It’s the call that every Police Officer dreads, but one that will come to most of us at some time in our service. This week was the second time for me in the last four years.
Any available callsign - immediate call to a three-month old child recently found deceased – family are in attendance
Fortunately, or unfortunately as some might see it, I was about two miles away and got to the house before the ambulance had even arrived. Every Police officer will know the feeling of dread that goes through a person’s mind when they know they are going to be expected to perform a miracle with absolutely no training and even less knowledge. I always breathe a sigh of relief when the paramedic gets to the serious accident first. Unfortunately there is not a lot of use in being able to quote the many different strands of discrimination or the latest Community Policing Mission Statement when you are faced with a human who is either dead or dying.
The front door was open in anticipation and I could hear the sounds of stifled crying as soon as I crossed the threshold. Walking into another persons personal space is always a little uncomfortable, but this time it was almost unbearable. I knew I was going to be expected to do something so I turned the corner and walked into the living room. All eyes turned expectantly my way…the room was suddenly and yet deafeningly silent.
I remember how the chair on the far side of the room was different to all the other furnishings. It was cream and obviously much newer than everything else. Next to it was a matching foot-stool, also clean and as far out of character as the chair. Sat in the chair was a woman in a dressing gown, and cradled in her arms was the tiny child that I was there to see.
An eternity passed in seconds
As I reached the mother and child I hear the sirens outside. I had a rough idea of what would be expected from a recent three-hour refresher (of which at least 20% of the time was spend doing ice-breaker introductions or taking enforced leg-stretches) a few months previously, but I had absolutely no confidence that I could effectively put anything into practice. In the back of my mind I knew the time to save a life had come and gone. It was at least 10 minutes since the call had been made and the mother was still clutching the child tightly to her chest. There had been no attempt to resuscitate but I was going to have to try…if only for the benefit of those in the room.
I tried to convince the mother to surrender her child to me, but she just screamed unintelligible words at me and held the baby tighter. I felt a hand on my shoulder and saw the fingertips of a purple glove out of the corner of my eye. I am not sure if it was audible, but I know I breathed a sigh of relief and reverted to a much more comfortable assisting role. The green overalls of the Rapid Response Paramedic had much more impact than my body armour and baton, and the child was swiftly passed into the care of the expert.
Everything that could have been done to save the child was done over the next ten minutes (despite the full knowledge that we were never going to win) until the Ambulance crew arrived. The child was quickly transferred to their vehicle for transport to the nearby hospital and once mum was also on board left for the short journey into the city.
It soon transpired that the child’s mother had come downstairs in the early hours of the morning to breastfeed her baby and had sadly fallen asleep in the new chair purchased as the families present to make feeding as comfortable as possible. As she dropped off to sleep, she had slumped slightly and the baby had tragically suffocated in her arms. She had woken a few hours later and discovered what had happened.
This is a tragic situation, but it also brought home to me how I was seconds from attempting to do potentially life-saving CPR on a child. It angers me that I could have been there in time, could have been there without the timely medical back-up and would have failed to do the best for the child. The reason it angers me is that I feel my medical training is woefully inadequate for those circumstances, and many others that I have or might find myself in. Some specialist officers receive significantly more intensive and far more advanced training that the pointless annual date with Resusci Annie that those of us on shift are offered.
We should have far better training and carry far better kit than we do at present. We should have automatic defibrillators in our cars and the training to use them correctly for a start. I am not saying that this piece of kit would have saved the baby at that house or that it would have been appropriate to have used such a device in those circumstances, but it’s an example of something that could be used to save lives in the future with limited associated risks. I have no desire to become a hybrid Police Officer and Paramedic but just to be able to give those who need help the best chance I can of recovering from their illness or injury.
