Last night, I went to a Rodeo. It was pretty good fun; all the cowboys and local farmers rolling around in their boots and jeans and the like. Of course, one of my more 'city' classmates mentioned the manure, but the atmosphere was thick with more than manure. It was a practice rodeo; no prizes, no judges, no real order of things. It was also primarily a 'kids' rodeo; the average age of the riders was about fifteen. Funnily enough, some of the young bucks even had their wee legion of groupies. For some of the wee cowboys, it was their first ride. They all fared better than the bull that bucked himself dizzy and staggered to the ground. Eyebrows were certainly raised at the announcers warning to "Watch out folks, these fences can move up to a meter!"

The evening also afforded some of the best steak I've had in months. It was, in fact, more delicious than the irony of watching the bovine extravaganza whilst tasting the same. Anyway, some of the local med students had been to this particular rodeo restaurant a few weeks earlier to watch a slightly bigger even that last night's. They even managed to find themselves getting their hands dirty;

It'd been a good night, there had been some good cowboys and a few crazy rides. The usual amount of riders getting smashed up against the fences and no-one had been kicked. One of the more experienced riders was in the shoe, and the gate jumped and away it all went. Bucking and stomping and dust. The guy stayed on for a good six or seven seconds, but the bull was just going bananas. As he lost his grip, the Cowboy fell on his noggin. Some of the people who were watching reckon he got stopmed for his trouble, too.

The Cowboy's out cold. The clowns rush in and the ring fills up faster than a school cafeteria at lunchtime, and the bull gets rushed the hell out of there. Meantime, the bloke's started to convulse, and tremble and the like. He regains consciousness, and his mates try to help him up. He falls down, confused and sloppy.

The students watch on; surely someone out there's a paramedic or ambo or some such. But, nope. One of the final year students, Rocky, heads over and asks if people know what they're doing. They don't. So he suggests the bloke lie down and stay still and get hisself an ambulance. Cowboy's feeling a bit better, and his bravado kicks in. "She'll be right mate, just lemme have a sit out the back for a bit, yeah?" And Cowboy heads with his posse round the back, and they give him a few shots of rum.

Rocky, flabbergasted, comes back and tells the rest of the crew what's goin' on. So one of the girls, Prefontaine, goes out the back to have a chat with the Cowboy. His mates are back ringside, and one of them's about to ride. Prefontaine tells the Cowboy that he just got smashed, and describes the convulsion, and manages to get him to admit that, yeah, he feels like he got hit by a truck. Or kicked by a bull. His bravado and self confidence isn't in the healthiest condition, not surprisingly. He just won't be convinced to catch an ambulance up to the hospital, because he doesn't want to be seen as a sissy. The rodeo's continuing out the front, of course.

Finally, Prefontaine and one of her mates get Cowboy to head to the hospital by offering to drive him up there themselves. And away they go, and half an hour he's in the CT machine.

There's been a stack of publicity about Natasha Richardson and, in Queensland, a recent spate of Courier Mail headlines about folks who refuse medical care, because of the either the percieved cost of care, or because the patient thinks they're fine. Medics who witness these situations need to be assertive and plan for the worst case scenario. And, seriously, if you have a convulsion when you fall off a bull, see a Doc and get a CT.