It was one of those days when the sun was shining, everything seemed right in the world and both my crewmate and I were happy to be working. Normally these feelings don't last long as you find yourself wrestling with an aggressive drunk or something - but we were enjoying it while it lasted.
Our call came in as 'pregnant female, fell over', not a huge problem - people fall over all the time and babies tend to be pretty well protected while still in the womb. Reaching the scene we found a woman who was doing a good show of not being distressed, she had tripped over and now couldn't feel the baby moving. There was no pain or bleeding, and everything else checked out fine.

The LAS policy is that we should take the patient to their 'booked department' - this patient's department was a fair way out of London, it was actually in Essex. As it was so far away (it would take us 40 minutes to get there), I called up Control to ask permission to go there, they agreed that it was in the patient's best interests and so we started the drive.

I'm glad we have satellite navigation, that's all I'll say...

As we pulled up to the hospital the patient's mother arrived and was very grateful that we had brought her to 'her' maternity unit, we then handed over to perhaps the nicest midwives ever and went to do our paperwork. While there we waved a 'hello' to a confused looking Essex ambulance crew. We don't often get out that far from London.
'Greening up' we returned to our patch and continued working.

It was only a few jobs later that we found ourselves going into the Royal London Hospital, this was a good thing as we were getting hungry and the London Hospital has a McDonalds opposite - great for the healthy ambulance diet that I, and my belt, have become accustomed to. I wander in there to get my 'Cheeseburger, fish burger and Big Mac' when who should I bump into other than the ambulance crew we waved at back in Essex.

They had done a transfer from their hospital into London and had decided to grab a similar meal for the long drive back to their area.

It can be a small world.

OK, I'm bored, so I should be going back to work on Saturday - depending on whether they want me to get an occupational therapy assessment first - it'll be good to get back on the road. If I've learned one thing, it's that I could never work from home - kicking around my place all day just leeches enthusiasm from me. It'll also mean I can write more as I'll have more new material.