Medical Emergencies in France - Disaster Strikes!

All those “No going back” programmes on TV have a moment, usually before an ad break, when the voiceover intones, with a certain deadpan relish “and then disaster strikes...”

The renovation of our house was almost complete, we were furnishing it and I had been carrying a mattress… I tripped over a box; I hit the corner of a wall, dislocating my arm.

Judy upstairs heard the crash and came down to investigate and found me flattened on the floor. “And then disaster strikes...” she remarked brightly.

We had the French emergency numbers to hand but these were not accessible from mobile phones. Our landline was as yet unconnected.

Judy phoned our nearest hospital at Jonzac, “Bring him in” they advised. The emergency number for ambulances also was not assessable from a mobile so she rang for a taxi. The driver turned out to be a part-time ambulance driver, he zapped us to the hospital and was able to bypass the booking-in procedure. I was whizzed-off to a trolley and a couple of nurses immediately started cutting my shirt off.

“My mother always told me to wear clean clothes in case of a hospital visit” I tried to say, “but I wouldn’t have bothered if I knew the clothes were going to be cut off me”. My French was not really up to it and I had forgotten the Number 1 rule of the medical profession – THEY MAKE THE JOKES.

I was x-rayed, put on a drip and given an oxygen mask with impressive speed. A nurse took the wedding ring off my hand as it might start to swell-up. I was given a dose of morphine and an hour later I woke-up with the shoulder back in place and on a morphine high. I was given lunch, but no aperitif.

Meanwhile in reception, Judy had caught sight of a white version of me, out to the world, being wheeled away with drip and with oxygen mask. Minutes later a nurse came out to her, presented her with my wedding ring saying “C’est pour vous”. Up to this point Judy had not considered a dislocated shoulder to be fatal.

“It looks like this little fella ain’t going to make it”. As Rolf Harris says on Animal Hospital.

I am a convinced fan of French Hospitals despite the lack of aperitifs. And for those wondering, the pan-European emergency number to call from a mobile is 112.

Gus Coulton
www.relax-in-france.com