Dan Farnworth - 999--My Life on the Frontline of the Ambulance Service

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2020
A CBS COMPANY

Copyright Dan Farnworth, 2020

The right of Dan Farnworth to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Grays Inn Road
London WC 1X 8 HB

www.simonandschuster.co.uk
www.simonandschuster.com.au
www.simonandschuster.co.in

Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

The author and publishers have made all reasonable efforts to contact copyright-holders for permission, and apologise for any omissions or errors in the form of credits given. Corrections may be made to future printings.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Hardback ISBN : 978-1-4711-8442-0
eBook ISBN : 978-1-4711-8443-7

Typeset in Palatino by M Rules

Printed in the UK by CPI Group ( UK ) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4 YY

For Maddison, Rhianna, Courtney and Harrison. And for Mum and Dad my beacons in the toughest times, who helped make me the person I am today.

In memory of Paul Edmondson, a true legend and an amazing son, father, brother and friend.

Although I have not identified people and places, for reasons of privacy, the events in this book are described as happened. I wrote this book for a few main reasons: first, so that the public might have a better understanding of what an ambulance persons job entails; second, as a tribute to my colleagues, who continue to work wonders in difficult circumstances, and to the NHS , which is undoubtedly creaking, but remains a beacon of hope for so many; and third, to highlight the strain the job puts on an ambulance persons mental health and my efforts to raise awareness of this problem.

It was a dark and stormy night. The rain fell in torrents...

Actually, thats a big, fat fib. Its never that dramatic and there are rarely any omens. The night in question as with most nights in the ambulance service was like any other bog-standard midweek shift. We may have attended an elderly woman who had fallen over on her way to the toilet and a middle-aged man who had woken up with chest pains. What you might call our bread and butter. Did a drunk bloke try to punch me? Maybe. Its happened more than once. There was hardly any traffic on the roads and more foxes than people on the pavements. Which was preferable, as foxes have the good grace and manners not to get bladdered on Jgerbombs and collapse in shop doorways.

We get a call from the police: Weve got this guy on the phone, telling us hes killed his mum with an axe. Thing is, hes always saying this. Either he had ten mums or hes making it up again. Will you go and have a look?

Just to confirm: the police want us to attend a patient whos claiming hes killed his mum with an axe, even though we dont have weapons, stab vests or any training in dealing with the mentally ill? This could be interesting. I turn to my partner and say, Sod this, unless they provide us with full suits of body armour, I aint going in without the police.

The bloke is most likely talking a load of nonsense, but what if this is the one time hes telling the truth? Ive got four kids, for Gods sake.

So we drive to the address, at the most undramatic speed imaginable, park up around the corner from the axe murderers house and stake the place out. But staking places out is a bit difficult in an ambulance: I dont know if youve noticed, but theyre custard yellow with a flashing blue light on the top.

Me and my partner spend the next forty minutes swapping tales of dramatic and traumatic jobs, before the police finally turn up. Thanks for popping in, lads.

We line up behind two coppers on the axe murderers doorstep, the door swings open and there he is in all his drunken glory, staggering all over his hallway and telling us to piss off. In the strongest terms, he denies making any phone calls, and while hes doing so, his cat escapes. Now hes telling us that he used to be in the Royal Marines and that if we dont find his cat, hell beat us all up. The polices reaction? Can we go now? Our reaction? Can we come in and assess you? His reaction? Clear off, ya bastards!

This is a bit of a dilemma. If we leave without assessing him and he falls down the stairs, the fact hes told us to leave him alone is neither here nor there. But what can you do when youre faced with an aggressive ex-Marine-cum-axe murderer? The police have a quick look around his house, find no sign of a dead mum and get the hell out of Dodge. Were right behind them.

Back in the ambulance, a new job appears on our screen: SEVEN-WEEK-OLD CHILD , NOT BREATHING . CARDIAC ARREST . My heart sinks. This is every ambulance persons worst nightmare. I switch on the blue lights and floor it.

Its not uncommon to be told a child is not breathing, only to arrive at the job to find a panicky mum and a toddler with some mucus stuck in his throat. I dont blame the parents; it must be terrifying. But sometimes you just have a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach. You might call it an ambulance persons sixth sense, the ability to predict whether an emergency is genuine.

This job is just around the corner from the hospital, so we have a decision to make. The hospital has doctors, nurses, paediatricians and a hundred other specialists, while our ambulance contains an emergency medical technician i.e. me and a paramedic, who in this case is fairly new to the job. If we were miles away from the hospital, wed stay in the house, administer the drugs and try to do everything in our power to resuscitate the child before whisking it away. But on this occasion, we have a quick chat and decide to get to the house, pick up the baby and leg it, as fast as our ambulance will carry us. In the trade, we call it a scoop and run. As is often the case in the ambulance service, its a cheery phrase that belies its seriousness.

We can only drive an ambulance 20mph over the limit, and its not a rule thats usually flouted. Theres no point in driving so fast that you crash into a wall and never make it. I call it driving to arrive. And it doesnt matter if youre on your way to a family stuck in a house fire or a car wreck, if you run someone over and they die, you will end up in court. But this particular job is a case of bollocks to the rules.

We pull up outside the house, jump out of the ambulance and can hear a woman screaming, My baby! My baby!

And it suddenly hits me, like a breeze block to the face: this is it, the job we train for. If an elderly woman falling on her way to the toilet is a league fixture, this is a cup final. I have to be at the top of my game. I have to do things right, because there is so much at stake. I jump in the back of the ambulance and grab everything we might need: the defibrillator, an ALS (advanced life support) bag, oxygen, drugs and a bag of other tricks. Unfortunately, the bag of tricks doesnt contain a magic wand.

We march through the open front door looking like a couple of packhorses equipment and bags hanging over shoulders, round necks and off every finger and thumb and head in the direction of the screaming. As I climb the stairs, the adrenalin kicks in and everything starts moving in slow motion, which means Im able to process things faster. I repeat to myself, ABC airway, breathing, circulation. Just do what youve been taught.