Irish Rail Medical Emmergency

Stephen15

So according to the IE twitter a northbound DART was by stuck in Tara Street for nearly 3 hours yesterday due a medical emmergency as an ambulance only arrived at 8pm for a DART that had been stuck there since 5.35. Seems absolutely riddiculous for an ambulance to take so long to attend to such an incident.

If it took so long for an ambulance attend it would strike as being something not all that that serious what I don't get is why the person couldn't have been removed from the train onto the platform or station to await the ambulance.

This seems to be a fairly common occurrence on trains and on the Luas so perhaps IE should look at their procedures for such incidents or maybe passengers need to start questioning am I fit for travel.

ED E

Stephen15 wrote: »

If it took so long for an ambulance attend it would strike as being something not all that that serious what I don't get is why the person couldn't have been removed from the train onto the platform or station to await the ambulance.

No org will dare move somebody in such a circumstance. Far too open to litigation.

ALS

Who makes the call as to how serious the medical emergency is and wether or not the person can be moved or not ? Question is how can an ambulance take so long to arrive ?

Stephen15 wrote: »

So according to the IE twitter a northbound DART was by stuck in Tara Street for nearly 3 hours yesterday due a medical emmergency as an ambulance only arrived at 8pm for a DART that had been stuck there since 5.35. Seems absolutely riddiculous for an ambulance to take so long to attend to such an incident.

If it took so long for an ambulance attend it would strike as being something not all that that serious what I don't get is why the person couldn't have been removed from the train onto the platform or station to await the ambulance.

This seems to be a fairly common occurrence on trains and on the Luas so perhaps IE should look at their procedures for such incidents or maybe passengers need to start questioning am I fit for travel.

Stephen15

ALS wrote: »

Who makes the call as to how serious the medical emergency is and wether or not the person can be moved or not ? Question is how can an ambulance take so long to arrive ?

Agreed it's a riddiculous that such a situation would happen especially with a large fire/ambulance base only across the bloody road.

ED E

ALS wrote: »

Question is how can an ambulance take so long to arrive ?

If its classified lower (see below for DFB) it doesnt matter how long you're waiting you'll lose priority to a higher category call. So the broken wrist thats been waiting 8rs will miss out if the resourced sent his way is needed for an overdose thats 30 seconds old. Thats how it works. Minor illnesses can have ambos turn around many times before one actually makes it to the scene.

In Dublin a lot of the load is due to overdoses.

Echo Life threatening Cardiac or respiratory arrest Delta Life threatening other than cardiac or respiratory arrest Charlie Serious not life threatening immediate Bravo Serious not life threatening urgent Alpha Non serious or life threatening Omega Minor illness or injury

Stephen15

ED E wrote: »

No org will dare move somebody in such a circumstance. Far too open to litigation.

It wouldn't have be forcibly removed staff and other passengers could try and convince the passenger to come off the train and onto to the platform maybe offered the person a drink of water etc. If the person refused to co-operate and got abusive then the Gardaí should be called.

Atlantic Dawn

ALS wrote: »

Who makes the call as to how serious the medical emergency is and wether or not the person can be moved or not ? Question is how can an ambulance take so long to arrive ?

You would think with the amount of commuters and trains standing still that once it was reported in they would be taken off asap regadless of how serious it was. No sign of any major emergency that was taking resources at the same time.

Wonder was there a bit more to the story so to speak? Either way people going home after a weeks work shouldn't be subjected to this sh!t.

n!ghtmancometh

No way an ambo took that long. DFB would send an appliance, or AP car if an ambo isn't available through them or NAS. Either IE twitter have their facts wrong or this incident was more complicated than it seems.

howiya

Had a look at their twitter there. Train wasn't stuck at Tara St since 17:35. It only left Bray at 17:35. According to one of their twitter responses the train arrived in Tara St at 18:10 but this contradicts the timetable.

Still a long time to be waiting but without knowing the details I'd be reluctant to criticise the Ambulance service.

DFB replied to one query about it on Twitter saying "We use a priority dispatch system, and resources are allocated using that."

Stephen15

n!ghtmancometh wrote: »

No way an ambo took that long. DFB would send an appliance, or AP car if an ambo isn't available through them or NAS. Either IE twitter have their facts wrong or this incident was more complicated than it seems.

A fire appliance is usually only sent to more serious medical emergencies when an ambulance is unavailable which would suggest this is a more minor incident where perhaps the person could have left the train.

Isambard

could it be the case that the train was involved in the emergency and couldn't be moved until it was investigated? Maybe the patient slipped under it or somesuch?

XPS_Zero

Well the ambulances, as others have said, use a triage system. You are only meant to call an ambulance if you are not capable of making it to the hospital yourself or the injury is serious and times a factor (like a head injury or crushing chest pain say)


They will literally tell you to get a taxi or the bus if they assess that you don't need an ambulance. If it was an emergency they'd have sent an ambo, if they were not available they'd have sent the DFB or a motorbike EMT.



It may be the person didn't wanna get off and wait, and they were worried about evicting them under the trespassing laws because if they are injured are they actually trespassing? This is what I was saying about compo culture, organizations are so terrified of making the wrong call they will defy common sense, it's not you or me Joe ordinary passenger that they are afraid of, they don't care about upsetting us, we don't scare them cos were not psycos with no lives and nothing to loose, it's that Jayo and his Moth and/or Bird could find a way to get 5 figures out of that at the high court between their 26th and 27th convictions.

ED E

I wouldn't be surprised if the attendance of AGS was required, mental health case etc, that'd often severely delay things.

Stephen15

ED E wrote: »

I wouldn't be surprised if the attendance of AGS was required, mental health case etc, that'd often severely delay things.

Well I suppose "medical emergency" sounds better than anti social behaviour. Renews calls for a transport police or AGS transport unit.

coylemj

I arrived in Dun Laoghaire on Friday to get the 19:15 Howth train to find that it was running 10 minutes late. There was an announcement as we waited on the platform about a medical emergency in Tara St. and I was considering leaving the station and getting a bus but the Dart arrived so I boarded......

When we stopped at Seapoint, there was an announcement repeating the piece about a medical emergency, telling us that an ambulance was dealing with the situation but clearly the line was blocked and were not going to move any time soon so I abandoned the train.

At that point, the backlog would have involved a train parked at each of the seven intermediate stations i.e. Blackrock, Booterstown, Sydney Parade, Sandymount, Lansdowne Road, Grand Canal Dock and Pearse. So counting back on the timetable, the train on which the emergency occurred would have passed through Dun Laoghaire at 17:55 and arrived (if on schedule) in Tara St. at 18:19.

I know from a friend that there was a Dart train still stuck in Sandymount station at 20:05. At that point, there would have been a train stuck at every station back as far as Killiney, including a mainline train from Rosslare which would have been parked at Dalkey.

Hilly Bill

n!ghtmancometh wrote: »

No way an ambo took that long. DFB would send an appliance, or AP car if an ambo isn't available through them or NAS. Either IE twitter have their facts wrong or this incident was more complicated than it seems.

It did.

NewbridgeIR

I was at Tara Street on Friday - arrived around 6:10pm with the aim of catching the 6:22pm to Newbridge.

The DART in question pulled in to the station shortly afterwards - around 6:20pm. All the doors opened and people gradually started getting off. The "waiting for ambulance" announcements started. I took a walk up the platform and saw a woman lying on the floor of one of the carriages. Another woman was kneeling beside her and there was an Irish Rail staff member also standing there. She appeared unconscious at that point but I didn't want to keep staring so went back down the platform. At one point, a northbound DART was diverted to platform 2. The "waiting for ambulance" announcements continued every few minutes and became more and more unconvincing.

The Newbridge train was stuck somehere between Pearse and Tara and eventually arrived (re-routed to platform 2) around 7:50pm or so. Got home 90 minutes later than I should have. Dinner ruined.

Qrt

Stephen15 wrote: »

Well I suppose "medical emergency" sounds better than anti social behaviour. Renews calls for a transport police or AGS transport unit.

I do hope you’re not equating mental health issues with anti-social behaviour...

Hilly Bill

Qrt wrote: »

I do hope you’re not equating mental health issues with anti-social behaviour...

Someone with those issues are not excempt from anti social behaviour.

prinzeugen

Sudden death?


Could be waiting for the coroner and the Garda.

Victor

Stephen15 wrote: »

maybe offered the person a drink of water etc.

All patients should be 'nil by mouth' unless otherwise advised by medical personnel.

Stephen15

prinzeugen wrote: »

Sudden death?


Could be waiting for the coroner and the Garda.

I wouldn't think such an incident would really class as a medical Emmergency but rather just an incident. Also if that happened I would imagine the station would at least fully or partly have to be closed to the public which I don't think it was and an ambulance arrived at 8.05 and was gone by 20 past 8.

Qrt

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Someone with those issues are not excempt from anti social behaviour.

Never said that, but someone having a psychotic episode isn’t “anti social behaviour”

XPS_Zero

Qrt wrote: »

Never said that, but someone having a psychotic episode isn’t “anti social behaviour”

While I'm aware of stigma in this area (having been on the receiving end of it...) I think what they mean is not someone who is say psychotic (ie not in contact with reality) having an episode, but a skanger who, yes may also have a mental health issue behaving like skangers do.


To explain further.










This is Jayo, Jayo comes from a really run down area, and had parents who used the phrase "ye little bo***x" to refer to him when he was a toddler. Bill never really had a chance at making the big time, or even having an ordinary middle class life. Bill is disadvantaged. This disadvantaged circumstances, combined with genetic predisposition, has given him some kind of mental health issue, say major depression of some kind.


Major depression does not cause crime, poverty does not cause crime, disadvantage does not cause crime. They make people who experience them, as a group, more predisposed to it, but they don't cause or force an individual to do xyz, they still have free will. The whole "this makes you more predisposed to crime" thing is for us sociology and policy wonks to design better govt policies, but these clowns go into court and use it as an excuse for an individual decision, of their own free will, to hurt or abuse other people or property, and it works....C.O.N.S.T.A.N.T.L.Y


A mitigating factor is meant to be 'he was provoking me by telling the entire bar I was a pedophile so that's why I hit him', it's not meant to be "yeh...I've €0.54 in the bank account, the person I assaulted has €893...oh and did I mention this totally unrelated thing from my childhood?".

The difference between a mental health condition where you literally don't know the difference between right and wrong or have lost contact with reality...and what most of these skangers have is quite important. They still know the difference between right and wrong.

Stigma being quite real of course, I think this is what they are referring to.
Give them some credit, they tend to be a bit less Daily Mail on this side of boards.

coylemj

NewbridgeIR wrote: »

I was at Tara Street on Friday - arrived around 6:10pm with the aim of catching the 6:22pm to Newbridge.

The DART in question pulled in to the station shortly afterwards - around 6:20pm.

That Dart train was due in Tara St. at 18:19. It tallies exactly with the estimate I put on it (see post #15) based on me being stalled in Seapoint at about 19:30.

Stephen15

Qrt wrote: »

Never said that, but someone having a psychotic episode isn’t “anti social behaviour”

But verbal and physical abuse towards passengers and staff is. It doesn't matter if the person has a mental health issue abuse towards other passengers and staff should not be tolerated.

Qrt

Stephen15 wrote: »

But verbal and physical abuse towards passengers and staff is. It doesn't matter if the person has a mental health issue abuse towards other passengers and staff should not be tolerated.

I never said it should be, but they need to be treated in a completely different manner. Calling it “anti-social behaviour” is just wrong.

Stephen15

Qrt wrote: »

I never said it should be, but they need to be treated in a completely different manner. Calling it “anti-social behaviour” is just wrong.

And how would one identify between a scumbag shouting abuse and someone with a "mental health issue".

Wesser

It might have been a suicide. That would require the attendance of an ambulance and guards and then the scene would have to be 'cleaned up. '

Stephen15

Wesser wrote: »

It might have been a suicide. That would require the attendance of an ambulance and guards and then the scene would have to be 'cleaned up. '

Again unlikely as this is usually classified as a "tragic accident" by IE rather than a "medical emergency" which was the reason given.

coylemj

Wesser wrote: »

It might have been a suicide. That would require the attendance of an ambulance and guards and then the scene would have to be 'cleaned up. '

Rush to morbid and gory speculation without reading earlier posts. According to poster NewbridgeIR in post #17, the individual concerned was on the train when it pulled into Tara St.

Stephen15 wrote: »

Again unlikely as this is usually classified as a "tragic accident" by IE rather than a "medical emergency" which was the reason given.

on traffic bulletins, a suicide involving trains is invariably referred to as an 'incident'.

NewbridgeIR

I heard other people say that the lady had either fainted or collapsed on the train.

Stephen15

NewbridgeIR wrote: »

I heard other people say that the lady had either fainted or collapsed on the train.

A 2 hour wait for an ambulance is riddiculous if the person fainted/collapsed that should be a priority call.

coylemj

Stephen15 wrote: »

A 2 hour wait for an ambulance is riddiculous if the person fainted/collapsed that should be a priority call.

Priority? Ahead of cardiac arrest, a bleeder, a woman in labour, a person suffering a severe asthma attack, allergic reaction or epileptic fit?

I'm a medical layman but a person fainting on a train doesn't sound like a priority call to me. And by the sound of it, the ambulance service didn't think so either.

Stephen15

coylemj wrote: »

Priority? Ahead of cardiac arrest, a bleeder, a woman in labour, a person suffering a severe asthma attack, allergic reaction or epileptic fit?

I'm a medical layman but a person fainting on a train doesn't sound like a priority call to me. And by the sound of it, the ambulance service didn't think so either.

Again I'm also a medical layman but I would thought a call would get priority if the person is unconscious. Considering the first question usually asked when you dial 999 is: is the person conscious and breathing?

Del2005

Stephen15 wrote: »

Again I'm also a medical layman but I would thought a call would get priority if the person is unconscious. Considering the first question usually asked when you dial 999 is: is the person conscious and breathing?

And once the answer to are they breathing is yes they are not a priority.

Qrt

Stephen15 wrote: »

And how would one identify between a scumbag shouting abuse and someone with a "mental health issue".

Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. Anyway, your use of quotation marks doesn't give me much hope so i'll just leave it be.

Stephen15

Del2005 wrote: »

And once the answer to are they breathing is yes they are not a priority.

I don't know but they could have had an underlying medical condition which caused them to faint such as diabetes.

john boye

Perhaps the person regained consciousness quickly enough?

Stephen15

john boye wrote: »

Perhaps the person regained consciousness quickly enough?

True but that goes back to the question as to why the person couldn't have left the train. A bit of fresh air is generally a good thing for someone just after fainting I would think rather than being stuck on a stuffy train.

Atlantic Dawn

If they couldn't get an ambulance to them in over 2 hours in Dublin City centre at 6pm on a weekday there is little hope if there's a major incident in the city. If they don't have ambulances available then they can't magically appear out of the blue in an emergency.

john boye

Stephen15 wrote: »

True but that goes back to the question as to why the person couldn't have left the train. A bit of fresh air is generally a good thing for someone just after fainting I would think rather than being stuck on a stuffy train.

Yes I'm guessing we're missing a lot of the story here as what we have doesn't all make sense.

Stephen15

john boye wrote: »

Yes I'm guessing we're missing a lot of the story here as what we have doesn't all make sense.

That's true we can only speculate here but what baffles me is if it was serious why it took an ambulance so long and if it was minor then how come the person couldn't have left the train and waited for the ambulance on the platform or the station concourse.

Del2005

Stephen15 wrote: »

I don't know but they could have had an underlying medical condition which caused them to faint such as diabetes.

We're dealing with triage of emergency calls not medical histories. If the person is breathing and has no other obvious issues they are not a priority regardless of why they have fainted/collapsed.

Jem72

The fact that the person is on a train should have something to do with the prioritisation of the ambulance. It is not unusual to have a spate of knock-on medical issues such as faintings when there is serious disruption going on. At the very least there needs to be a protocol in place that if triage deems that situation is not urgent and the condition doesn't particularly indicate that moving is dangerous (i.e. not a fall), then the person can be moved off the train into a station building.

Irish Rail themselves could help matters by putting up directions similar to those we see in the UK indicating that you should move off the train and seek help at the next station if you're feeling unwell. Of course that would also require that stations would have better staffing levels.

CrabRevolution

Stephen15 wrote: »

Again I'm also a medical layman but I would thought a call would get priority if the person is unconscious. Considering the first question usually asked when you dial 999 is: is the person conscious and breathing?

I've worked in emergency departments, generally if you're breathing you slip down the priority list.

Jamie2k9

Without knowing many details of the incident the wait would appear excessive, could well have been another mass evacuation onto tracks and which Ambulance operators was around could have had to sent a lot more than one.

coylemj

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Without knowing many details of the incident the wait would appear excessive, could well have been another mass evacuation onto tracks and which Ambulance operators was around could have had to sent a lot more than one.

'Mass evacuation onto tracks' :eek:

Suggest you read post #17

Jamie2k9

coylemj wrote: »

'Mass evacuation onto tracks' :eek:

Suggest you read post #17

THe point being? There was still a train behind with up to 300 people onboard and all it would have taken is one to left and more to follow.

Put it this way would the same person be left lying on the street for 90 minutes. I don't think so and IE should really raise what happened with DFB and NAS.

Del2005

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Put it this way would the same person be left lying on the street for 90 minutes. I don't think so and IE should really raise what happened with DFB and NAS.

If their condition wasn't serious they would be as the location* of the incident has no bearing on the speed of response.



* For non life threatening/hazardous locations.

Jamie2k9

Del2005 wrote: »

If their condition wasn't serious they would be as the location* of the incident has no bearing on the speed of response.



* For non life threatening/hazardous locations.

Rubbish, not a chance of it happenong and there would be a significant backlash against DFB/NAS. I do accept cases are different but they really dropped the ball here. Wonder if IEs handling of the situation compounded things.

45 minutes is likely the norm for most rail/tram related medical emergencies.

Whatever happens IE need to get answers and find out if other factors were at play.