The Cape Times spent 12 hours, from 7pm on Saturday night to 7am on Sunday, shadowing a Metro EMS team during a shift around Gugulethu and Mitchells Plain. Reporter Michelle Jones and photographer Matthew Jordaan watched as paramedic Barbara Lessing and intermediate life support practitioner Elizabeth Dreyden worked. This is a timeline of what happened.
19.10
Lessing and Dreyden check the ambulance is fully stocked and ready for whatever may happen during the shift. “There are three things you have to check,” Lessing says as she ensures the oxygen tanks, monitor and suction are in order.
19.44
An indistinct mumble is audible from the radio. Lessing and Dreyden hear the message, “Come towards Khayelitsha”.
A patient needs to be transported from the Khayelitsha Community Health Centre to hospital. There is another ambulance in the area, but without a paramedic on board.
The patient is stable and able to be transported in the other ambulance.
“They should be able to take him to hospital, so we are going to be able to go,” Lessing says.
20.47
Lessing, concerned the batteries on the portable radio won’t last, drives to the ambulance base at Lentegeur Hospital in Mitchells Plain.
The batteries are charged as Lessing and Dreyden take the opportunity for a short break.
21.13
“We’ve got a call,” Lessing says, explaining a child has fallen from a swing. Dreyden studies the mapbook for the Rocklands, Mitchells Plain, address and discusses the best possible route with Lessing.
21.17
Lessing drives the ambulance from the base, with lights flashing and sirens blaring. Other cars on the road appear to ignore the ambulance and continue to drive in its path.
21.30
On arrival at the house the team find the four-year-old sitting on the couch. Her parents are concerned because she cried continuously afterfalling.
21.40
Lessing drives away from the house with Dreyden in the back of the ambulance checking the child for possible injuries.
While on the way to the Mitchells Plain Community Health Centre, a call comes through – another ambulance has been involved in an accident, fallen on its side, and is blocking an intersection.
22.07
News of a Gugulethu resident with multiple stab wounds comes over the radio. A man, shirtless and with a blood-soaked, bandaged arm, sits in his house.
Community members say a relative stabbed the man, but are not sure what they were fighting about.
22.47
The man is stitched and bandaged at the Gugulethu Community Health Centre. A call about a three-car pile-up in Mitchells Plain comes through and the team leave, but are sent back when it emerges that the accident is not serious.
23.47
Another man, with a gunshot wound to the chest and another to the arm, needs to be transported from the Gugulethu Community Health Centre to Groote Schuur Hospital.
He is loaded into the ambulance, but Lessing notes he is too unstable to transport.
“This guy is going to crash on us … His tongue is white, white. We are just changing the place of death.”
Lessing and Dreyden begin to administer CPR and medication. For many minutes they press the man’s chest, rocking the entire ambulance, as the stench of blood and faeces fill the air.
“I’m not negative, but he has no blood pressure. You don’t transport someone with no blood pressure.”
00.15
The pair terminate CPR and Lessing rubs the patient’s shoulder. “Sorry, brother.”
01.04
The ambulance leaves Gugulethu and after a brief coffee stop returns to the Lenteguer base for the vehicle to be cleaned.
03.05
Another patient is barely conscious in Gugulethu.
A blood-soaked shirt lies outside the house and the floor inside is covered in blood. The mumbling man, bleeding and bruised, is loaded into the ambulance and checked for injuries. Community members say that the man was assaulted by his brother. They are unsure why.
04.00
Staff at GF Jooste Hospital are unable to perform a CT scan.
Lessing turns the ambulance towards Groote Schuur Hospital where the scan would be possible.
05.09
Having left the man in the hospital’s trauma ward, the team leave Groote Schuur and after a second brief coffee break return to the Lenteguer base to wait.
06.40
The team return to the Tygerberg hospital base and hand over to the next shift, ready for the day’s sleep.
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