Today was supposed to be the last knife posting, but then I had this post to write, so the last post (that was supposed to be today) will instead be tomorrow.

Does that make any sense? It's been a long shift

I got sent to "Male, stabbed in street, police present". Luckily I was pretty close, so I got there in three minutes. Laying in the street was a young male who was bleeding from the stomach.

Why?

Well, he'd run out of a shop to stop a traffic warden from putting a ticket on his car - he'd then bumped into someone, who had then pulled a knife and slashed him.

There were loads of police on scene, they'd put a dressing on him but it was soaking through with blood. I examined the wound to be sure that it wasn't a stab, and seeing that the wound wasn't that serious I cancelled down the HEMS helicopter.

He refused to stop bleeding, so I spent most of my time on scene pressing on his belly with a dressing trying to stop the bleeding. It did stop eventually, and I had plenty of time to stay on scene and 'play' as the nearest ambulance was in Dagenham...

...It took 40 minutes for the ambulance to turn up, not their fault, and to be fair it is to be expected because we have been that busy, and we have been that undermanned.

The one good thing about the job is that as it is sunny today. While I had those 40 minutes kneeling in the street, pressing on a bleeding abdomen I was simultaneously working on my suntan.