Another early start for the last day of the Cheltenham Festival. Today I will be in Control, working with a GWAS (Great Western Ambulance Service) Controller, dispatching all medical resources around the site. We have 4 foot patrols, a cycle response unit, 10 ambulances and some officers on site for the day.
I set up in control while all of the other medical staff attend the briefing, but 10 minutes in, the first emergency call comes in- a member of staff had fallen in one of the catering areas. I rang down to the medical centre to interrupt the briefing, and ask for an available crew to take the call.
In control we use a clever bit of software called Despatch, which shows the location and status of all units, and logs all call times, and radio comms, and pretty much anything you want! Units who are available are shown in green, busy units are shown as red.
It was very hectic all morning, with many calls, including falls, angina attack, collapse and others, and at one point every resource on the screen was red, and the calls were stacking up!
Around lunchtime, it calmed down a bit, and I managed to get a break for lunch, (goats cheese and spinach tart, with vegetables). Once I returned to control it was fairly steady all afternoon, with only a few really busy periods.
As always, just when we were getting ready to go home, we had a call come in for a collapse near one of the gates. I despatched the nearest foot patrol, and also the cycle response team. The cycle response team arrived first, despite being a lot further away than the foot patrol. They requested an ambulance to their location, and this turned out to be quite a protracted incident, as it was unclear whether the casualty had any injury, or was just drunk! Eventually they got him off site, and on his way to the Emergency Department.
We then had the order to stand down, but the last job was to close down control, disconnect all the computers and pack up. Job done, the car arrived to take me home after a very tiring day!
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