...Nothing else until 6:00am when we get a "maternataxi" from a place our trip computer records as 0.4miles from the hospital. Still not to complain, as it's an easy job that gets us off on time.

Nighty night.

Man denies tunnel terror charges

A man arrested at the Channel Tunnel has denied five offences under the Terrorism Act, at the Old Bailey.
Andrew Rowe, 32, from Maida Vale in north-west London, was arrested in Dover in October after being detained as he entered the tunnel in France.

Mr Rowe, of Carlton Vale, pleaded not guilty to three offences of possessing articles for use in terrorism.

He also denied two charges of making a record of information for terrorist purposes and will face trial next year.

The charges against Mr Rowe refer to a pair of socks attached with a cord, instructions on how to use a mortar and a "substitution code".

He was remanded in custody until January 2005 when he is due to face trial.

Can someone please explain to me how "a pair of socks attatched with a cord" can be used in terrorism? If a "substitution code" is a terrorist article, then WHSmiths and its fine collection of puzzle books must be Al-Quaida central.

No sooner do I hope for a quiet hour or two than the activation phone goes; it's sending us 200 yards up the road to a "Collapsed Male". We are met by two police officers who tell us that the patient was walking along the street, saw the policemen and then collapsed.
We get to the patient and can't smell any alcohol on him, but he is coughing and spluttering like an Oscar winner. He complains of a headache, coughing, leg pain, back pain and an inability to walk. Other than that he is refusing to talk to us. Examination is normal and the patient is obviously play-acting.
He then does one of the things that I really hate (given the prevalance of TB in Newham); he coughs all over us and the vehicle without putting his hand over his mouth. Then he starts to spit on the floor of the ambulance, again something I take a dim view of - but I'm driving so I leave it to my crewmate to sort out.
Forty seconds later and we pull up outside the hospital, and our patient decides to roll around the floor - by now both our patience is wearing thin, so we haul him up and throw him in a wheelchair.
In the hospital he refuses to speak to the nurses, says he cannot stand and doesn't acknowledge any requests.

We leave him there and within thirty seconds are back on station.

While at the hospital I induldged in a little bit of teaching - the nurse who was assessing our patient was trying to check his pupil response (by shining a light in each eye and making sure that it reacts to light) but the eyes don't appear to be reacting. I then suggest turning off the ceiliing light that the patient is laying on his back staring at.

For some reason I don't seem to have much patience tonight, it started with the drunk panic attack and has continued to get worse over the course of the night. A friend of mine would suggest that I am having a "sense of humour failure"; could it be that everyone else is drinking and having a good time tonight while I'm working? Normally I enjoy Friday night shifts, but tonight I'm just grumpy - I'm attending on Sunday, so I better get over it quickly.

"W" is working tonight from our main station - He is always a good laugh and always seems to have a joke whenever he works. Tonight I met him outside the hospital and he told me about a deaf old woman he had just brought in.
It was raining as he started to wheel her out her house so he made the comment "It's raining, you picked a fine time to be ill".

"Eh?" was the reply.

"The rain...it mucks up my hair".

"Eh?"

"MY HAIR"

With this she took a long hard look at W's very short, and very receeding hair and asked him, "Is it because of cancer?"

It is now 3:00am and already every other patient we have picked up has been drinking - from the 38 year old male having a panic attack, who didn't want to talk to us; to the 50 year old female who slipped on some steps coming out from the pub and cut her head. This has so far ended with our last call being one of our smelly "frequent flyers" who thankfully decided not to hang around and wait for us to turn up.

Then there was the police car that managed to accidentally force another car into someones garden - one of those jobs where every passing car slows down to stare. Thankfully there were no injuries, apart from the houseowners disturbed sleep. (At least I assume it was the owner - he was dressed in no shoes and a dressing gown).

With a bit of luck people are now wrapped up nice and snug in bed, away from the rain - and the only calls we will get will be the 5:00am "I'm in labour" call that will result in a baby around 11:00am (long after I'm in bed).

I'm going to try and get a bit of a sleep so that I look vaguely human for tomorrows Blogmeet.

I'm going to a Blogmeet tomorrow and I don't know what any of these people look like. This is leaving me just a bit nervous - how will I know who is a blogger? Will I be standing around like an idiot? As I'll just be coming off a night shift I'll be a bit "fragile", so I find myself considering some strategies for meeting up with the right people...

In order to find the bloggers I shall,

1) Be listening out for talk about PHP,CSS,HTML or just about the Iraq war.

2) Listen out for someone saying "Hello BastardMark" - no chance of confusion there surely...

3) Just wander around looking at other people who are there solo and ask them if they are "Fluffy", "Frog" or "Legomen".

No chance of any embarrassing encounters there then...

You can tell I'm avoiding doing the laundry by the fiddling with the CSS so that I could have those little grey squares to the left of the date of a posting.

Don't they look nice - it only took me an hour, and much scrabbling around in my CSS book to work out how to do it.

Suppose I better load up the washing machine now...

I'm sitting here at home, with little to do all day (apart from laundry, ironing, reading blogs so I can be "prepped" for the first of the London Blogmeets) when my phone rings. I expect it to be my mum as she's told me she is going to ring today.
But the voice on the other end of the phone says.."Hello...Mr...Reynolds...You...May...Have...Won...A...Trip...To...Europe..." in a really stilted, stop/go fashion.

"I'm not interested" I say back.

"If...You...Wish...To...Take...Advantage" it continues.

"Oh I see, you are a computer" I reply - feeling smug that I've worked it out by myself.

Pause.

"I...Beg...Your Pardon?". The voice now picks up a hint of emotion.

Obviously not a computer.

"Sorry mate, you just sound like a computer to me".

"Oh...Of...This...Offer...Then...Just..." it continues without a pause.

"I'm not interested", but by now I'm wondering how they get a worker to ardently stick to his script - there is no stopping him now so I just hang up.

I've got a feeling he is one of those overseas telesales people - I normally get chatting to them, just to give them something else to do than dial and get hung up on all day - but this bloke was starting to worry me.

Maybe he was an artificial intelligence?

I've started an "About Me" page, I'll keep adding information as I think of stuff. I think some stuff might suggest itself via the blog.

Maddog asked me how I'm getting on with my new crewmate.
"C" is a 48 y/o male with a wife and two grown children.
We actually have a very similar attitude to work - in that the job is as hard as you make it, that the things that other crews worry about don't actually matter in the long run, and that patients who walk are a god-send.
He is a good bloke, and we have already hit that place where we know what the other one wants us to do by just a glance. We haven't had a major trauma yet, but so far we are both more than happy with the treatment given to the patients that we have seen. "C" like me stands back a little when the other is attending, something I appreciate - I can see why some people "step in" when dealing with patients, but I like to go at my own pace when assessing a patient, if my crewmate does "step in" it makes me feel rushed.
"C" can dismiss most worries/stresses/problems with a laconic "fuck-em" - something I can appreciate...

So we are getting on well, looking after patients in the way they are meant to and we are not getting stressed by the things we have no control over.

I enjoy working with him so much I'm even doing some *gasp* overtime!

I don't normally do overtime - I normally like my days off to be just that - days off

I'm the number one search result on Google for "womble porn"!

Now when people ask me the address of the site, I'll just tell them, "Google for Womble porn".

I am happy.

I went to occupational health today - it seem that the last time they checked my blood (because of being on PEP) my liver enzymes were a bit elevated. Most significantly my Gamma GT was at 164 (it should be between 0-55). PEP is well known as having effects on the liver, so this isn't completely unexpected.
More blood was taken today to check that the enzymes have returned to normal. The nurse was very concerned that I was alright in having my blood drawn, and that I wouldn't faint. She was asking me this while I'm sitting opposite her in full uniform...
The nurse was also a bit surprised that I'd had the aural hallucinations and looked as me as if she thought I was turning schizophrenic - I assured her that the "voices" were now leaving me alone and that it wasn't a problem. She'd never heard of this symptom before, so at least I entertained someone today.

Coming back from the occupational health department we got a call to a man collapsed in the street - that's right, laying in the rain at 13:00 was someone who was completely drunk. He refused to give us any details, to go with us to hospital or even for us to run him home. I'm not moaning because it gave me a chance to get a saveloy and chips.

Four hours of the shift left to go. Then two days off, after seven days working, this will be bliss.

Number of jobs : 3
Patients transported : 2
Miles travelled : 5
Hours worked : 10

'nuff said?

From the news...

Plan for firefighters to answer heart attack calls

Fire Brigades Union (FBU) members in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets have voted by 122 to 21 to take industrial action short of a strike in a dispute over plans by the London Fire Brigade (LFB) to force firefighters to attend ambulance calls. The union balloted its members after managers refused to enter negotiations.

The FBU said the issue also raised major concerns about the ambulance service’s inability to provide a speedy response to major medical emergencies. It said firefighters, unlike paramedics, were not trained to make medical diagnoses nor could they administer drugs.

The FBU is not happy about firefighters being forced to attend ambulance calls because:

• A two-day training course will not equip firefighters to deal with the range of medical conditions encountered;

• Firefighters attending an ambulance call will be unable to attend subsequent fire calls that may be received;

• Attending such calls is outside of the national agreement reached after the fire service pay dispute in 2002/2003

FBU Executive Council Member for London Mick Shaw said: “This dispute is not about firefighters refusing to use defibrillators. It is about firefighters not wanting to be ordered to attend a range of medical emergencies for which they will not be adequately trained, at the expense of providing a proper fire service.

“We do not want industrial action. London Fire Brigade must stop their confrontational approach, negotiate and discuss with the FBU what role firefighters may have in helping to reduce the unacceptably high level of deaths from heart attacks.

“The Ambulance Service also need to explain why it cannot deliver a speedy response to the most urgent medical emergencies. If it cannot perform the basics of what it is set up to do then that needs to be addressed by the health service.”


It looks like the government is looking towards merging the emergency/essential services in order to save some money. The LFB and LAS both think this is a bad idea - but who wants to listen to us...

These Boots...

Have walked along train tracks.
Have been washed in the blood of murder victims.
Have kicked in doors to get to unconscious women.
Have stepped in more urine, in more tower blocks than I'd care to think about.
Have kept my feet warm and comfortable on long nights.
Have been allowed into a mosque.
Have climbed fences to reach dead bodies.
Have run across football fields to try to save a life, and failed.
Have been spat on, vomited on and shit on.
Have stood in "remains".
Have tried to find purchase while walking backward down narrow stairs.
Have defended me from drunks and druggies.
Have been run over by a 22 stone trolley.
Have been stared at by a daughter when telling them their mother has died.

For Pix, who denies she has a shoe fetish.