Читать книгу Fighting For Your Life - Lysa Walder - Страница 15

Gerry has been doing the job for years – and he’s quite jaded. He’s seen it all, he says. Today we’re called to Brixton: a man, 21, can’t walk, legs hurt.

Blase as ever, Gerry shrugs. ‘This’ll be a load of rubbish,’ he grunts. He thinks it’s a waste of time. I laugh. You never know.

Inside the big house, converted into many flats, two young student types, a girl and a boy, accompany us up the stairs. They’re Italian. It’s their flatmate, up on the third floor. He’s been in bed for nearly 24 hours. ‘He come home sick from work and go to bed,’ we’re told. That’s all they know.

The bedroom is pitch-black, heavy curtains blocking all light. We can just about see the man because the sheets are pulled up right over him. They turn the lights on. I pull the cover down a little bit to get a look at him.

I don’t expect this. He’s got a horrible rash covering his face. It’s purple, flat and blotchy, the sort of rash that doesn’t blanch when pressed. It’s deadly, a killer. Very bad news indeed. Gerry has a look with me. Cynic he may be, but today he’s taken aback.

‘Bloody hell,’ 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.