Don't fall over in France!!

[hallii]

We are just back from France, whilst there we found ourselves at the Aire in Bedarieux, a pleasant enough place. We were walking along the riverside towards the local Lidl on the 22nd April when a lady who was walking towards us fell onto the tarmac taking the full brunt of the fall on her face. There was a sickening crunch and plenty of blood. We went to help and I found that she was unresponsive and took about 30 seconds to “come round”. I have some experience of dealing with various accident injuries and I was (am) first aid trained.

After assessing her injuries we assisted her to a nearby bench. She had broken her nose, it was a very bad break and because of this the bleeding was difficult to control, anyone who has experience will know half a pint of blood goes a long way! There was blood everywhere. She also had a haemtoma of considerable size over her left eye, I suspect the possibility of a fracture around the eye socket.

This lady was of frail build and somewhere in her eighties, she was in shock and of course in some pain.

With the help of a local Frenchman who spoke some English a call was made to SAMU, as some of you know, SAMU is the French emergency service for injury or illness.

The operator refused to send anyone out. Insisting that someone should take her to the clinic. I would happily have done this but I didn’t have a car, the elderly Frenchman did not drive. By this time three students on bikes had arrived, they phoned SAMU again and argued with the operator at length, but she ( the operator ) still refused to send a SAMU response vehicle.

So, using clean hand towels from local residents the blood flow was reduced, and using an address book from her handbag someone identified her daughters phone number. She was phoned and eventually arrived in her car some 45 to 60 minutes after the accident and whisked her off to hospital. I do not know the results of the hospital visit, I wish I did.

So why am I posting this on this forum? Well, as a warning really, a lot of us travel to France etc regularly, and I must admit I had thought that the emergency services were something like the UK. That is not so, be aware that you may need to make your own arrangements in similar cases.

 

H

 

[Derek Uzzell]

These links may be worth reading through

 

https://www.french-property.com/news/french_health/medical_emergency_services/

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_services_in_France

 

Even in the UK there’s no guarantee that there’d be a different attitude. My local community hospital has no 24/7 A&E department and I would anticipate a similar response - if at all possible try to make arrangements for someone to take the injured person to the 24/7 Minor Injuries Unit at the county hospital 15 miles away.

[monique.hubrechtsgm]

well Done. Lucky you where there. And your handling what to do. Very strange that samu acting this way. Was there a communication problem due to language? And was the problem explained to samu needed a intervention? Just some thoughts they do not pull out for a blood nose for example. It is all to the smooth operator to ask some essential questions which need to be answered.

[hallii]

monique.hubrechts@gm - 2017-05-01 2:59 PM

 

well Done. Lucky you where there. And your handling what to do. Very strange that samu acting this way. Was there a communication problem due to language? And was the problem explained to samu needed a intervention? Just some thoughts they do not pull out for a blood nose for example. It is all to the smooth operator to ask some essential questions which need to be answered.

 

OK Monique, there was no problem with SAMU understanding, two Frenchmen did the explaining, one of them got very angry with the SAMU operator and called her "IDIOT" before ending the call! The student(French) was more patient and quietly spoken, but still no SAMU! Maybe the operator was having a bad day :-)

 

Geoff