"Excellent care from Exeter & District Ambulance Service - No 3203"

Our 92 year old mother in-law (who is quite a large lady with numerous medical issues) fell at home and broke her leg. To make matters worse, she fell in an awkward place with very little room for manoeuvre. It took two crews, well over an hour to sedate her and tackle the job of moving her out of the house and in to the Ambulance. Through the whole of this process the crews were superb.

As can be imagined, she was in so much pain and every attempt to move her caused her great distress. One of the main problems was that they identified that they needed to straighten her leg before she could be moved, but action was prevented by the confinement of the situation and her pain. They tackled this difficult situation, however, in a calm manner with utmost professionalism. They sedated her, straightened her leg using a special device and eventually managed to lift and manoeuvre her out of the house and into the ambulance.

On behalf of my mother in-law and the family, I would very much like to thank and praise both crews for their work. They were a credit to themselves and the Ambulance Service. Thank you.

As a note of interest, I would like to bring one small point to the attention of the Ambulance Service about a piece of equipment. As mentioned, the crews used a piece of equipment to straighten her leg. Unfortunately the crew did have some problems with this equipment. Because of the confined space, they found it very difficult to fit on her leg. The main problem however was that the equipment is supplied with a vacuum pump. Unfortunately the pump on the first rig had snapped in half and totally broken. The second pump (from the second ambulance) did not work successfully and they eventually had to use a foot-pump that they found elsewhere. To my mind, there is a design problem with this equipment that needs to be evaluated. It did not detract however, form the work of the crew who worked their way around the problem. Well done to all!