"Mixed Paramedic Care"

During a recent night out when I was out with my boyfriend and friends, I suddenly began to feel very unwell and was sweating and feeling very dizzy. I went to the toilet and came out and I had collapsed in the middle of the club. After the bouncers carrying me unconscious up the stairs closer to the door, their assumption of me being "just really drunk" was staring to wear off. The decision was made by staff and my friends to call an ambulance as this was not normal.

Once the paramedics had arrived, they examined me and were trying to waken me up. However my boyfriend was informing me that one of the medics were being very unsympathetic and not very friendly under the assumption that I was just a drunk teenager. Once I had awoken, the other medic was talking to be very calmly and explaining what had happened, where I was etc. He asked if I did not want to go to hospital, which I didn't, and said I would need to sign a form to say they had been and given me the option. The paramedic who didn't really seem concerned at all spent a lot of the time arguing against my friends about how old I really was and what I had taken and how much I had drank rather than accepting the fact that the most likely cause of this was that someone had slipped something in my drink.

Overall this one paramedic out of the two was really not concerned about me at all and thought I was simply just drunk. He seemed very angry and snappy at me for "wasting his time". Despite this, the care I received from the other paramedic was great I was so thankful for him being there as were my friends. I doubt that this is the first time that this has happened to a person and I feel that paramedics and other emergency services shouldn't be so quick to judge on whether a person is "just drunk" or not.