returned by the specified time the mountain rescue could be alerted.

 

[Blue Rider]

Postcode not needed if you tell the operator clearly you are not resident at the location and DO NOT KNOW the postcode.
Op's should know how to switch pass on the postcode request and locate on landmark.

 

[snowcrew]

Thanks for replies on this. I will pass all you well wishes onto her.

Thistle, dont think you will have met my buddy out eventing as generally her kids are on the show jumping circuit more.

Please keep this thread going as hopefully it will make everyone more aware of the dangers we encounter every day and what precautions we can take to avoid problems.

thanks everyone.

 

[Dizzydancer]

Thanks for that. To be honest i dont think iv ever had no signal as im not quite that far in the sticks!! Usually emergency calls only.
I always leave a note if hacking alone and a rough time, we have a board for everyone to do the same.

 

[bumblelion]

You'd think with the rest of the address they'd be able to get an ambulance out!

 

[babymare]

okey no good if you keep youre horses alone but on our yard I have argued time and time again for a board so people MUST and I say MUST write aprox time expected out route and who is going - we had a case of a girl going for a hack alone - was gone for hours and I ended up driving round the normal hacks frantic - turms out she had ridden home and turned horse out on back garden (lol its huge garden ) while she chilled but could have been so so different

 

[indie999]

I always understood when you connected to the emergency services it would log your location via nearest phone mast, moreless immediately so that if you got cut off they could still trace the call. Obviously if you were on the end of the phone to continue to give extra directions. They probably kept you talking asking lots of questions as they cannot see what you can see either. Just because there is no blood doesnt mean they are not bleeding etc. A lot of questions are asked as they have to follow a procedure to make sure they dont miss anything either.

Usually if you ring 999 you will hear a click and thats the call being logged/registered. Then if you get cut off they can still find you.

Unfortunately the nature of horse riding is such that we are often out in the middle of nowhere. This is why its so important to support your air ambulances as well, invaluable for us.
Hope your friend is ok and at least its mendable.

 

[brighthair]

indie999 - it doesn't. We might get a town, or a five mile radius from mast but that is almost no use. We then have no idea if you are in a house, a field, or even dialled by accident or made a hoax call. If you get cut off someone will ring you back