CALLING 111 IMMEDIATELY SAVES TRAPPED WOMAN'S LIFE VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Carol Davis (Ambulance):
Obviously a lot of calls stick out, but there was one in particular, one night, it was 2 in the morning on our nightshift, and this lady had gone out of her house, she was going to fill her car up with petrol and it was a very wet night, and her car slid and she ended up going into a ditch. Her car was still the right way up but she was stuck in the ditch and couldn’t open the doors. And because it was raining the water was rising and coming into her car. Fortunately, she had her mobile phone with her and she rang us on 111, obviously very distressed and panicking. So we got the ambulance on the way, and also the Fire Service (because if someone’s likely to be trapped we get them going as well). And it was my job to stay on the phone with her until they got there because we don’t like to leave people in a stressful situation like that alone. So it was my job to talk to her as the water was rising, and as you can imagine, that was a bit stressful. But she was good, she kept talking to me, and then because she didn’t know exactly where she was, she knew the street, and we did locate her with our system, and we got there, and when we knew the ambulance was close (so I was working with the dispatcher as well) we got them to turn their sirens on and I told her we would stop talking and we’d listen for the siren. And the minute we knew that the siren was the loudest that was where she was going to be. So we stopped talking, we got the guys to turn their sirens on, and as soon as it got loud I told the dispatcher who was on the radio with the crew, to stop there. And it was pretty accurate. Yeah. Found her and it was a good situation. They managed to get her out, check her over and she was able to go home. During the time that we were waiting for the ambulance, the conversation, we try and just get their mind off the situation that they’re in. So you do find out a little bit about the people. And she did have two children at home and of course that made her a bit upset as well, that she’s thinking she may never see them again. And I told her that, on my watch, yes, she was going to see those children again. But yes, it goes through your mind, because I have children myself and how stressful that would be. You tend to think of them rather than yourself. So it’s very, very satisfying to know that she was delivered back home to the kids and everything turned out for the best.
