Red Cross Moto X

Today was a pretty good day. At least the good old Red Cross duty was.
It was a large turn out at the Moto X (for those of you who don't know what Moto X is, it's a motorbike race, with various categories to it, etc etc. For those of you who do know what it is, you'll probably know more about it than me; all I know is it involves a lot of very noisey dirt bikes).
At first we thought we'd be quite lucky with the casualties - we had none in the morning. It was only in the afternoon when things kicked off a little. It was typical, my 'co-worker' and I got called to our first casualty when I was waiting in the queue of the chip bar to get a hot choccie and a burger...knew it was too good to be true.
It's not uncommon for all the casualties to suddenly appear the moment we go out to grab some lunch, or in this case just something to eat/drink in general. When I did get the chance to return later for my hot choc and item of food, there was no hot choc left, and I was too past it for a burger, so I had a cuppa tea and a Kitkat instead. Of course, when it came to sitting down and drinking/eating this, we got another casualty with a foreign object in his eye. I returned to my tea later on to find it was cold. Still, I'm not as bad as some people, for example my boyfriend is jinxed when it comes to eating on duty; it just doesn't happen for him.

So, the first casualty was a 14 year old girl who had come off her bike mid-race and landed on her elbow. She complained of it being very painful (no surprise there) and she was unable to straighten it without causing a lot of pain. There was some swelling over the bone, and my co-worker suggested it may be fractured. This meant she would have to get it x-rayed to double check that everything was alright. So on went the ice pack to reduce the swelling, and muggins here got to treat her first casualty, by placing the casualty's injured arm in a sling, and securing it with a broadfold bandage so it wouldn't bump around too much on the way to hospital. So, one job done well. Then came another young lad with a swollen knee, another with a headache, the dude with the foreign object in his eye, and last but not least a young girl who requested a plaster for her knee she had promptly cut open (just before we were about to leave for home - another typical occurance). There were other casualties, I'm sure, but these are the ones I helped treat, or filled in PRFs for (patient report forms).
We had a few good laughs throughout the day though, which always makes a duty on a cold, wet day all the more manageable. I'm pretty pleased that I've finally had the chance to help treat a real casualty - it's about time!
However there's a slight problem which is dampening my day - my rabbit is pretty ill. Now this may sound like a pretty petty thing to get upset over, but if your nine-month old rabbit suddenly took an allergic reaction to her booster jab and is now at death's door, you'd be pretty damned upset too.