Head Bangers on the Streets of Dublin

Tonight a really drunk guy fell over from a standing position and hit his head on the curb right in front of Trinity College. It made such a crack that it drowned out the DJ playing the Bank pub. This was a fall from about at least 4 feet staight to stone. Bone meet stone, stone meet bone. Blood is everywhere and we have one unconscious vagrant going down on the street right in front of us.

The problem is, there were a bunch of first year medical students from the Royal College of Surgeons who watched too much ER and felt the need to turn this into some kind of trauma reality show (last one to check vitals is voted out). My father, who is a doctor, checked the guy out. He was fine. Bleeding but fine. So fine, in fact, that when he came to the first thought was to look for his bottle which was still laying in the street. He kept trying to get to his feet until someone had the good sense to put the booze in his hands. He nuzzled it like a teddy bear and calmed right the hell down. I called 999 - that is 911 for Eire in case anyone needs that information and I know you do you boozy whores - and 15 minutes later, *poof*, there they were and we were off to the pub.

Which brings me to the purpose of this blog. The irish health service is much maligned and admittingly it does have its problems, but when that ambulance cut across cow path like streets glutted with traffic whilst dodging in and out of pissed teenagers fresh from the Robbie Williams concert - well sweethearts, it made me proud to be ... well it made me proud. Dad said that 15 minutes in that situation was reasonable (I didn't say the guy was dying to 999, and I said he was talking and conscious which he was, so they knew it wasn't a life or death situation). When he had to do that emergency trach in Disney World when I was a kid, the parametics took longer to get to the scene.

This brings me to the real, real purpose of this blog. I can't think of any worse job in Ireland than working in a trauma unit on a Saturday night in Dublin. The vomit alone has to reach unthinkable amounts. The amount of drunk related stupidity has got to be astronomical! The government said recently that if they could just cut out the alcohol related injuries and incidents from the trauma units in Ireland, the health system would not be under such a crisis! I am talking about this (getting some face to face feedback about my potential blog topic for the night, as you do) and my taxi driver, it turns out, used to work security in the ER. Yes, security. Apparently, they need guards around the waiting room in the trauma center for when bar fights break out! No joke.

The taxi driver figured it was safer to pick up total strangers in a care then to work in a Dublin hospital.

And to those first year med students ... let this serve as a cautionary tale. Do you really want to become a doctor? It often ruins an otherwise fine night out.