Murphy's Helicopter

My transport to RNS on that fateful day involved a NSW ambulance helicopter.  Or should I really say TWO NSW ambulance helicopters.  I actually remember the pilot turning up at Gosford, and saying "We've got an hydraulic leak in the chopper we just arrived in, so we can't take you in that, we'll get another one".

This statement may, in fact, have been the last thing I ever heard, given the seriousness of my problem, and the prognosis.  Fortunately it wasn't, but I can't remember much after that.  They went ahead and sedated me, as the replacement helicopter wasn't going to be long.

What ended up happening was fascinating.  Since the first chopper had landed on the helipad at Gosford Hospital and couldn't be moved, the helipad was therefore out of service!  The second chopper had to land down the road at the oval in Showground Road, and I had to be carted down there in a road ambulance to be loaded on to the chopper.

Sharon says she can recall me being taken down on a stretcher and driven off in an ambulance.  She didn't actually come down - earlier on I had told her to ring my parents and get them to come down to Gosford, pick her up and carry on to Royal North Shore Hospital.

Apparently it took almost as long to get me from Gosford Hospital to the oval in Showground Road than it did to actually take me from there to Royal North Shore!

It just goes to show, though, if you are going to get sick, NSW is probably one of the best places in the world for it to happen to you (especially if you are close to Sydney).  The speed and scope of everything they did for me was absolutely brilliant. I really cannot praise them enough.  When I was triaged at Gosford Hospital Casualty I must have been assessed at an incredibly high rating, as they basically dropped everything and took me in.  I jumped the queue in front of quite a few other patients, and at this stage I hadn't actually been diagnosed.  However severe chest pain coming from the left hand side (which is exactly what I had) does rate up there with the most serious of concerns.

Reading about oesophageal ruptures on the net lately, the speed of treatment is a big factor in the success rate.  If you let it go more than 24 hours, the result is almost always fatal: get treatment in less than an hour and the fatality rate drops to a mere 10%.

I have really no idea how long I had let the rupture go before I got Sharon to take me into hospital, but we figure the oesophagus probably ruptured at about 8-9pm at night, and I arrived down at Royal North Shore at about 7am next morning...