PULSE Magazine | September 2018 Issue

Hello,

I am a Victim Services Counselor for APD. Today, I worked a call where we requested EMS and were unsure of if they would be able to help or how. The medics who arrived were Allen Clark 2684 and Jeff Elias 2284 in M2. They went above and beyond so I wanted to express my gratitude and make sure their kindness was acknowledged. The community is lucky to have them and I felt so fortunate to have their help as well. Today in this case they were called to the home of a 74 year old woman with numerous medical prob- lems. Her husband was walking today when he was struck by a vehicle and taken to South Austin Hospi- tal for an emergency surgery. Before the husband went into surgery he was able to tell officers that his wife was at home alone. Officers went to their residence and initially did not get a response at the door. Officers decided to hop the fence and see if they could spot her in the home from the back win- dows. They were able to find her sitting in her wheelchair in the kitchen. She was hard of hearing and not able to get to the door on her own to let them in. Fortunately they had the key to the residence from the husband and were able to get in and check on her. They noticed that her catheter was leaking and she had defecated herself. She was dependent upon oxygen and seemed to have memory issues. She only has home health care once per week but they attempted to get the home health care nurse out in an emergency situation. We were told they were going to be unable to send a nurse to help. Officers had requested us, Victim Services, to assist. We exhausted phone numbers to potential family/friends and had no luck with home health care or Adult Protective Services. Eventually we heard back from a friend but she was two hours away. We were unable to spend two hours sitting with the wife, so we contacted EMS. It did not seem safe to leave her by herself and we were not qualified to deal with her catheter issue nor did it seem humane to leave her in her soiled cloth- ing for that length of time. When EMS arrived the wife adamantly refused transport. The medics were extremely patient and kind with the wife. They did everything they could to make her as comfortable as possible to stay in her home until her friend arrived. They also had the idea to ask neighbors if they could sit with her for the time being and fortunately the next door neighbor was familiar with the wife and her husband. The neighbor agreed to stay with her until her friend arrived to be with her. I had not thought to ask neighbors for help. I was so impressed with their critical thinking and creative solutions in addition to their overall care displayed towards this woman. They sat with her and us until we had made sure there was a solid, safe plan in place. They even contacted home health care and were able to get them to agree to come to the residence tonight, although home health care had told us no earlier.

I was extremely grateful for the medics help and felt it would have been easy for most people to have the wife sign the refusal screen and leave quickly, but they were invested in this woman’s wellbeing and truly cared about helping her.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope they will be commended for their exceptional actions. These medics truly went above and beyond.

Stephanie Burgess Austin Police Department Victim Services Unit Crisis Response Team Lead Counselor

Allen Clark

Jeff Elias

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