Woman Dies As Medic Drinks Tea.

[eyethenkyew]

A young woman suffered a fatal heart attack while a medic 800 yards away refused to attend because he was having a refreshment break. Another unit was dispatched instead, from further away, arriving after 21 minutes, but the lady died.

Should the refusnik medic be punished? If so, suitable suggestions, please?
Or was he fully justified and entitled to his break instead?
Perhaps the lady wouldn't have survived in either case? Should the medic have at least tried, though?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/...ands-islands-11673344

[redcrx]

if the medic had been told that this was a suspected cardiac arrest (and he mustve been aware if air ambulance had been called) then i hope he is appalled with himself and can live with that decision he made.

Are medics given a set break time? bobjugs would probably be able to answer that for us, but i would assume that its the same with emergancy services, if you can get there to help you drop everything to do so

[Sqad]

If the facts are as we read them:

He should be investigated, given the chance to respond............and then sacked.

Heart attack in a 33 year old woman...... probably would have been the same outcome.

[Zeuhl]

When asked to explain his actions, did the Paramedic insert any song titles?
.

[Sqad]

Been thinking in a less emotional state.
B0llock him, but do NOT sack him.
Heart attack aged 33years old, death was almost certainly caused by ventricular fibrillation which could only be reversed by a shock with a defibrilator within 10mins, which was not available.
CPR in this case, by trained personnel would only have a success rate of about 5%.
He was having his break, NOT a paramedic. no defibrilator so she was a "goner" from the start.

Miracles only very rarely happen.

[mike11111]

True Sqad, but this is with hindsight. I'm sure the medic involved did not assess the situation as you have done when he got the call. Even though the poor woman would have died regardless, incidents like these do then to cast certain members of the emergency services in a very poor light.

[Sqad]

mike....true....a PR disaster at best.

[Gromit]

It does sound pretty callous behaviour..

// The control centre in Inverness contacted Mr McLaughlin and asked him to attend. Miss Keith, 43, said: "I heard the air ambulance going over the top of my house. I noticed an ambulance at Mandy's house at the bottom of the road.

"I phoned the station. I said: 'Owen what's going on? There's an air ambulance at the bottom of my road'.

"His exact words were 'Shirley, you're not going to like what I'm about to say. They shouted me on my break but I refused to go." She added: "I was totally numb with disbelief, I just hung up the phone.

"We may not have been able to make a difference to Mandy but we were only two minutes away from her and he's got all the equipment, including a defibrillator, in the back of the ambulance.

"When Mandy really needed help he let her down. That is so wrong."

An ironic twist to the saga is that Miss Mathieson's late grandfather, Charlie Skene, was the village's ambulance driver in the past and had successfully campaigned for a dedicated vehicle for the area. //

http://news.stv.tv/sc...-by-ambulance-driver/

Unprofessional. I know how I would feel if the deceased was a friend of mine. I would not be too bothered if he was sacked.

[ludwig]

What I don't understand is that surely in that kind of emergency role, you're permanently on call - if you get a call to attend then that's what you do, as long as you're actually on the shift - there's no such thing as a refreshment break during it.

[daffy654]

This man was an ambulance driver for a small village, he can hardly have been so rushed off his feet that he hadn't had time for a cup of tea all day. I would be interested to hear how many calls he had been on since the beginning of his shift.

He might have been able to save the young woman if he'd attended with all the relevant equipment (defibrillator).

[razza]

It is a difficult situation this,the paramedic gets orders from above that they must take their breaks,a local paramedic got a rollicking a couple of years ago for defying his bosses and attending a car crash when he should have been on a break,that is what these health and safety rules do for you.

[ludwig]

// When asked to explain his actions, did the Paramedic insert any song titles? //

Zeuhl - apparently he said 'I thought to myself - should I stay or should I go? - and then I decided, well I'm damned if I agadoo doo doo and I'm damned if I Agadon't don't don't'. Which obviously lightened what would otherwise have been quite a depressing situation.

[jaydah]

Pass the buck ?

[theshedman]

I know people on here have complained about the fire service going on strike on bonfire night, though they have said that all 999 calls would be answered but as far as I am aware they have never not answered a call because they were in the middle of a tea break and I don't think they ever would.

[bobjugs12]

It's hard to be able to comment on an individual case, especially when the sources that we have to work with (ie the media) are so flawed in their reporting.
If it was the case that he knew it was a cardiac arrest and refused to attend then string him up. If however he was on break, and they asked to interupt his meal (maybe the first chance he had to get some food all day), for another generic chest pain then he made the wrong decision and he will have to bear that burden for the rest of his life.

As sqad has stated, she was probably a goner with or without an ambulance in attendance, so whilst his actions may have been thoughtless and selfish, they did not contribute to her death.

Just a quick point about the meal break thing. In a 12 hour shift, we get 30mins stand down, during which time we are still on call. If control had deemed this an urgent case they would have ordered the crew out rather than just asking. We can refuse a request whilst on break, we cannot refuse an order.If the call had initially gone in as a Chest Pain, then it's understandable that there may have been scepticism about the nature of the complaint. We get on average 3 Chest Pain jobs per crew per shift. Over the course of a week thats hundreds of calls received by control, and of those only a tiny percentage are of cardiac origin. Maybe the Tech in question assumed (wrongly) that a 33 year old women with no cardiac history would probably be complaining about indigestion or a chest infection.

As I stated, if he knew this was an arrest and refused to attend then he should never be allowed to touch a patient again. If however, this is media led hype, then put your pitchforks away and calm down.

[bobjugs12]

Sorry shedman, but the fire brigade do that all the time mate.

[theshedman]

bobjugs in my time we on many occasions had to leave our meals to answer a call. Never did we say, can't go, call again after we have finished our break. If you have read the article the brother of the lady in question was himself a fireman and he says the same. In the article it says it was reported as an emergency and all emergency calls should be answered asap as you will know yourself.