Cool heads take on big freeze

By Matt White

Friday, January 15, 2010

WIGHT LIVINGAS the Island came to a standstill during last week’s snowfall, paramedics went to extraordinary lengths to ensure they were not frozen out.

With hundreds of workers across the Island enjoying most of the week at home, there was no such luxury for IW ambulance staff, who simply had to get there, regardless of the weather and the chaos it caused.

Pick up points around the IW were organised for staff who needed collecting in 4x4 vehicles and colleagues put in extra hours to provide cover where needed.

The battle with the elements caused major disruption on the roads, many of which were impassable, as ambulances experienced huge delays transporting patients.

When the snow hit on Tuesday night, it took one ambulance with a patient on board an hour-and-a-half to get from the county showground, Northwood, to St Mary’s Hospital.

It took 20 minutes just to get an ambulance from the vehicle depot to the front entrance of the hospital, while a lady who urgently required dialysis had to be pushed through the snow in a wheelchair.

On Wednesday, all regular ambulances were off the road, meaning only life-threatening calls could be responded to by crews. They had ten 4x4 vehicles in total, six cars, plus three coastguard trucks and one vehicle loaned by St John Ambulance, although only three could take someone on a stretcher.

Other 999 calls were dealt with by clinical advisers, who decided whether an emergency vehicle was required.

"Normally an ambulance would be dispatched for every call but we simply didn’t have the vehicles to get out, so it was priority cases only," said Chris Smith, head of the IW Ambulance service.

As the snow turned to ice on Thursday, it was another treacherous day on the roads, particularly side streets, which were more like skating rinks than highways.

Mary Long, left, and Tracey Bennett stretcher an elderly patient to her nursing home in Totland. Picture by Jennifer Burton.

On Friday, one unlucky ambulance got stuck three times on icy roads. Twice good samaritans in 4x4s pulled the vehicle free and the third time a tractor turned rescuer.

To get a full appreciation of the challenges faced by ambulance staff, CP photographer Jennifer Burton and I spent Thursday afternoon in one of three frontline ambulances put back on the road.

More than 40 calls were made to the service that day from people who had fractured bones, which had followed a quieter few days, as most people took the advice to stay at home.

However, as we followed paramedic Tracey Bennett and Mary Long, a high dependency unit supervisor, no emergency calls came in, so instead, we took patients home from St Mary’s, to free up more beds.

Normally a patient transport minibus would carry out the task but the weather made that impossible and frontline ambulances were required to help.

We took two patients back to Totland — one was an elderly lady on a stretcher — and we collected another man to take back to hospital, as all trips of this kind are planned and organised to make efficient use of time.

The numbers of cars left abandoned at the side of the road on the way to the West Wight served as a clear reminder of how bad the roads were.

And when we got there, we dropped one patient off in Ward Road, which was covered in thick ice.

The ambulance virtually slid along the road as we pulled up to stop and unloading the patient was extremely hazardous, with everywhere so slippery.

"The service goes on whatever the weather and we do what we can in the circumstances but this weather makes even routine tasks very difficult," said Mary, who was driving the ambulance.

On returning to the ambulance depot, it was clear teamwork played a huge part in making sure Islanders had an ambulance service they could rely on during the snow.

Ground staff had been busy shovelling snow to enable ambulance access around the hospital grounds and Chris Smith had special praise for everyone.

"We all pulled together and it was a fantastic team effort," he said.