I get sent to a job “Female 14, collapse in back of police van”.  Nothing suspicious about that, we often get people collapsing when they are being arrested/evicted/give final notice/have the repossession people around.

So there they are, in the say in a side turning just off a main road.  I park up and can tell from the relaxed attitude of the police that it’s probably nothing too serious.  One look at the patient confirms this – she’ll have to go to hospital (to protect everyone against being sued), but she is fine.  I examine her vital signs and everything seems to be normal.

The ambulance turn up and I’m just handing over the information about the patient when a woman in a SUV decides to turn down the now blocked side turning.  Realising that she isn’t going to fit between ambulance and police van, she starts to reverse.

The ambulance crew, the four police officers, the patient and myself can all see what is going to happen next.

“STOP!”, shouts the policeman

“Stop!”, shouts (slightly less loud) one of the ambulance crew.

“Oh dear…”, I whisper under my breath.

*CRUNCH* goes the (slightly battered) SUV against an absolutely pristine vintage Jaguar.

“FUCK!”, goes the driver of the Jaguar, quite understandably I feel.

“You muppet”, mutters the police officer.

If you listen carefully you might hear a little snigger from someone on the ambulance side of the seven witnesses of this act of ‘Driving without due care and attention’.

Not from me…obviously.

The patient goes into the back of the ambulance, and I’m left chatting to one of the policemen.

“I bet”, I say, “She doesn’t have any insurance…”.

“Well”, he replies, “It seems that half the people around here seem to think it’s optional”. (Point 4 on the link – Although it wouldn’t surprise me to think that 50% of all car stops have no insurance).

So I have a little eavesdrop, and sure enough, she has no insurance.  The driver tries to get angry at the police, but this soon vanishes when she realises exactly how much trouble she is in.

(In the great scheme of things, not *that* much, but enough to cause her some serious anguish).

The police officer spends the next ten minutes rolling his eyes as he contemplates the paperwork he will have to do.

I try to cheer him up by telling him that he has personally successfully detected two crimes.

I don’t think it worked…

(WARNING:  It has been a while since I was in education, so I don’t know the current ideas on political correctness, so if the post below is insulting, I’m sorry.  You should know by now that I treat everyone the same.  If you think I’m racist, then check out my archives.  However, it’s not against the law (yet) for me to say that I think religion is a generally silly idea).

Written by the Ambulance Service Association, the Community Handbook (Pocket edition) is an easy reference guide to many of the ethnic groups that we may come across.

Of course, in London there are around 200 different ethnic groups, so any ‘comprehensive’ handbook would weigh a ton.

So we get a two page spread of some of the commoner ethnic groups in the UK.

You can take a look at a sample of the book.

It’s very pretty, and I can imagine it possible being useful for ambulance trusts who do not have a large ‘ethnic’ population.  But I work in Newham, where the ‘ethnics’ outnumber the WASPs, and I’ve found that you tend to pick up on other peoples culture pretty quickly, as in a week or two on the job.

One amusing point of the book is that for a lot of cultures, it says that you should remove your shoes on entering the house.  Yet one of the main things we were told in ambulance school, was that you never take your boots off, as it’s just too dangerous.  I’ve only been asked to remove my boots once before, when I was entering a Mosque.  I explained that I couldn’t and the head bloke there told me not to worry, as the sick person was more important (he was as well, he was having a heart attack).

For a number of cultures, the book tells us that we should speak via the head male family member.  Again, in practice I’ve never come across this.  What I do tend to come across is a seven year old girl doing the translating for the whole family, which is why I think you have a lot of very ‘grown-up’ Asian girls.  Language is always a problem, but I’ve found that although people tell me that they can’t speak English, it is more probable that they don’t have the confidence to try.  So I always try to talk to the patient, and then the relatives will translate the odd tricky word.

Various cultures also apparently have a taboo about men dealing with women.  Again, something I have very little trouble with, as I’m not about to perform gynecological examinations on my patients.  The only time I’ve found that it might be an issue is with delivering babies, but if there isn’t a woman around then I’ve found that people are just plain happy that there is someone around who knows what to do.

Although, having seen some of the ethnic grannies, and their attitudes to their granddaughter having a baby (something along the lines of, ‘Stop being a wimp, and push it out’), I suspect they have as much an idea about delivering babies as I do.

And I can’t see any culture being happy about having their women undress alone in front of strange men.

The book also has little sections on ‘Customs around Death’.  I’d like to think that we are so successful at treating people that we don’t have to deal with it that often…

To be honest, a lot of the book is trying to teach us to suck eggs.  As long as you have some semblance of common sense, and are polite and respectful to everyone (except maybe drunks…), then you shouldn’t have any problems.  If in doubt ask is my motto, and I’ve learned quite a bit about other cultures just by asking the patient.  I’m guessing that a lot of ethnic people have come across a fair bit of unconscious culture clash, and have developed their own strategies for dealing with it.

Please note how Reynolds has made special effort to make everything positive in the above post.  Note how he hasn’t mentioned that some people have a huge chip on their shoulder about their culture, or how one culture seeks to emulate the worst qualities of another culture, or how a lot of non-drunken violence seems to be ‘ethnic’ vs ‘ethnic’ violence.  Just remember, I dislike everyone equally, I’m an equal opportunities cynic.

**Expletive Deleted** **Expletive Deleted** **Expletive Deleted** **Expletive Deleted** **Expletive Deleted** **Expletive Deleted**

Tonight I have been driving around going to Maternataxis, and a man who's legs have been twitching...

...since June.

I'd also be grateful if someone could please explain to me how you can get to 56 years old and think that gastric reflux is the same thing as choking to death.

Twice she asked me, "So you are sure it won't kill me?".

Then there was the person who regularly fakes an angina attack so he won't have to walk home after going to the pub with his girlfriend...

Don't ask about the hate-filled drive to a Maternataxi while my tasty-looking dinner was getting cold on station.

**Expletive Deleted** **Expletive Deleted** **Expletive Deleted**

While I have been going to these non-emergency cases, someone was stabbed to death about 400 yards from my ambulance station.

It's not that I missed out on an 'interesting' job (and trust me, I'm trying my best not to sound ghoulish about it). Instead it's that we have to send ambulances to so many calls that don't actually need an ambulance, and that my "for utter, utter emergencies only" unit is going to such complete and total **Expletive Deleted**

Twitching legs since June, or serious stabbing, which would you rather be sent on?


It's a good job this is my second, and not fourth night, otherwise I would be wanting to make with the stabby

So I wished for an interesting job, and I got…

A collapsed 50 year old female, probably from a low blood pressure.  A pleasant couple, and she had just been discharged from hospital that day (after investigations into a possibly related condition).

A middle-aged mother who was having a panic attack.  The crew reached her at the same time as me, so there was nothing for me to do.

I was then sent six miles to a worried mother and daughter, who had been asleep with the gas cooker still on downstairs.  Both were absolutely fine, but went to hospital in order to put the mothers mind at ease.

A 28 year old female, who had a high temperature for two days, and that night had started to vomit.  Otherwise healthy, with what I euphemistically call “No Priority Symptoms”.  The husband followed the ambulance to the hospital (1 mile away) in his car.

Then I was sent to a patient with two days history of chest pain, basically outside the Royal London hospital.  (Stopped me getting my 1 am bagels from the 24 hour bagel shop…)  The pain was probably related to a cough he has had, but it was hard to tell as he didn’t speak English, and my translation was via a friend who wouldn’t ask the patient what I told him to ask.

A maternataxi, where the ambulance crew asked what I was doing in that part of the world, just because I was so far from station, and they, like me, can’t believe that labour pains are a “Category A” emergency response.

Then I was sent six miles again to a young man with a mix of an asthma attack, and probably pneumonia.  I was able to start the lifesaving treatment that he needed (oxygen and a Salbutamol nebuliser), and the ambulance crew were only a few minutes behind me.  That patient was ‘blued’ into hospital, and spent the rest of the night in the resuscitation room.

My final call was to a male who was ‘dizzy’.  He met me outside his block of flats in his pyjamas and slippers, and refused to give any sort o medical history.  This was really infuriating, as there could have been something really rather wrong with him.  Thankfully the crew were right behind me, so we got him into the ambulance, and noticed that he had recently had a blood test.  Would he tell us what the blood test was?  No, would he tell us what medication he was on?  No.  Would he describe how he felt?  No.

We tried explaining that we couldn’t help him unless he started talking, because there are drugs we could have given him that react badly to some regular medications, but still he refused.

So the crew just took him into hospital, where he then proceeded to annoy the A&E staff.

So that was it, nothing interesting at all.

Apart from the radio/CD player in the car being broken…

Buggerit!

Miles driven – 97

8 Calls, 7 of them in under 8 minutes.

Longest run - 5.8 miles, shortest run – 0.7 miles

Average distance traveled to a call – 2.7 miles

 

My muse sent me a postcard from the beach today – seems that she is enjoying herself on holiday and won’t be back for a bit, so once more I plunge into my list of “things I should write about”…

One of the nicest things about working on the RRU is that I have complete control over the radio/CD player.  Also it is feasible for me to listen to my MP3 player while cruising around the streets of Newham.

A lot of the time I listen to Podcasts, mainly IT Conversations (and there is a very interesting ‘cast there that I’m listening to as I type this), but I do also have a large music library for when I’m feeling less cerebral.

At nights, when I’m cruising around the streets I love to listen to tracks from the Vietnam war era, “We’ve gotta get out of this place” takes on a special meaning depending on where in my ‘patch’ I’m currently in.  There are also a number of mellow tracks from that genre that quite nicely ease me into 4am.

If I’m in a foul mood, then I’ll select some Polyphonic Spree, Alabama 3 or some hardcore dance, as these never fail to cheer me up.

But the real pleasure comes when I’m running on blue lights to a call, and certain tracks are playing…

‘The Batman Theme’ (from the film not the TV series) always brings a smile to my face, as does Yello– The ‘Chase’ which has been used for countless films.  ‘Bat Out of Hell’ by Meatloaf is also a good track to race around to (although I should be at the location waaaay before the end of the track) as is ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ by Queen.  Actually, anything uptempo by Queen is a good ‘drive like a nutter’ track.

But listening to the same old tracks is getting a bit dull, so I now need inspiration. 

So I’d like your suggestions for - ‘Music thats good to listen to while breaking the speed limit/driving down the wrong side of the road’.

The black dog has risen it's ugly head and coupled with a sore throat and abdominal pain, my muse appears to have buggered off to Spain for the weekend - so I bring you a post that has been sitting in my 'potential post' file for some time. I wrote this when I was still on an ambulance, as opposed to the RRU I'm currently on.

...

We got called to a "Female - epileptic fit" in the street - this was a call that was sent to us by the police. Now, I may be accused of being overly cynical, but when the police call us to an "epileptic fit", it is normally because they are arresting someone, and in order to avoid going to the police station the person fakes a fit. There are ways and means of detecting when this is the case, some of which I have mentioned previously. Even though this was the likely explanation for this job, we still rushed down there, fully prepared for it to be genuine.

We turned up to see a car being towed away, and the police that met us had a slight smirk about them, it's the finely tuned sixth sense I have that made me suspect that the police were hiding something from me. We were led to the patient, who was laying in a darkened alleyway, with her boyfriend standing over her.

As is my normal approach, I said something along the lines of "Hello love, can you open your eyes for me", I brushed the thick, long hair from out of her eyes, and, being unable to see the patient properly pulled out my torch and shone it in her face. At first I thought it was just a very unattractive woman, then I brushed the hair back a bit further and that caused the wig to slip...

This female was born a man.

Now, I have no problem with transsexuals. I know a couple in a social situation, and apart from the time I caught one of them going to the bathroom in pink dressing gown and pink bunny slippers, their gender doesn't pay any part in what I think of them (as with gay men, I just think, "Great! More women for me!", of course it doesn't work out like that, but I live in hope).

The hardest bit is working out wether to call the patient 'he' or 'she'. So I asked the boyfriend.

It looked as if the patient had had a genuine epileptic fit, and so we got her onto the ambulance, and started our treatment. I managed to get a lot of the details off of her boyfriend. We got her into hospital, where we found out that she was not unknown to the hospital. By now she was starting to come around.

As she, and the boyfriend didn't live in the area that we found them in, I asked what she was doing there - apparently, she had parked the car on the estate, then someone had stolen the keys. Given what she was wearing (pink furry moon-boots, tight leather miniskirt, tight pink top, and a leather/furry frock jacket), and what I saw when I peeked at her previous medical historyt - I wonder if she was one of those 'ladies of the night' that we often drive past.

I mean, most of them look a bit rough, but having been born a man might explain a lot...

It is the time of year when I find myself asking the same question to people who I find collapsed.

'Are you fasting?'

For it is currently Ramadan, when observant Muslims fast during the hours of daylight. We have a lot of Muslims in Newham.

But it is not just people with low blood sugar that are affected by the fasting.

My brother has two men at his work who are fasting at the moment. They are currently in real pain from their stomach ulcers. While we spend some hours asleep without eating, our stomachs are less active at that time. If you are fasting while awake, then you are being bombarded with the sights and smells of food, and your stomach responds appropriately.

So fasting is not just a simple matter of being hungry.

Some Muslims are exempt from fasting, most notably those who are pregnant or diabetic. But not everyone takes advantage of this exemption, so for example the baby we recently delivered on a kitchen floor was born to a mother who was fasting.

So far, I've not had a fainter due to fasting, but with around 20 days left to Ramadan, I'm expecting at least one.