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Hello, bass playing, book reading, hobby nerd in my spare time. Professionally a Call Handler/Dispatcher for a UK Ambulance service. I came here because places like Reddit, Facebook, and Imgur I just find a bit too depressing/angry. This moose needs to see something nice in the world.




Welcome, here, I'm going to give you a /giphy that hopefully is happy. You should try to give me a giphy back, it's fun!
Hello other moose!
Being a dispatcher for an ambulance service seems like it would be cool but also tough. Lots of things to keep track of, presumably!
Hello there!,
The call handling aspect is the hardest. Having to deal with people when they are scared, hurt, and panicky is tough. It doesn't always go well, but most of the time we get a good outcome.
http://www.theisozone.com/forum/download/file.php?avatar=173364_1471054418.jpg
Yeah I bet. I know I haven't exactly been calm when calling an ambulance.
A couple friends of mine who work in the ICU were telling me about how they had to call an ambulance recently because their baby was turning blue and not breathing. One of them ended up baking cookies because they were panicked. This made me feel better about not being great when calling 911 :p
Wow, that is one of the strangest things I heard as a stress reaction. Normally I just get screamed at in that situation, then I have to stay calm and deliver CPR instructions over the phone (UK Call Handlers are all trained as First Responders, or at least in my area they are currently).
Most calls are fine, you get the odd abusive call, and the occasional bizarre call that gets the control room giggling.
I mean, they had previously "borrowed" a child size "bagger" (I don't know the actual term, sorry) from work, which they had used, and he was breathing again. But they had so much panicked energy that one of them started vacuuming and the other put cookies in the oven, before the paramedics showed up.
I think it took them by surprise, working in critical care, that yeah, when it was them at home they still panicked like hell.
Also, any interest in telling one of the bizarre stories? Does it involve strange objects stuck up bums?
They got lucky, the valve bags are intended for adults and can be too high pressure for infants, but you can use them as a mouth guard to protect both parties (with infants there is nearly always vomit involved.
I did end up walking around in circles in the carpark after dealing with my first arrest. Managed to instruct a passerby how to do CPR and resuscitated the PT. They had choked on bacon during breakfast. That was a win.
We do get called with things in bums, it's mostly the stories that people make up to justify why said pear, pencil, toothbrush etc was up there.
I'm not really allowed to go into specifics, but we had someone calling because their partner had fallen unconscious and had a case Vaginismus (Google it) while he was still coupled. That got the whole control room giggling like kids at 0430. The poor girl who actually took the call had to keep a totally straight face while the rest of room was in tears.
Yeah I don't recall the details about the bag, I just remember that it was specifically one for infants/children. idunno.
Also oh my gosh, falling unconscious during that.. oh dear.
A pear is an interesting thing to put up your bum.
I'm not really sure what is wrong with a good old fashioned butt plug, honestly. But, to each their own.
Or just about any other phallic shaped fruit or vegetable would do if you have an urgent need and UPS is just too slow.
We never did find out if it was the narrow end first or the bulbous end.