When I'm working on a Friday night it really can seem that everyone else is having much more fun than me. Especially when we cruise down Old street watching the metrosexuals in their film school glasses and tight brown cardigans.

Not so much when dealing with a drug inspired stabbing just down the road. Or the extended immigrant family living in a one room flat, hotbedding the mattresses on the floor and sharing their infections.

A patient held up an ambulance at gunpoint and threatened to kill its crew before taking the emergency vehicle and crashing it into five cars, the Standard has learned.
The man allegedly pulled a gun on the terrified crew before crashing the ambulance into the cars, one of which was shunted into the front of a house.
It is thought the trouble may have been sparked by the patient's unhappiness at the choice of hospital.

This is near where I live.

I hope the crew involved is alright.

I just goes to show some of the dangers all emergency services staff face on a daily basis. I'd bet that the criminal who did this won't be forced to pay for the damage that he did to the ambulance, let alone the private cars.

Now... what's the tariff for threatening someone with a firearm?

Sometimes it is better to not blog about something that makes you angry on the same day it occurred.

I've had a crappy day and I get home to find a couple of people have sent this story to me. (And thanks to all those people, I would have missed it otherwise).

A paramedic has been criticised for not cutting short a break to help a woman who had suffered a heart attack.
Catherine Cowie, 50, died two days after collapsing in Fraserburgh.
An ambulance technician was on the scene within four minutes, but a paramedic did not attend with him because he was on a lunch break.
Some cardiac drugs can only be administered by a paramedic. The Scottish Ambulance Service said staff could not be disturbed during breaks.
However, it said staff could choose whether or not to attend calls during break periods.

Well.

Can someone please explain how 'staff could not be disturbed during breaks.' and 'staff could choose whether or not to attend calls during break periods.' can both be in effect?

In London it's quite simple if you get a break* then the first part of it is sacrosanct, with a 45 minute break that's the first half an hour. Then the last third of the break is interruptible. If a high priority call comes in during this time then Control can choose to end your break early. Unless Control chose to do this, the crew having the break have no idea that a call is waiting for them.

There is a lot of other weird stuff in this story that just doesn't sound correct - but then, few people understand the bizarre workings of an ambulance trust, and that includes some of the staff**

And of course I'd like to see the person who wrote this article work without a break for twelve hours while dealing with some of the awful things we have to do. And that means no cups of tea and no hot meals, or if you are lucky then you can get a dodgy takeaway while dodging Control. And having to use the toilets at hospital that patients with infectious diarrhoea have been using. And doing that every day of your working life.

If this story were really as written then I suspect that the Paramedic involved would be thrown to the wolves for 'denying a member of the public an ambulance'.

What next? 'My relative died because Paramedic was off duty'?

Remember people - if you are picked up by an ambulance and die two days afterwards while in hospital then it's all the fault of the ambulance service...

I'm sadly getting used to this attitude that ambulance staff aren't actually human.

*And really, I'm not convinced that the LAS aren't breaking the law by not enforcing break periods, instead paying us an extra £10 if we don't get a break.

**...And all the managers...

It's funny how, when you are used to working twelve hours (without a break), a run of eight hour shifts feels like a holiday.

Eight hours, that's like a 9-5 work day, even if you do start at 6:30am.

I do like going home at 14:30.

It's great to see the discussion going on in the comment section of the last post. I love the fact that people here can disagree politely.

This story is a little segment from the LAS internal 'magazine' that I've scanned in direct. IT just highlights the sorts of jobs that we can find ourselves going on. I've written before about my call to a dead dog.

Finally, and perhaps a little cryptically, 'Moab Is My Washpot', thank you very much.

Related somewhat to yesterdays post.

I attended to a young lady with a slightly unusual and complicated complaint. She sat in my ambulance wearing a top with a plunging neckline - not a problem, I always do my best to look people in the eye and not at the level of the breasts.

I was getting the medical history and asked her if she was fasting.

'No', she told me fishing around in her cleavage and pulling out a cross, 'didn't you see I was a Christian?'.

'Erm', I blushed, 'I try not to stare down there...'

As far as religious dates go, Ramadan isn't too bad of an idea as part of the fasting is to have sympathy for those less fortunate than yourself. Of course that all goes out the window when you start stuffing your face as soon as the sun goes down.

This year it has seemed to 'sneak up' on us ambulance people, there was no memo or announcement that we'd have a month of Muslims falling over and collapsing. You would think that, in my area of London where there are many Muslims, the ambulance service would think to let their workers know.

The first I knew about it was from a patient who kept changing her story. She'd collapsed at work with abdominal pain and one of her workmates said that she was fasting. I was a bit surprised as Ramadan is normally later in the year and I'd heard nothing about it being this early. I asked if she was fasting because of Ramadan and she told me no.

Then, as we were rolling into hospital I asked her why she was fasting and she told me that it was because it was Ramadan.

Oh well.

It wasn't the only time that day that a patient changed their story, sometimes in front of the nurse that I was handing them over to.

The problem with Ramadan is when, as a friend of mine puts it, adherents try to be 'more Muslim than you'.

The Koran says that you shouldn't fast if you are pregnant or have a medical condition that means fasting would be too hard or dangerous.

Unfortunately some folks want to prove what good Muslims they are and fast anyway.

Then you end up going to Muslims who've collapsed. I wold also suggest that we get more calls for 'chest pains' as well, when people with indigestion call us out. It doesn't help that for a lot of our Bangladeshi population indigestion and gastric reflux is a very common medical complaint.

On the other hand, you still find yourself going to Muslims who have hangovers...

I'd like to see if Ramadan really does increase call rates or if it's just the impression that us road staff get. Might be an idea to increase staffing in heavily Muslim areas for the month if it is true.

It would perhaps be churlish to point out that I go for twelve hours at work without food on a regular basis. I can tell you that it doesn't make me feel any more charitable.