East Lancashire 999 crew tweet the day’s work (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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East Lancashire 999 crew tweet the day’s work
3:10pm Wednesday 1st February 2012 in Health
Instant message A crew’s daily work is shared on Twitter
TWITTER followers got an insight into a day in the life of an ambulance crew in East Lancashire yesterday.
North West Ambulance Service invited people to follow the Burnley-based emergency team’s 12-hour shift on the social network.
Paramedic Clare Burrows and ambulance technician Laura Monighan began their day by treating a man with back pain.
A member of the trust’s communications team accompanied the duo as an observer and ‘tweeted’ updates from 7.30am to 7.30pm.
The tweets revealed that when the pair helped an unconscious elderly woman to hospital it was almost an hour before they were able to register for a new job.
And when they came to the aid of a pedestrian who had leg injuries after being hit by a car, the patient refused to go to hospital.
They were then sent to Darwen to help a woman with breathing problems, and during brief ‘quiet’ spells, needed to refuel the ambulance at a petrol station, replace linen and check drug stocks.
The trust’s online Twitter feed is focusing on a different ambulance crew across the North West each day during a week-long ‘tweet-a-thon’.
The idea is to show the variety of incidents an emergency crew attends, and their other tasks.
Derek Cartwright, the trust’s director of emergency services, said: “Newspapers and airwaves are full of the role ambulance crews play when dealing with alcohol-related incidents.
“Although this is important to show, we want people to know about the other side of the service – the race to get to life threatening emergencies, the rescues and the comfort an ambulance crew can bring to patients and their relatives.
“We also want to show the human side. Each member of staff is someone’s son or daughter, mother or father.
“They have feelings and emotions like everyone else, yet they carry out acts of courage every day in what can be a demanding and stressful job.”
