Never make Assumptions!

We were on our way to a local address, probably less than a mile away. We had been told that the call was a double fatal stabbing and that our attendance had been requested by the police. They wanted confirmation that the casualities were deceased. As information was sketchy we didnt hang around.

On arrival we were met by a police officer standing at the front door. The whole place was pretty busy, there were lots of other officers present and it appeared the area was being treated as a crime scene.  We entered the house and the officer guarding the front door informed us that they were both dead. Who? I enquired. He explained that in the living room were two people, a male and a female, both of whom had been stabbed to death and that we had been called to confirm death.

I entered the room and in light of what I had been told was taking great care not to compromise what was a crime scene. Lying in front of me were two people, an adult male and adult female. It was quite strange. It was if they had been carefully arranged in the position that they were found. The woman was lying on her back on the floor in front of the fireplace in a nice straight line, her arms neatly by her side. Her head was pointing towards the fireplace. Lying next to her was the male. He was lying on his left side with his right arm draped across the woman as if cuddling her.

I made my way to the side of the woman and crouched down for closer inspection. She was clearly dead and there was evidence of a number of puncture wounds. It was while I was examining her that I noticed something that made me almost gasp. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the mans chest rising and falling.

He was Alive!

I shouted out for the benefit of those present "this mans alive, I will have to intervene". I almost felt a little guilty for messing up what the police thought was just a crime scene. I went to the side of the male and with the help of my colleague we rolled him away from the woman.

My second surprise! Sticking out from his chest was a knife. Because of his position it had been hidden from view.

On inspection penetration did not seem to be deep, the knife was being held in place between two ribs. There seemed to be significant blood loss. His trousers in the area of his groin were blood soaked. We exposed him to inspect for further injury but found none. It would seem that the blood had leaked from the chest wound. All the while the patient had apeared to be unconscious, but on reflection I think that he had been conscious throughout and was pretending. We did attempt to determine his responses, but in the circumstances did not persist. I believe he was a good actor!

On alerting the police to this you can imagine things became a little frantic. We treated our patient and rapidly transported him to hospital with the police in close attendance.

It transpired that the couple were married. He had stabbed his wife and then attempted to kill himself, clearly unsuccessfully.The really sad part of all this, is that they were found by their 12 year old daughter, who had come home from school in her lunchbreak. I cannot begin to imagine the effect this would have had upon her.

So many broken lives.