I know I'm not the worlds most 'religion-friendly' person, and that I have a strong dislike of Christmas. But when walking through the local shopping centre I found them erecting their Christmas tree.

It's still October! We haven't had Halloween yet!



It's going to be a long two months...

I came across this story on the BBC news website,

A Cambridge University student dialled 999 for an ambulance as she needed some painkillers, according to paramedics.
The 19-year-old student was said to have run out of her pain relief tablets which she needed for period pains.

East Anglian Ambulance Service said an emergency crew was called to the student's flat on Saturday afternoon.

The spokesman added: "It should be obvious to anyone that if you want some paracetamol, an emergency ambulance is not the place to get it from. For someone who is supposed to be intelligent you would think would have more common sense than to dial 999 for some pain relief".

The call came through at about 1640 BST from King's Parade, Cambridge, and sparked a full blue-light response from the ambulance service.

I was curious as to how this counts as national news, when it happens to us all the time. My first thoughts when I looked at the story was "So what?", but then I realised that although Ambulance Trusts keep trying media campaigns to cut down on inappropriate calls, most folks are still surprised by the reasons why we are called out.

This call is the sort of thing I get called to once or twice a day, multiply that by the 10 ambulances we have in our complex during the day and you get at least 10-20 "inappropriate calls".

Every day...

I was writing this post at work, so let me tell you about the calls that interrupted my writing,

1) Small child with a minor cut to the head, lives 200 yards from the A&E department.
2) Woman with painful teeth - for the past week.
3) Hoax call, a child phoned up from the Mosque and told us that someone had been stabbed.
4) A drunk who had fallen asleep on the bus, we woke him up and he wandered off on his own accord.
5) The one 'proper' job - an alcoholic who had a fit (related to his alcoholism).

Still, I suppose that it meant that I had an easy seven hour shift (the first of seven such shifts, so I'll be lucky if they are all like this one)