Fighting For Your Life. Lysa Walder
he mutters.
We know what this is. It’s serious blood poisoning, or meningococcal septicaemia, to give it its medical name. A lethal bacteria. For all the rash on the surface of his skin, he is bleeding just as badly inside.
Now we’re taking a much closer look at the rest of him. The purple rash covers his entire body from head to toe. He’s awake, coughing, confused.
‘How’re you feeling?’ I ask.
‘My foot hurt,’ he says in heavily accented English. ‘They hurt so much, I not walk.’ Gerry immediately goes down for the carrychair so we can get him out and down to the ambulance.
His flatmates are stunned when they see his rash. Apparently he’d been working in a restaurant as a chef. It was his first day at work in London – he’d only arrived in the UK the day before from his home in Italy. He hadn’t even been able to finish his first shift in the kitchen. They’d sent him home late evening as he was so obviously unwell. As bad as it is, I’m surprised he’s not worse. The lower leg pain he’s experiencing is associated with poor circulation. But you can also expect vomiting, dizziness and painful headache with this type of bacteria. It’s terribly sad. He’s so handsome, this young Italian, it’s devastating to think of what’s happening to his body. He’s got thick, dark, curly hair and chiselled cheekbones, a real heartthrob.
Gerry and I don’t discuss it – there’s no need to – because we both know that his chances of survival are slim. At best, someone with this blood infection could face amputation of their hands or feet, because their circulation is so damaged. I feel so bad for him – but he’s got no idea this rash is running rampant all over him. There’s no point in mentioning it. It won’t help. Given the likely outcome, all we can do is be as kind and gentle as we can.
We go to lift him into the chair. He’s in real pain, every part of his body hurts. His friends watch in silence as we carry him into the ambulance. Now his blood pressure is dangerously low: his body is totally in shock. All we can do to help is radio through for a doctor to meet us, elevate his feet, to improve his circulation – and put a line into his arm. As we whiz through the streets I cling to a tiny, desperate, shred of hope: once we’re at the hospital they’ll be giving him the antibiotics he needs to pull him through, I tell myself. It’s a short journey. Hope and despair run in turn through your mind in those few brief minutes. And there’s a sense of helplessness too.
Finally we pull up. The doctor’s opening the door. He looks at the young man, purses his lips, says, ‘Yes, fair enough. Bring him in.’ and the hospital take over. Gerry is strangely silent. We just get on with it and write the job up. There’s another call within a few minutes; just a sprained knee, a brief distraction to take our minds off the tragedy we’ve just witnessed.
But an hour later the control room calls me. ‘Your young man died,’ I’m told.
I’ve been hoping in vain. How did he pick it up? No one would know. It’s a bacteria that’s normally passed on by someone carrying it if they sneeze or cough without covering their mouth. Or it can be passed on by kissing. We call it ‘pillow contact’. He could have picked it up anywhere. And because he’d been coughing while we were helping him, Gerry and I have been exposed to the bacteria too. So we have to take a powerful antibiotic called Rivampicillin, often given to people who come into close contact with a person with meningococcal septicaemia. It reduces the chances of developing the disease. Within a couple of hours of taking it, all your secretions are bright orange. Blow your nose, pee or cry – everything’s bright orange for a few days.
I did shed a few tears for that young Italian. When you’ve sons of a similar age, it’s all too easy to imagine his mother, hugging her son goodbye as he leaves home, suitcase in hand, full of happy anticipation, looking forward to his big adventure in a strange city. All her hopes and fears for him would have gone through her mind in that last farewell. And then, 48 hours later, she gets that dreadful phone call to say he’s gone: every parent’s nightmare.
This happened some time ago, before ambulance teams carried certain types of antibiotics with them in order to treat people on the spot. Nowadays paramedics can administer the drugs there and then before rushing a patient to hospital: a lifesaving development which means the public can get the right emergency treatment when they need it most.
It’s impossible to get to every job on time on New Year’s Eve. We do our best. But, for those few hours after midnight, it just goes mad. One particular New Year’s Eve call will always haunt me.
I’m working with Amanda, with whom I’ve got quite a lot in common. For a start, our partners are both paramedics, not unusual in our line of business, given the combination of shift patterns and the nature of the work. We’re just ready to start ‘greening up’ (showing a green light on your console means you’re available for the next call) at the local hospital. It’s coming right up to midnight, so there’s a big group of ambulance staff milling around in the cold night, waiting for the off. At the stroke of midnight we all rush around hugging and exchanging greetings. Within minutes Amanda and I get the first call of the year.
‘Oh no,’ says Amanda, gesturing me over. ‘Happy New Year, Lysa.’ We stare at the screen as it flashes up just two words: two horrible words you never want at any time, let alone for the first call of the year ahead.
‘One under,’ it says on the screen. That means someone’s gone under a train.
‘What kind of timing is this?’ I ask as we drive off to the station. Luckily we’re not far away and there’s not much traffic around. We get out the rubber gloves – somehow we know we’re going to need them. At the station a small knot of grim-faced staff and British Transport Police meet us. The story is, the train driver alerted them the minute he realised he’d hit something. It was a fast train and he was flying through, so he couldn’t actually stop at the station. But it had happened literally seconds after the stroke of midnight. Spooky.
‘We think he hit someone and they’re still out there on the track,’ we’re informed.
It’s a freezing-cold night with a full moon. So far the police haven’t spotted anything. We all stand there on the silent, deserted platform, shining our torches on to the track, looking for the body. More policemen join us. But it’s a waste of time. We can’t really see anything from up here.
It takes a few minutes to agree a plan of operation with the police: Amanda and I will get down there on to the track, walk along and see if we can find the person. The power’s already been switched off. There is, of course, a chance they’ll still be alive. Given the speed of the train, it’s a very slim chance – but one we still have to consider. There’s no time to dwell on what sort of state the body might be in. Hastily we don our high-viz yellow and green jackets with reflective strips. And the hard hats. We keep all this stuff with us all the time, just in case we run into situations like this.
‘This is the last time I’m working on New Year’s Eve,’ Amanda grumbles to me. A £20 note for every time I’ve said that and I could have retired to Italy by now. Though I never really mean it.
‘Yeah, this is pretty grim,’ I concur as we climb down. And so, as the rest of the world hugs, kisses, glugs down champagne and parties in the New Year on a cloud of optimism, we’re on the track looking for … what? A mutilated body? A half-dead person? We haven’t a clue. It’s actually quite surreal. It feels a bit like we’re in a movie – a horror flick. As we go along to the unlit section, the full moon shines right down on us.
‘All we need is the werewolf,’ I say to Amanda, trying to break up the bleakness of the situation. It’s chill-your-bones cold.
‘Yeah, this is just what you want to be doing tonight,’ Amanda replies, as we strike out into the darkness.
‘I’m not sure if I really want to see what I’m supposed to find.’
Then, about 100 yards