Holidays

An early blog this week as I am off on holiday for 2 weeks. By the way if anyone would like a long range weather forecast let me know, as after several weeks of dry sunny weather, first day of my holidays and its raining. This is a normal occurrence when I book leave!

This week saw me as Operational Commander / Bronze officer for 3 days and attending a variety of incidents including a collision between a bus and car. Only 2 minor injuries, 1 dealt with at scene and 1 transported to hospital for further checks.

Another incident saw joint working between ambulance crews and Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue to extract a patient who had fallen whilst working on scaffolding. Great patient focused team work soon saw the patent safely packaged and on the ground, ready for onward transport to the hospital.

When I use the term "packaged" I don't mean cardboard boxes and packing tape. The term packaged means ready for transport and this can be simply that the patient is on a carry chair and blanketed ready to get them out of a property. It can also mean as in this case the patient was secured on to a combi board and immobilised before being placed in a basket stretcher. One of the most difficult tasks that ambulance crews can face is how to get a patient safely from their current location to the ambulance, they  have a variety of equipment directly available to them and also via other agencies.

              Carry chair                  Combi Board

       Stretcher

Above are the basic tools of the trade for moving patients to the ambulance.

This weekend in Bournemouth also see the Bournemouth Air Festival an annual event drawing huge crowds to see some spectacular flying all for free.

Whatever you are doing over the next couple of weeks enjoy the bank holiday weekend and stay safe. Normal service will be resumed in a fortnight.