I had to call an ambulance for someone this week. Obviously, that’s never a good thing, but sometimes accidents happen and you have to deal with them. This injury was thankfully not life-threatening, but it did need an ambulance. And so I dialled 082 911 and I got through to Netcare.
The lady on the other end of the line was generally very helpful, and dispatched the ambulance promptly.
I only had two minor gripes. One was the amount of detail that they needed regarding the patient’s medical aid. And yes, I get that they need it, but there’s a time and a place and this was neither.
Honestly, once we had established that the patient had medical aid, I really just needed to get back to her and do my best to look after her, rather than asking her difficult questions about her specific plan and membership number. I told the operator that I needed to go and we could sort out the admin later.
The only other little thing was their SMS telling me that I could track the ambulance as it came through to us. This is a great idea and would be very helpful. Reassuring for the casualty and everyone else there. Except…
Click the link in the SMS and it asks you to download their app.
Download their app and it asks you to create an account.
Name, Cell number, Email address, ID number, Username, Password – no, a stronger one than that, and you’ll need a $p3cial character, and an UPPER CASE letter – ah, there we go.
I’ll send you an OTP now.
But it didn’t. Twice.
And I didn’t have time for this.
Can you imagine if this had have been a life-threatening injury?
In the end I had to call back on their emergency number to find out how far away the ambulance was from us. With hindsight, this would have been the better option from the start.
Anyway, I wanted to get those gripes out of the way because once their guys turned up (within the timeframe we were given), they were amazing.
Truth be told, there wasn’t actually much first aid to be done: just the usual checks for anything properly serious, and making sure that the patient was safe and comfortable, but I was actually impressed with how well my scene management stuff from my first aid courses came back to me.
Once we’d handed over to the paramedics though, it really was absolutely seamless, more like a demonstration of best practice, rather than an actual case with all its variables and difficulties. 25 minutes of friendly, efficient stabilising of the patient and administering some pain relief for the stretcher trip to the ambulance and the drive to the hospital; and then they made the stretcher trip to the ambulance, and the drive to the hospital.
Surgery that afternoon was apparently successful and we’re all hoping for a quick recovery.
All’s well that ends well.
Although I still haven’t got an OTP.