In Rude Health Read online

  A&E Registrar, Falkirk

  Fist Aid

  For some reason people never understand why the presence of a first aider at the scene of an accident only makes us drive faster. Here’s why:

  We were called to a restaurant where a man had suffered a suspected heart attack. The notes stated that there was a ‘first aider on scene’.

  When we arrived we found the patient fully conscious, but with a huge amount of chest pain. It turns out that when the customer fainted, a customer on the other side of the restaurant jumped up, shouted, ‘Don’t worry, I’m a trained first aider,’ and before even checking for vital signs started on CPR.

  Whilst he’s thumping away with his fist, the patient wakes up and starts screaming, though the first aider doesn’t stop, just keeps shouting ‘It’s all right, mate, I’m a trained first aider!’ until staff manage to pull him off.

  The hapless diner ended up having to spend a night in hospital with three broken ribs. The first aider had vanished, without even paying for his meal.

  Paramedic, Dover

  Meat is Murder

  A woman came to the surgery during the height of the swine flu panic. I diagnosed her with a mild case of the illness, sent off some tests and told her to go home, rest and take regular fluids and paracetamol.

  She looked at me, incredulous and angry. ‘That’s impossible,’ she said. It can’t be swine flu. I’m a strict vegetarian.’

  GP, London

  Suffer a Jet

  I once treated a healthy young woman who presented with acute onset of abdominal pain and found her to have extensive pneumoperitoneum – which means she had air in her abdomen.

  And where did the air come from? It was ‘Jacuzzi-jet-induced’ she admitted.

  Consultant Surgeon, Harrogate

  Anatomy Lessons

  A 19-year-old female came into A&E and I asked her what the problem was. She said that she and her boyfriend were having sex and the condom came off and she wasn’t able to retrieve it with her fingers. She then went to the bathroom and stuck two fingers down her throat, but apparently she couldn’t vomit it up either...

  Triage Nurse, Slough

  Nailed

  Working on the call desk of the Glaswegian ambulance service, I got this call from, shall we say, a rather rough area.

  ‘Alright, pal, I need to get someone to have a look at my leg.’

  ‘OK, what is the matter with it?’

  ‘Ah wiz takin a telly oot a flat on Wednesday, right, when ah saw the polis drive up the road, but, so ah thought to mesel, Ahm nae gonna get lifted for this, eh, cause ah’m on bail, ken, so ah dropped it and jumped o’er a coupla fences and made aff. Problem is, ah didnae see this nail, right, and it did mah leg...’

  ‘I see, so you’d like me to get you an ambulance for a cut to the leg you sustained yesterday, whilst running from the police?’

  ‘Aye, that’s right, hen, so send me the fuckin ambulance, now!’

  It wasn’t an ambulance I sent to that address that night.

  Call handler, Glasgow

  Blade Runner

  A teenager was brought in with concussion and a small cut on his forehead, which had been bleeding profusely. It was only superficial, however, and didn’t need stitching. When we asked him how it had happened, he went bright red, and very quietly said he’d been shaving in the shower and had fallen over. Puzzled, I mentioned that that didn’t sound very embarrassing, to which he replied, ‘Um, I wasn’t shaving up there, I was shaving downstairs.’

  Nurse, Wrexham