How good or shocking are your employers in the event of medical emergency?

Not_Me_Officer

I was getting chest pains again this week at work (thankfully came to nothing) & it reminded me of another time here, not all that long ago really & so I wondered how other peoples places of work compare. Are you fortunate or would your place kick you in the middle of the road so you could die quietly so long as it isn't on their land?



Little bed time story for you:


A year or so ago at work I suddenly began to get extreme chest paints, to the point where I was literally struggling for breath, It was a battle to get any words out - I had to struggle one word at a time, I was doubled over - I couldn't physically straighten up & it sent me to my knees as this was the most bearable position which was still pure agony. It all came on out of the blue too.


So I was struggling leading up to my break but then it just gripped me whilst on my break. Crouched over I headed to the office, struggling to walk as I did.


I work for a haulage firm. Lot of manual handling. The employers are very 'old school farmer like' - if your arm has fallen off then you still have another arm to work with kind of thing. This rubs off on some of the office workers & if you have that arm that's fallen off you're a nuisance but if they have a runny nose then it's sympathy time.


So I make it in to the office, get to the desk & just go to my knees, trying to breathe & stop the surges of pain in my chest.
There were 3 people in the office at the time. One was on the phone. They just looked at me, the 1 on the phone carried on his conversation & after asking if I was ok (& getting no reply as I couldn't get any words out) the other 2 just carried on talking.


Eventually I get out the words "need hospital" "can't breathe" and "chest pains".



So you'd think this may then trigger rushing to the phones for an ambulance?

No.

It sparked disagreements as to who was going to take me to the hospital.

Well I can't take him because I've got this to do.
Well I can't take him because I'm waiting on a phone call.
Well I can't take him because I've got that customer to serve.

I lose my rag, tell them in a staggered sentence just someone take me to the Fn hospital now.

So they find someone who begrudgingly decides to take me & after a search for a set of car keys I'm in the car to go.

To which this guy then says to me that basically he's going to milk this for all he can as it's his chance to get out of work, so basically he's going to go slow & make it last. Now I'm not asking him at this point to go 100mph down the main road, but under such circumstances? Seriously?

Obviously I'm still here so it all came good in the end, but it was handled terribly.

How does your place of work compare?

boo_star

Not_Me_Officer wrote: »

How does your place of work compare?

Thankfully I've never worked in a place that would make light of a serious situation like that. In every place I've worked the manager(s) would be falling over themselves to assist someone with chest pains.

Callie22

In my organisation if something like that happened an ambulance would be called immediately and an announcement would go out on the tannoy system for a first-aider. In fact, the last couple of times any medical emergency has happened we've ended up having a second announcement to say that there are enough first-aiders attending and please can they stop turning up, which is quite reassuring.

Darksparkle

Callie22 wrote: »

In my organisation if something like that happened an ambulance would be called immediately and an announcement would go out on the tannoy system for a first-aider. In fact, the last couple of times any medical emergency has happened we've ended up having a second announcement to say that there are enough first-aiders attending and please can they stop turning up, which is quite reassuring.

This would be the same in my work, first aided and ambulance.

Wouldn't expect someone to drive me to hospital if I was having symptoms as severe as yours, would expect them to call 999.

PasturesNew

You work with juvenile idiots. Leave as soon as you can.

clairec79

Absolutely fine with it, the main issue with it is the person who is having the accident or emergency insisting they are fine and can carry on - worst part of health professionals - you care for other people not yourself.

Kynthia

An ambulance would be called immediately. Someone should tell reception so that they can direct the ambulance and the then paramedics to the correct floor. There's a regularly maintained first aid kit on every floor in the building. However I doubt the majority know there's a defibrillator in 2 locations but some will plus reception if they know it might be needed. We might not have the number of official first aiders I'd like but if an announcement was made or people rushed to each floor in a coordinated effort I'd bet you'd find more than a couple of current or ex - trained plus quite a few that have had life saving training and even experience. Thankfully I work with decent people who are grown-up in a place that is well stocked and professional.

Nicki

Unless the people who work in the office are managers or in some way senior to you, this wasn't so much your employer being awful in an emergency but your colleagues surely? I imagine if you asked the employer what should happen in such circumstances, they would answer "call 999 immediately" and would be horrified that a colleague had delayed getting you to hospital to skive off work for a bit longer (that would probably have been a disciplinary if you'd reported it). Larger employers have trained first aiders on site but that's not the norm in my experience in smaller workplaces so it isn't necessarily your employers fault that your colleagues on this occasion were numpties though I hope you did report the incident and that new procedures have been put in place for the future.

iammumtoone

As above I don't think you can blame your employers more the people who you work with.

You also have to take a bit of responsibility for yourself that you struggled on feeling ill for a while without telling anyone.

If I was on the phone and my colleague next to me suddenly calasped, I would be concerned but I would be even more concerned if they had told me earlier what issues they were experiencing. I would go to help and investigate in the first instance but if I knew the background information what they had been going through prior to calape I would certainly be phoning the ambulance quicker.

[Deleted User]

They had an ambulance out to someone where I worked once, but it was just a panic attack. Things are different at home though, when my heart arrhythmia first made it's presence known I spent 10 hours crawling around the house on all fours until it went away.

mumcoll

We have a defibrillator at our place, with a few people trained how to use it. This was put in place as there is at least one employee who has a known heart condition.