Bleeding+++
Hello,

I was lodging at his best mate’s house about a decade ago. We both worked for the same company, he had a car so I got a lift into work each morning.

One morning, the frost had been quite bad, my mate and I were walking to his car. This walk evolved having to traverse some concrete steps in order to reach the car park above. These steps were nice big slabs of concrete cemented into place, with nice sharp corners on them.

On that fateful day, I was approaching the bottom of these steps at a right angle, with my hands stuffed into my jeans pockets because of the cold.

Unfortunately, at the bottom of these steps was a patch of ice, my feet slip out from under me and, without the ability to stop my fall (hands in pockets), I fall on my back with my head making a not insubstantial contact with the corner of the bottom step. I made an embarrassingly loud cry as my head smashed into the concrete.

My mate, who was ahead of me, turned round at the time I was attempting to get back on my feet. I think is words were ‘Oh for fucks sake… OH SHIT’. I remember blood dripping down the side of my face and my mate taking his jacket off and starting to wrap it around my head. I also remember saying ‘head wounds always look bad and can bleed a lot’, at this point all a knew was my head hurt and blood was dripping past my left eye. He told me ‘Yes, but they don’t squirt all over the place’.

I don’t remember much of the drive to A&E, what with my head being wrapped my mate’s jacket, like some mad turban.

When we reached A&E, I just about remember staggering around, jacket on head while my mate (bless him) explained what happened. The next thing I know, I’m bundled into a wheelchair and taken into a room where a nurse peeled my mate’s now knackered jacket off and bandaged my head. She wrote out a brief description: Head wound, bleeding +++.

After a short wait, I was wheeled into another room by a nice nurse, who told me to lie down on the table and she would treat my wound. By this time the panic had subsided and I thought I would be stitched up and on my way in no time.

As she undid the bandage, she went ‘Urh’ and then did the bandage back up. She said that she would not be able to treat me and was going to get the matron.

A couple of minutes later, the matron comes in and says ‘Ok Mr Shadders, your head needs some stitching that the nurse can’t do, so I’m here to do it now, no need to worry’. She then unwound my bandage and then uttered ‘Oh my, urgh!’ and promptly did my bandage back up. She then said that I had a serious wound that would require a surgeon to fix.

Another few minutes waiting, now I’m thinking, “Christ, how much damage has been done? It can’t be good when two professionals get freaked out and run off to find a superior”
Eventually, a surgeon comes in and unwinds my bandage yet again, he says “Oh dear, that’s a nasty mess”. Then he tells me that I have a severed artery that needs to be reconnected, but before he can do that, he has to get the bits of concrete out of my head. After that, he can sew my scalp back together. I’m no expert, but having a look on the interweb, it must have been the Supra-orbital. Mr. Surgeon then goes and puts on an apron.

By that time I was just glad to have someone say they could do something rather than sounding like they were retching and running away to find some other poor sod to do the work.

After he had injected me with anaesthetic around the wound and had started taking the bits of concrete out (an odd sensation), some other chap comes into the room and starts say ‘Ah, Mr. Surgeon there you are, I just wanted to….Urh, I can see you’re a bit busy, I’ll come back later’

Anyhoo, Mr. Surgeon finishes the job and sends me on my way. I remember waiting to a lift home, trying to see what my head looked like in window reflections as there were no car around (I would have used the wing mirrors). If my head hadn’t been throbbing so much I would have laughed at the amount of people who walked by took a look at me, then registered my stitches, grimaced and looked away.

I have to say, that I owe a lot to those people who were on duty at A&E that day. I doubt that my injury would have been one that would have stopped bleeding on it’s own. I certainly don’t resent the nurse or the matron for having the guts to say they could not deal with it and find someone who could. I’d much rather that, than making a crap attempt at fixing the problem. I should also thank my mate for sacrificing his jacket and getting me to hospital quickly, I shudder to think what would have happened had I been on my own. Thanks John!

You know what the weirdest thing is? After all that, the most blood I saw would have been enough to half fill a plastic cup from an office water cooler.
(shadders, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 1:07, 2 replies)

Crap, can't you edit posts?
The first paragraph:
"I was lodging at his best mate’s house about a decade ago"

Should read:
"I was lodging at my best mate’s house about a decade ago"

Sorry, it's past my bed time.

Shadders.
(shadders, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 1:10, closed)

Hey! I resent this post.
Notice: not personally directed at you

Do patients actually think the sister and the matron are able to stitch up a severed artery FFS?
"By that time I was just glad to have someone say they could do something rather than sounding like they were retching and running away to find some other poor sod to do the work."


They weren't freaking out and running away, grrr, they were running to get the best person for the job! It's not passing the buck to do something properly. They could deal with it fine: by getting the next person up.

This is one of the admittedly many reasons there is a nursing shortage in the US and the UK. People fully believe a college educated health professional would decide they were too grossed out to "deal with" a head wound and walk away from a patient, leaving his care to someone else. Can you see for an instant just a little bit of how insulting that is to us? And yet we still slog through blood and guts, helping people who think this little of us.

If you needed a life-saving hilarious post, would you go to me? No, you would go to Legless, emadex, Scaryduck or chickenlady or rachelswipe or BGP or Pooflake or Rob or Citadel or chnonthic or any of a gazillion of our other fucking brilliant posters. It's simply a matter of using your resources properly...

takes her huff and stomps away in it

Apologies for length tantrum
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 1:51, closed)