#33 - The Stabbing and the lesson

#33 - The stabbing.


Just when you think is is safe to knock off...ring ring!!  Help us help us there is a man here who has been stabbed!  The phone call came through from a home just 300 m from the clinic.   On these islands the Nurses are the ambulance.  We have a white Toyota Troopy with a stretcher in the back, but no emergency gear.  It's got the Red cherry lights on top but no siren, and its got a two way radio, but no one else on the island is on the same channel!! 

So off I go in the ambulance, with Lizzy one of our health workers, and arrive at the house.  There is a woman out front on the deck, pointing inside.  I go in, gloves on, combine ready, and here is the bloke covered in blood, holding his arm.  Face washer over what I was expecting to be a near amputation from all the blood!!!
I open up the face cloth slowly in case it spurts me in the eye, and .....WHAT.  a cut that is only a centimeter long!!  Let down...big time.
So I walk him to the car.  as he climbs in to the vehicle, a woman climbs in the other door.  I say to the bloke...why is she coming and who is she..." oh that is my girl friend, , she is the one who stabbed me"

What!!!  So I again ask if He is ok with her coming up to the clinic too.  He replies ..."Yes she has to, she has stabbed her self too!!!!"   Oh, the plot thickens.  Can this get any crazier, I think.

So we get back to the clinic, Annies takes the woman into one room, I take the bloke into another.  Annie and I meet in the corridor between the "lovers" and get our story straight..
Annie tells me, "Your patient, was caught by my patient texting girls on his phone!"   It is a strange dynamic.  It is like Male and female nurse have taken sides, and I feel somewhat accused. "well that is no excuse to stab my client" I reply, as though this was a court room drama.  "What did she say she stabbed him with ?" I asked Annie, to which she retorts, "she didnt say, she just produced this!"

And that is where I learned my lesson.  The colour drained from my face and I felt a wave of nausea, as Annie produced a kitchen knife which had been surrendered by the woman, still wild, and fuming and homicidal with my patient.  I went into the home of a domestic violence case, with the assailant still there, and still armed with a knife, and transported them both back to the clinic and put my colleagues at risk.
It is a Hard pill to swallow.  This woman was fuelled up on PNG Gunja, grog, and jealousy, and was still armed with a kitchen knife, and without any regard for my own safely, I foolishly found myself in a situation which could have ended in a tragic headline!!!

In my education on emergency practice, I harp on the fundamental First aid principle of DRSABCD
Danger
Response
Send for help
Airway
Breathing
Compressions
Defibrillation
Number one principle of all medical aid situations is scene safety, and there is not too many people that could disagree that I failed in this point.

So this gets me thinking.   Despite best intentions to follow rules, and regulations, and policies and procedures, the human factor allows mistakes to happen.  One small slip up with no adverse outcome, but when thinking of what could have gone wrong, it makes my blood run cold, and cuts me down to the extent, that I realise, I am only human.

To all those I teach, and mentor.  To all those I have chastised for being irresponsible. To all those that hold me on a high pedestal...know this.  I make mistakes.

But also let me share this wisdom...Make every mistake a new one.
Yawo!!