Fancy reading an interview with me in Norwegian?

My shift ends at 6:30 in the morning, so I was very happy to be left alone from 11pm.

Except that at 6:20 I get a job (I ask them if they are joking – they aren’t).  The job is a chest pain on a bus, in a bus garage.

It is also so far out my normal area I have to study the map for some time before I can work out how to get there.

I turn up to find out that the ‘patient’ is an alcoholic who is asleep in one of the buses.  She denies any chest pain, injury or illness – and after some persuasion she leaves the bus under her own power and leaves the scene.

If I were being cynical, I would be thinking that the bus company, unable to actually touch her for fear of assault, has called for an ambulance purely so that someone else is responsible for getting her off the bus.

Previous experience would suggest that this is indeed the case.

Why would they say she had chest pain – perhaps they know that this gets the quickest response from us…

Oh well – it’s all overtime.

I've just got back from a stabbing which took place in one of our busier streets.
The patient had a single stab wound in the back - I was around the corner having dealt with an abdominal pain (nothing too serious), when Control phoned me up and asked me if I wouldn't mind having a look to see if I could lend a hand.

I turned up, and there was already a Paramedic on scene (he has asked me to call him a superparamedic here - I have kindly refused). He had already done most of the assessment and treatment, the patient had a single stab wound in his back, to the right of his spine. He was treated as if he had a sucking chest wound, and was quickly transported to hospital.

During transit he developed a cough, and when the dressing to his stab wound was removed, it looked like his pleural membrane (the bag around the lung) had herniated (poked through the hole) which might explain the cough.

The patient was later transferred to another hospital because there was some concern that air had entered his spinal column.

I also had another patient with a potentially life threatening condition - an eight year old girl with a serious asthma attack. The child was calm and collected, although her breathing was seriously impaired. Her mother however was going to bits - she was running around crying, and screaming, and generally getting in the way. Luckily the patients gran had her head screwed on right, and I could get a history from her.

I started the required treatment, and the ambulance quickly turned up and took her to hospital. But I think I'd spent more time dealing with the mother than the child...

I'm kind of prosaic about our regular callers, they have chronic conditions (normally brought on by drinking), but they are normally easy to deal with and if you keep friendly with them, they are seldom trouble.

Until they start being incontinent on the back of your ambulance. But that is a subject for another day.

What I do dislike is the regulars who feel the need to lie to our calltakers.

Take regular patient number one - she calls for an ambulance, claiming that she has had a fit - when I turn up (I get mobilised for fitting patients a lot), she tells us that she hasn't had a fit, but her legs hurt, so can we take her to the hospital. Repeat this once or twice a day, and you wonder why some of us won't be too upset when we eventually find her dead in the gutter.

Tonight I went to regular patient number two - he is an alcoholic, who tonight told our Control that he had been assaulted 20 minutes earlier, and had had a seizure as a result of this assault.

I get sent the job, and speed three miles to get to the patient, only to find him drunk, he hadn't been assaulted, and there was no evidence that he had been fitting.

It isn't the actual going to the patient that bothers me, as I mentioned earlier, it's an easy job. What does annoy me is that I rush to these calls - putting myself and other road users at risk, only to find the patient not undergoing a life-threatening event. I get very cynical about these jobs.

I've tried telling them that if they call for an ambulance and say they have a painful leg, then they will still get an ambulance, but that they won't be putting other peoples lives at risk whether by my (lack of) driving skills, or by taking an ambulance away from someone who urgently needs an ambulance at that time.

But still they insist on calling for an ambulance with phantom illnesses.


I did do something else beside attend to our regulars - there was an 89 year old lady, living on her own, who had been having a panic attack for the last hour. This was around 3:30am, and a bit of hand holding (literally in this case), a drink of water, and a nice chat soon calmed her down. I left the ambulance crew to make her a cup of tea, as she didn't want to go to hospital.

The patient felt really guilty about calling for an ambulance - but I don't mind going to people who are scared or worried. It might not be the lifesaving hero work that most folk think we do - but for that patient, it can be just as important.

And for us... just as satisfying.

From the 29th of April to the 5th of May I shall not be in England, instead I shall be getting a suntan in Seattle.

What do you mean Seattle is full of rain and rarely has sunshine?  Bugger it!

I shall be spending some time with Jeannie Cool (from the #joiito and #suwcharman on IRC channels I sometimes frequent) exploring Seattle, chilling out, and getting fingerprinted just for daring to enter the country.

So, what should I go and see while I am over there?  Are there any ambulance people who I can talk to over there about their astounding cardiac arrest survival rate (the best in the world)?  Will I fulfill my dream of worshipping at the altar of Microsoft? (I see the book Microserfs as an aspirational lifestyle, and I don’t see why Apple advocates should have all the fun).  Will I be able to resist going up a ridiculously high tourist trap as I did when I visited Toronto?  And can I be sneaky and buy a Mac Mini while over there with my strong Pound Sterling?

I’d love to meet up with other bloggers in the area, and while Jeannie is arranging some stuff for me, surely she can’t know everyone?  Knowing Jeannie, it wouldn’t surprise me if she did, indeed, know every blogger in the area.

So…any bright ideas folks?

Later tonight I have the first of two nightshifts, and if you behave yourselves I might even give you the URL for the two (admittedly rough, but hopefully soon to improve) Podcasts I’m doing.

From Richard Boardman

Google Maps UK and Google Local UK

(It’s not just for Americans anymore)

Blogging has brought me a great number of benefits, I’ve met great people, travelled across the globe, got onto the radio and in the newspapers and has generally been a good thing.

But I want more… 

Below is a wish list of things I have been thinking about recently, if you want to help out with any of it, I’m very easy to contact.  Some of this is going to happen, some is ego-stroking, and some is completely out of the question.

But if you don’t ask…you don’t get…

• Start Podcasting – Actually this is an easy one and will start soon, I have the infrastructure in place, I just need to create the actual podcast.  Why do I want to do this?  Well, this blog started just because I want to play with the technology – so this is a natural progression.
• Get paid – You know what would be nice?  If the LAS paid me to blog,  £1, or even a penny, a year.  Then I could put “professional blogger” on my business card.
• Start a Web-comic – I have no artistic skills at all, so while I think I could write a web-comic, I sure as hell know that I couldn’t draw one.  Any artists out there able to draw to a script?  The format is negotiable but I’m thinking something like Megatokyo or Questionable Content.  (an ongoing story split into stand alone strips).
• Use my powers for good – Could I leverage the people who read this blog into donating for charity?  More likely, could I persuade you to sponsor me to do something daft or potentially life-threatening for charity?  Imagine if everyone of my 7,000+ readers donated £1 ($2) – think what that could get a deserving charity.  It’d make an interesting post…
• Write the Book of the Website – I’ve been thinking about this for ages, but I haven’t had the motivation to strip the text from the site and turn it into something book-like.  Am I able to write to such a different format?  How would I transform the text here into something new and interesting?  Even if no publisher wants to look at it, self publishing isn’t that high risk an option these days.
• Get more employees blogging online– I’d like my “How to blog without losing your job” out to more people – then we could get more employee orientated blogs.  I don’t know about you, but I love reading about other peoples jobs.
• Expand The Brand – I’ve been thinking about starting another blog for material that doesn’t really fit the ambulance theme of this site.  I’ve got a couple of ideas, but need the motivation to do this.  Well…motivation and time.
• Find a way to make money from this blog – GoogleAds?  Paypal Donation? Merchandise?  Why do I want to make money?  Because I’m greedy and money is good.  But don’t worry, nothing will change the content of this blog.  (And I don’t think I could get away with doing this).
• Newspaper column – I’m not talking about anything ‘National’ here (although that would be nice), but a weekly piece in a local paper, about the ambulance side, or from the blogging side of my experiences.  Wouldn’t you be interested in reading about local health concerns in your weekly newspaper?  Or is there a paper out there who needs an Internet maven?
• Do something ‘Creative’ – Something fun that doesn’t necessarily have much to do with writing.  Video, film, music – even writing about them would be a good thing to do.  Is there something other than traditional ‘media’ that I could do?  It’s a fairly nebulous feeling I have about this.  Coupled with a lack of talent, this is a hard one to be concrete about.
• Get somewhere nice to live – The council are moving me to another flat, so far it’s looking like I’ll end up moving to a smaller place in a worse location.  Any millionaires out there want to give me £200,000 so I can buy a place?
• TV – Any TV producers want to interview me about blogging, ambulancing, or blogging about work?  I know I’m not that pretty, but I think I could pull it off.
• Talking – Anyone running a conference where a blogging ambulance bloke could do a presentation?  Do you need someone who knows all about getting your employee blog accepted by your workplace?  It’d be an excuse to use the ‘talk in front of a load of easily bored people’ skills that I learned when I was teaching 9 year old children.  Preferably a conference somewhere warm – like Florida.  I’d need my travel expenses paid though.
• A.N.Other – Anything interesting that you think I should/could be doing?  Try and keep it clean…

I think that the above list is enough begging for one day.

Just discovered another ‘employee blog’, opera singer Geraldine McGreevy.  It’s just one part of her personal website, although for some reason the blog isn’t linked from the larger site.  I mention this partly because I know absolutely nothing about opera, and partly because she name-checked me on the UK bloggers social mailing list.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned the Factcheck website before – it is something that the political blogges should be doing, but instead is part of the Channel 4 news website.  They check all the claims that the political parties make during the election.  I wonder if they’ll continue doing this after the election…

If not – I sense an opening for a new blog.

Here is their analysis of the ‘MRSA’ crisis, pretty much correct as I see it, although they don’t mention that MRSA is epidemic in the community, and that ‘Modern Matrons’ tend to be busy doing paperwork rather than making sure the wards are clean.

I wrote about Firefighters being attacked, and seems that their union is calling for a “properly resourced, national strategy” to combat these attacks, the BBC has some of the stories here and here.

My solution?  Automatic maximum sentencing for people who assault the Emergency services.  I’m sure that “Bystander” could comment on this (If you live in England and haven’t seen this site yet, go there now).

I have been reliably informed that there is a place in East London that you can take injured animals.  It’s the “Goddards Veterinary Group” in Wanstead, phone number of 0208 989 7744.  I did think of this, on the night, but when I mentioned it to the RSPCA, they’d not heard of it – so I thought it had been closed down.

Update:'Bystander' has answered my question. While I might not agree 100%, I can see his point of view.

Today, like yesterday, had more people than normal in Newham.

Today was the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi, and in Newham we had a big parade through the streets, it was estimated that there were 15–20,000 people attending, and having driven down the length of the parade I’d suggest that it was an underestimation.

The interesting thing is that, while yesterday for the football, the police were there in force (800+ officers, riot police, mounted police and a helicopter), for the festival today, there were probably quarter the number of officers, a helicopter and no mounted or riot police.

I saw no trouble during the day, which is more than I can say about yesterday – where there were ‘football fans’ fighting in the streets.

The other good thing is that while I was waiting for the parade, one of the people giving out food along the road saw me, and handed me an unrecognisable – but very tasty curry and rice.  I also had one of their gorgeous sweets, made I suspect, from fat and sugar – delicious, but also a ticking time bomb for a heart attack.

This is why I love London so much, interesting things happening, people enjoying themselves, and, when the weather is right (as it was today) – all seems right in the world.

No interesting jobs today – my first job was a male who faked an epileptic fit to draw attention to the sore throat he has had for a fortnight (although, to be fair he did also have mental health issues, and learning disabilities).  The second job was a man who had been attacked in the street by a group of men he knew, and my final job was a man who had an epileptic fit at Stratford bus station, and had stopped by the time I got there.

Three jobs during a twelve hour shift gives you an idea how busy I was today…

It could be an interesting shift today.





Of course those might be my 'famous last words'...

I've just come back from a 'Maternataxi', and it always amuses me when I turn up 5 minutes after they have called for an ambulance. Then, when I knock on the door, they look out the window, take in the uniform, the ambulance parked outside, and the big bag of medical equipment and ask...

"Who is it?"