Memoirs of an Emergency Nurse by Elizabeth Nicholl Read Free Book Online Page A

, running over his lower body and throwing his passenger girlfriend off the bike into a hedge.
    The biker hurt everywhere . N ot surprisingly . H e was so lucky to be alive after colliding with a tonne and a half of tractor . We had a basic trauma series of x-rays done while he was in resuscitation and luckily he had no cervical spine fractures so the doctor removed his collar . His blood pressure remained low and despite the collar being removed, I could only sit him up a little without him feeling dizzy and his blood pressure dropping. W e then moved him into radiology to get a full pelvis x-ray , left arm, right thigh and ankle. The radiographers must have spent over half an hour in there x-raying his bones . The diagnosis was not good. H e had a smashed pelvis and had lost so much blood from that injury , that we commenced a three unit blood transfusion in emergency before transferring him to the ward . His blood pressure remained low and he could only tolerate sitting up a little without turning grey and hav ing to lie down again .
    His girlfriend had been brought into emergency by ambulance and the nurse caring for her told me she would bring her around in a wheelchair after plastering her arm and leg. Men and women bikers waited patiently outside for news of his condition but we were all too busy and worried about him to leave him alone or bring his friends in to see him . His left leg was relatively unscathed but for a puncture hole behind his knee ; his right leg was broken in several places and had cuts and grazes all over it ; he had broken bones in his hand and bits of leather in open wounds .
    After the first unit of blood , his condition stabilised and I was able to bring his friends in . They were all over thirty and wearing the appropriate leathers and boots . I stayed while they told him how his girlfriend was . She had sustained a C olles ’ fracture of her wrist, both radial and ulna bones were broken and her left leg was broken. S he was also shaken . The nursing staff in the main area had managed to get her into a wheel chair and wheeled her around to be by the biker’s side . The biker kept asking for more pain relief and we kept topping him up until he went to the ward . H e still looked ghastly pale and his friends , lacking in medical knowledge , didn’t seem to understand the full severity of his injuries.              
    A nurse came in and asked if it was alright if the biker’s parents came in . D espite being over thirty , he didn’t want to have to face telling hi s mum and dad that he had had a crash and he was more worried about them telling him off than anything else . Once they came in , sure enough , they were worried about him and relieved their son was alive, not concerned about his crash or his bike . People worry about the silliest things that even don’t matter . S eeing critically ill people every day definitely puts things into perspective. When I go home , I know what really matters in life.              
    The biker went to the trauma orthopaedic ward and later went to theatre to get an external fixater on his pelvis . These are metal pins to hold the bones tog ether and help them heal in the correct position . H e had wiring and plating to his leg that was broken, but continued to be unwell for the next week . H is girlfriend was also an in-patient and we managed to get her on the same ward as him.

White Powder
    Paramedics brought a patient into the resuscitation room one day accompanied by the police . H e was formally under arrest but he was quite unwell so the officers stood to one side and let us provide medical treatment .
    The paramedics handed over that the patient had been involved in a road traffic accident, consisting of a driver’s side collision at approximately seventy mph . The patient had low blood pressure and suspected multiple injur i es . The patient’s mechanism of injury was the initial reason for assessing the patient in the