My crewmate (permanent crewmate mind you) called me ‘Tom’ yesterday.  She has never called me this before.

She normally calls me ‘Harry’, because she is rather obviously mad and thinks that I look like ‘Harry Potter’.

I call her Moomin, partly because she wants to live in Finland and partly because she is short and looks like one of them.

We don’t have nicknames for our regular patients, except perhaps for, ‘Oh it’s that bloody man again!’

Now for a request…

Has anyone any experience in hosting for Wordpress?  I’m looking for somewhere, preferably in the UK who will host a Wordpress blog.  It doesn’t have to be the world’s cheapest (although that would be good), but somewhere which has a pretty good record of treating it’s customers right.

Thanks in advance.

I don’t often do reviews, mainly because I don’t read them and am therefore uncertain about the format.  But this was too good an opportunity to miss.  Also I may have sold any reputation I have down the river and have agreed to do a bit of PR for the company promoting it – no money has changed hands.

‘Saved’ – Sunday at 9pm on the Hallmark channel.

Although this will perhaps be old news for any readers from the Americas, there is a new ‘Paramedic Drama’ TV show called ‘Saved’.  It’s on the Hallmark channel in the UK and last night I saw the pilot for it.  I made a few notes…

Like all TV medical dramas it was full of the interesting (but rare) jobs that we go to – I believe that somewhere out in TV writer-land there is a list of things that *must* happen in a medical drama. 

You must have,

• A fat guy having a heart attack.
• A cardiac arrest (which is saved).
• A case of child abuse.
• A baby being delivered.
• A car crash.
• A dead child.
• A mad homeless person, and…
• A newbie.

‘Saved’ ticked all of those particular boxes, but didn’t feel cheap for it.  In an hour long show (especially a pilot) you need to make things as interesting as possible.  The plot is fairly typical, the ‘hero’ has personal and family problems with a complicated love life, another is separated from his wife and child.  Once more drama needs these tropes to make you feel for the characters.  No-one in a drama has a happy marriage, just like no-one in Eastenders has a life free of pain.

But before you think I am being harsh, I’d like to let you know that I really enjoyed it.

I understand that there are differences in the way that American ambulance staff differ from us in the UK, but there were some universal truths that I can’t ever remember seeing in a TV drama before.  For example, on their way to hospital after dealing with a trauma the attendant was chatting quite happily while doing a medical procedure – now, realistically the driver would have pulled over, but it was the dialogue that I quite liked, they were both calm (no ‘If I don’t make this he’s gonna die’ histrionics) the driver was congratulating his mate on not getting them beaten up moments earlier.

The dialogue was similar to the way we talk in real life (although not always in front of the patient), the way of talking that may seem cruel and uncaring, but it is that level of disconnection which gets us through the shift.

There was the same superstition about uttering the ‘Q word’ in relation to a shift, I imagine that their medical consultant threw that idea into the writing pot.  It’s funny that they have the same belief in America.  We also shudder if someone says that the shift will be ‘quiet’ – it’s a terrible curse.

At one point the ambulance was stolen – the reaction was pretty much what ours would be, a moment of ‘oh sh*t!’ followed by laughter as the police followed it down the road.

The attitude to the patients was also similar to a lot of what happens on the road, telling the heart attack that he wasn’t going to die, and that he was safe now is the sort of thing that we all say in order to relax our patients.  I’m also glad that I’m not the only one who mentions to patients that he doesn’t like doctors either…

It’s also nice to see someone who wears gloves less than I do – I’m not a big fan of wearing them, but, unlike the protagonist, I do wear them if I’m delivering a baby as it gets bloody mucky.

I liked the reaction to being told that a patient of theirs had died – a little sad, but not broken up about it – and then back on the road for the next call.

Can I just say though, sex in the back of an ambulance?  Ewww.  Reember, we know the sorts of people who we regularly pick up…

Finally, I can’t tell you how much I love the photo montages of the patient’s backgrounds that are shown as our heroes arrive on scene – they condense a lot of information into a short space of time and avoid the ‘Casualty’ trap where half the programme is set-up for the emergency.

(As an example, I saw Casualty this week, the first part of the programme showed a woman with two children next to a canal – I was guessing that one of them would drown.  I was wrong, one child smothered the other, but it had distracted me.  The ‘Saved’ approach is much better at compressing a patient history into a few seconds).

So I’ve got to say that I enjoyed the pilot and I’ll be watching again next week to see if they can keep the same standard of realistic bits mixed with the trauma cases we get once in a blue moon.

Oh yes, the American site for the programme has two blogs!

“Male, 40 years old – fitting”.

It was a park, it was midday.  I didn’t really need to see the update that said,

“Patient with two males, both appear drunk”.

I think that it is a law of the universe that your middle-aged, middle of the day, middle of the park fitter will be an alcoholic.  That or they are an epileptic alcoholic.

As we approached the scene my crewmate asked where I thought it would be.

“Well, the drunks tend to hide down by that end, it’s close to the off license”.

I was right.  Our patient looked familiar, but after a while they all look familiar.  I did recognise his two friends, one had been picked up two days ago, the other was another of our regular callers.

“He’s had another fit”, said the slightly more sober one, “He’s had three today”.

“Yeah”, said the other taking a swig from a big bottle of cheap cider, “He’s epileptic but he doesn’t take his tablets”.

Our patient had the same ground in grime that you get from sitting on a park bench drinking all day, then falling over and going to sleep in the bushes before heading home at some point in the early hours.  A simple job to load him up onto the stretcher, check him out and give him some oxygen and pop him into hospital.

My crewmate and I were inspecting him in the ambulance when I felt an urge to pass wind.

It was perfect timing, I could blame it on the semi-conscious patient.

My crewmate groaned, “I think he’s pooed himself”.

I told her the truth.

Honest.

By the time we reached the hospital the patient was a lot more awake, so we spoke to the handover nurse, put him on a trolley and went outside to clean up, finish off the paperwork and *ahem* air out the back of the ambulance.

I think it was thirty seconds before we saw him walking out the department.

Probably towards the nearest off-license.

I think that there is something in the air, yesterday we went to two diabetics with critically low blood sugars. It's a job that we sometimes do, but isn't actually that common. The day before there were at least two others in our area, one of which was quite ill.

The first was rather simple. A woman found her husband collapsed in the living room, she called us and we quickly diagnosed and treated the low blood sugar. When we found him he was unconscious, sweating profusely and was rather ill looking. One injection and some glucose gel and an hour later the patient was playing with with his very cute doberman. We may have also been enjoying the friendly dog as well.

The second person was a young woman in the workplace. I felt sorry for her as she was surrounded by her work colleagues and it was impossible for us to move her to a more private area. She wasn't as low as our first patient although she was very sweaty and was acting as if she were drunk. Once more we managed to 'cure' her with some sugary drinks an a little time. She was mortified that she was ill in front of her colleagues. She had received some immediate help from her friends, one of whom was 'first aid at work' trained.

Neither patient wanted to go to hospital, and once their blood sugar was back to normal there wasn't much that the hospital would do. Traditionally these are the sorts of patients who refuse to attend hospital and are left behind by us ambulance crews.

Still it is nice to be able to help people in such a profound manner - it makes a nice change from people who aren't actually ill.

I am currently so tired I'm not actually human at the moment - after a few litres of Coke I approach sub-human. This is not a huge disadvantage in this job.

Thankfully it was a pretty easy day today.

One call was to a teenage girl with abdominal pain, diarrhoea and vomiting. She described herself as an alcoholic. I let the nurses at the hospital know, perhaps she'll get referred to the social services, perhaps she is already known to them.

Then there was a homeless guy who was suicidal. The community mental health team wasn't interested in seeing him, so he went to A&E where the nurse in charge took good care of him.

Another call was to one of our 'regulars', a child who keeps collapsing. He's a nice enough lad, but so far investigations have shown nothing. It's believed that he collapses because of stress over bullying, various people are involved in his problem.

The final call of the day was to an ill person that we never reached. On the way to the call we came across a four year old child which had been sat on the crossbar of her father's bike. Somehow she'd got her foot caught between the wheel and the forks of the front wheel. There was some serious swelling and bruising to her foot and ankle, thankfully she wasn't otherwise hurt. It's possible, but unlikely, that she could have broken a bone in her foot.

The child was really grown-up, hardly crying at all. She did keep giving me a sullen stare though...

Darn kids can see right through me.

Everyday I meet a new kind of stupid.

A woman, thirty-five years old, mother of two children went to her GP. She had a swollen belly and pain which came and went in waves. She also hadn't had a menstrual period in over nine months. That morning, just after the pain had started, she had lost some fluid from her vagina. The pain was getting worse and the waves were getting closer together.

The GP did a (completely unnecessary) pregnancy test which - surprise, surprise, come back positive.

The GP was incredibly relieved when we arrived.

We had just managed to wheel her into the maternity department when the baby made an appearance. My crewmate helped the midwife deliver the baby while I was hiding in the ambulance. I'm quite happy for any baby (not of my own) to be born with me not watching, I suspect the woman was quite happy I wasn't there as well.

Here was a woman who was fully aware of what pregnancy is like, she wasn't even in denial - the whole thing came as a complete shock. Her husband looked completely shell-shocked as well.

The whole thing really beggars comment.

This job followed on directly from the previous posting. We were sent to 'Female, head injury, police on scene'.

The patient ticked both the 'crack user' and 'prostitute' boxes on the "Is your patient a crack whore?" form.

She was in the garden of the house shouting and swearing at the lone police officer and the ambulance duty station officer who had been sent out as a first responder. Between near incoherent offensive language we discovered that the woman had a bit of a bruise to her head.

The mother had got into an argument with her fourteen year old daughter, after years of this behaviour the daughter had finally snapped and hit her mother around the head.

I spoke with the police officer, he told me that the child had only recently been returned to the mothers custody. The social workers involved in the case had said that, "The mother needs to take some responsibility for caring for her daughter". The police officer was the same one who had driven the daughter home from the foster home.

The mother was well known to the police for the reasons given above.

He was feeling guilty as apparently the child was a 'good kid'.

Our patient was complaining of all over body pain, my crewmate took her into the back of the ambulance and did a sterling job of calming her down. The drive to hospital was uneventful.

The daughter had to be arrested, we are all crossing our fingers that the mother won't press charges.

We meet such lovely people in our line of work.

Only a short post as I need to get up in five hours for a long drive to... well... I'll tell you in a bit. That and Hallam Foe, why getting a 'job' when I'm not wearing my uniform is a pain in the bum and a general post about why it is nice to be a blogger, but also a bit worrying.

I am *such* a tease.

I don't like it when we get 'dropped calls', where someone has called for an ambulance, yet put the phone down (or been cut off) before all the details have been given. I don't like it because, without all the information in place it is hard to get a 'feel' for how dangerous the job might be.

I don't like being stabbed.

The call as we got it was 'child reporting mother cutting wrists', then the child hung up. This could run the whole spectrum of calls from a hoax to a psychotic woman running around with a kitchen knife. I've been to both types of call, and it's why I don't get too wound up by hoaxes...

We arrived to find the police already on scene, Control had called them in advance as they had realised that the scene may well be dangerous. The two police officers were standing outside the address, they had been unable to gain access and were contemplating kicking the door down.

"Is everything alright?", a woman shouted down from the flat above our position.

We explained that we were looking for the woman of the house and asked if the neighbour had seen her.

"She left about ten minutes go, her and her husband got into a car and drove off".

I used my finely tuned experience of watching CSI to note that there was no sign of blood in the area and drew my conclusion that the call had been a hoax.

"Hey!, ambulance man with his nose to the floor looking for pools of blood", the neighbour shouted again, "her son is over there by your ambulance, maybe you can ask him".

The police and I walked over to where we had parked, the child was talking to my crewmate who rolled his eyes as we approached.

"I'm sorry I called you", the ten year old said, "My mum was angry at me, so she locked herself in the bathroom and told me that she was cutting her wrists. So I called for an ambulance, but she was only pretending. Then mum and dad threw me out of the house and they drove off in the car. I don't know where they went".

One of the police officers asked the child if he had any relatives he could stay with. The child knew of no adults to lok after him.

"Sounds like a social problem", I said to one of the police officers.

"Yep".

"Not a job for an ambulance", I continued.

"Nope", the police officer looked crestfallen with the amount of paperwork that he was going to have to do. I've read enough police blogs to realise that any job involving children is a huge pain, more so I would think if the child has been through the experience this one had been through.

"We'll be off then", I said with only a little schadenfreude. I could trust the police to look after this situation.

Little was I to know that our next encounter would be with a stereotypical 'world's worst mother'.

To be continued...

It is a constant danger in this job that a patient, or more likely a patient's relative will make a complaint against you. While a member of the public can moan about a perceived insult (and half of the complaints against the ambulance service are due to 'attitude'), there is little that we can do about a patient who is generally acting like a twit.

I have been pretty lucky in my career, in that I've only had two complaints made against me - once while a nurse and once while working on the ambulances.

The nursing compliant was that I checked the correct dosage of a drug with another nurse before giving it to a child. My boss at the time called me into the office, patted me on the head and told me I was a good boy and should keep up the good work.

The ambulance complaint went to a local investigation.

I was called into the office and asked if I remembered calling a patient a 'bitch'. As I have a poor memory I didn't remember until the ambulance officer gave me the paperwork for the job.

We had been called to a patient who had been arguing with his family, he'd drunk half a bottle of wine and pretended to be unconscious. As he didn't want to 'wake up', we decided to take him to hospital. While in the back of the ambulance he slapped my leg.

I told him that he 'slapped like a bitch' and that he really shouldn't do it again or I might get upset.

I know... not the best insult in the world, he'd surprised me and I had to come up with something on the spur of the moment. If he'd hurt me then I would have thrown him off the ambulance, but as it was such an ineffectual strike I found it more amusing than anything else.

The officer had to investigate the allegation, so he interviewed the other staff present and they supported my side of the story. He then had to travel to the patient's home and interview him there. Luckily the officer saw the character of the patient and convinced him not to go any further with the complaint.

If I'd complained to the police it would no doubt be considered 'not worth prosecuting' by the CPS, but if the patient had continued to complain I could have been seriously disciplined.

All of which only makes me think that I shouldn't leave any witnesses...

A friend of mine, a nicer bloke you'll never meet, has just been through the wringer with a malicious allegation - it's so sad that there are people who are willing to ruin a career out of spite.