One Thursday night, I was walking home on a quiet street along the railway. I was on my way back home from the shop, carrying two shopping bags.
As I was nearing my street, I happened to notice some bloke, unconscious, on the pavement of a connected street. The sleeping drunk.
He was lying diagonally across the pavement, with his head next to the wall of a house, and his feet near the curb.
He had a cigarette in his mouth. It was standing upright.
I'm no stranger to drunk people. I tend to notice a lot of them in the Newcastle area. But they're not usually lying, fast asleep, across the pavement.
I felt like I needed to do something about this.
First, I tried talking to the sleeping drunk. "Hey! You good?" I had to speak quite loudly to wake him up.
When he did, he grunted wordlessly. He raised his arm, apparently inviting me to fist bump him. I refused.
I tried to get him to wake up properly. I at least wanted him to say something, preferably using actual words. But before long, he just fell asleep again.
He seemed like he was probably fine. If I left him there, he'd have probably woken up a few hours later, and stumbled off.
Still, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that. Before just leaving him there, I wanted to get some else's opinion. I wanted to know what they would do.
I decided to call the NHS 111 service.
In the UK, if you want to contact the emergency services, you dial 999. But we have some non-emergency numbers, for discussing less urgent matters. To contact the NHS, we dial 111.
I probably spent around 20 minutes on hold before someone picked up.
Eventually, an agent answered, and I explained the situation to her.
First, she asked me what my connection was with the patient.
The patient. Her words, not mine. The situation has escalated.
Anyway, I had never met the patient before. He was a complete stranger. I was just concerned for his safety and well-being. So that's what I told her.
Interestingly, she asked me why I was concerned. I wasn't quite sure how to answer.
If you were out at midnight, and you noticed someone passed out on the pavement, wouldn't you be a little concerned? I don't know.
If I was that worried, I'd have dialled 999. But I wasn't that worried. I wasn't sure how worried I should be. I dialled 111, mostly to find out how worried they would be.
The agent then asked me a few more questions about the patient's condition.
Is he breathing?
Is he breating in, at least once every 20 seconds?
Is he gargling?
I answered all her questions honestly, and all my answers seemed to suggest that the patient would be fine. I assumed we were about to wrap up our call.
But then she asked me about my location. I gave her the address of a nearby house, and asked if she was sending an ambulance. She was.
The agent asked me to wait with the patient until the ambulance arrived, telling me it would be 60-80 minutes. That seemed like a very long wait.
It was already half past midnight, and I had to be at work the following day. I was gonna be stuck out there, waiting, until nearly 2 AM!
After some hesitation, I said I would wait for as long as I could.
The agent then asked me to roll the patient over onto his side. I refused.
I was concerned that if I started manhandling the patient, he might assault me. It wasn't likely, but I didn't want to risk it.
I told the agent that I'd listen to his breathing, and that I'd roll him ont his side if he started to vomit.
Wrapping up our call, the agent asked me to call the ambulance service back on 999 if the patient's condition changed, or if I decided to leave.
Still with the patient, I started waiting for the ambulance.
I was tempted to get out my phone and watch a YouTube video, but I decided not to. I was asked to stay with the patient so I could monitor his condition. I had to listen to his breathing.
After around 10 minutes, the patient suddenly started to snore. He really was just having a kip, wasn't he?
I decied I was done wasting my time with the patient. I was going home. I called 999 to let them know I was leaving.
But while I was on the phone to the dispatcher, I saw blue lights at the end of the street. It was an ambulance, driving towards us. It was much sooner than they said it would be.
When the paramedics got out, I ended my call with the 999 dispatcher.
The paramedics took the cigarette out of the patient's mouth, and picked up a few of his possesions, which were scattered around him on the pavement.
Among his possesions was a vape. Smoking and vaping. Yeah, I'm not sure how that happened.
I watched as the paramedics woke the patient up and got him onto a stretcher.
The paramedics told the patient that I had called the ambulance. He looked at me. He seemed a little pissed off that I didn't just let him be.
At this point, I decided to leave.
There was someone in one of the houses nearby, watching the commotion.
We had a little chat. She said she'd noticed me pacing about. She didn't notice the drunk.
She probably thought I was a drug dealer or something. I probably look the sort, loitering about in my black hoodie at midnight.
When we were done talking, I went home, had a ready meal, and turned in for the night.
No AI tools were involved in writing this blog entry.
Published 2024-11-08.