Something happened to me that I will not forget.

Yesterday, my father and I went to visit my grandmother in her nursing home. Granny's a very sweet, loving old woman, 94 years young. We found her asleep on a couch in the main dining-room in the nursing-home. After waking her up, gran said she wanted to use the toilet.

I help gran with everything, so, being the good grandson I was, I helped gran navigate the corridors and guided her safely to the bathroom where she could do her business.

While I was waiting for gran, I heard a CRASH! and a screaming and someone crying out for help.

At first I didn't know what to think. There are plenty of people in the nursing home who aren't in their right mind, and this could mean anything. Dad asked me to go investigate.

I headed down the corridor and to the left of me, I found a doorway into another bathroom. An old woman was on the ground and she was bleeding badly from the head. She was screaming for help and I went in to see what I could do.

I hold a certificate of first aid, so I went straight to work.

What'd happened was she'd come out of the toilet-cubicle and turned around on her walker, she'd tripped over and fell backwards, striking her head against a wooden bench against the opposite wall of the bathroom. I got her by the shoulders and managed to get her to sit upright. I pulled out a pair of clean handkerchieves from my pocket (the closest thing I could find to a bandage at the time), and pressed them firmly against the back of her head to try and staunch the bleeding. She asked me how bad the cut was and how much it was bleeding. She also asked me if her skull was split. With the amount of bleeding, I wouldn't be surprised that it was. Between her first calls for help and my response would've been 30 seconds and in that time she'd bled enough to cover an area on the floor about the size of a dinner-plate.

When my hankies were soaked through, I used my last remaining one (also clean & folded) and then went to get some paper-towels.

At this time, other residents had heard what'd happened. My dad escorted gran back to her room (no point in her seeing this, it would only shock her) and one of the residents (an old man) asked me if he should get the nurses. I told him, "Yes, please! Quick!"

He went off as fast as he could and about five minutes later the nurses appeared and took over. I cleaned myself up and washed all the blood off my hands.

This is the first emergency I've ever attended to outside of my post at my former highschool. And it makes me glad that I decided to study first-aid when I was in school.

Dad told me he was amazed how I could stay so calm under the circumstances (Dad HATES blood). What I was more worried about is why the nurses didn't respond immediately. There was half a dozen of them at least and they could easily have covered and monitored the whole nursing-home, but they didn't. If I hadn't responded as quickly as I did, I'm probably willing to swear that Evelyn (that was the old lady's name) would've bled to death by the time proper help had found her.

And that is the highlight of my...yesterday. I won't lie and I will say that I am still very much shaken by what's happened.

 

OUTSTANDING......

 

WTG!
You seized the moment & did what was best.
It was darn good you were present, like you said who knows how much more she may have bled out.

 

Good show young man !

People always give lip service to how we treasure our youth and old people but caring for them are two of the lowest paid careers you can find. I am glad you were around to save her.

 

You did a wonderful thing. Thank goodness you were there!

 

Good for you Shangas! I'm glad you went to investigate - it made all the difference, not only to her physical well being but her emotions, as those minutes would have seemed like hours to her while she lay hurting and helpless.

 

Thanks, McRusk and all you other fellows. I feel much better knowing what I did helped someone.

I've dealt with a good number of incidents such as the one I've described in the past, so I think I was used to stuff like panicking individuals and blood and whatnot. She was very very panicky, as you can imagine. It went like this:

*CRASH!*

Dad: "Perhaps you should go and see what that is."

I headed out of the small TV-area and turned right and went down the corridor, past the bathroom where gran was. I could hear someone crying and calling out. My hearing is not so good in my left ear, so I couldn't tell what she was saying. I found the bathroom pretty quickly. The sliding-door was open and when I went in at first I didn't see anything. The bathroom is not very brightly lit.

Then I heard her say something like: "God help me! I can't get up! I can't get up!" That was when I saw the lady lying on the ground. I saw her walking-frame next to the door and one of her shoes was off her feet. She'd fallen backwards and struck her head against the edge of a wooden bench next to the doorway to the bathroom.

Kneeling down where I was would've been impractical, I'd be blocking the doorway and my only source of light (I'm not that tall, only 5'6", but with the room so dim, every bit of light was necessary, and in the dark I couldn't find the light-switch anyway).

So I stepped around the bottom of the lady's feet (NEVER across a patient) and knelt down on her right side. She said her head hurt a lot and she couldn't move to get up. I told her it would be alright. I put my arms around her shoulders and pulled her slowly away from under the bench and then helped her sit upright so that her shoulderblades were against the edge of the bench. I just kept recycling the words: "It'll be alright, just try and calm down, I'll see what I can do!"

I reached into my coat pockets and pulled out a pair of clean, folded handkerchieves and pressed them firmly against the back of her head. She asked me: "How badly is it cut? Is it bleeding very much?" I told her I couldn't tell in the dark, "Where's my hair-pin?" she asked. She was worried the hairpin might've pierced her skin around her head, I suppose.

It was a springy hairclip, not a pin. It was lying on the floor in the blood. I gave it to her to hold for a minute and then I put it on the bench out of the way. An old man in red on a walking-frame showed up as dad took gran back to her room and he asked me if he should go and get the nurses. I told him, please, to go at once.

I'd never dealt with a head-injury before. I consider external bleeding my forte when it comes to treating injuries in first-aid, so that's probably why I was so calm under the circumstances.

Very quickly I realised my hankies would be no good. In less than two minutes they were soaked through with blood and I could feel it on my hands. I WOULD have asked the lady to try and hold the 'bandages' there while I went to get something else, but she was sort of in shock and unable to move. I put the bandages down and grabbed a big handful of paper-towels and folded them and pressed them against her head. She said it hurt when I pressed but I told her I had to keep the pressure on otherwise she'd only bleed faster. I emphasised the necessity for her to try and relax and calm down. When she finally got the help of the nurses I spent about two minutes washing my hands and my handkerchieves under boiling tap-water before I left.

Throughout the entire ordeal I didn't once look at my watch (I didn't have the presence of mind to note the time, just to try and stop the bleeding), but between her falling and me finding her must've been 30 seconds to a minute. Between me finding her and the nurses showing up could've been anywhere from five to ten or more minutes. I cannot believe the nurses weren't there when it happened.