Now this is what you call moblogging.

For those who aren’t interested, it’s a photo story taken and uploaded by an Ethiopian teenager.

There is much more on Ethiopia Lives.

And this is the power of the internet.

One of the ‘problems’ with working on the Rapid Response unit is, because you are so ‘rapid’, you can often find yourself first, and only, responder on a job where you would much rather have a large number of ambulance crews.

I’m thinking specifically of the RRU who was first, and only, paramedic on the scene of the recent London bombings.

I got sent on a job to one of our main roads, given as ‘car vs bus’, I thought that it couldn’t be too bad, as the speed of traffic on that stretch of road is about 4mph.

The police have already gotten the area taped off, and there is minor damage to the front of the bus.

Sitting some way away, nudged up against a shop, is a blue car.  The first thing that hits me is that there is no way that an impact that does such little damage to a bus, spins a car through 180 degrees and throws it against a shop.

(I later realise that what has probably happened, is that that the bus has clipped the car – the driver has then hit the accelerator and driven over the kerb, ending up ramming the shop).

“Hi”, says a friendly policewoman, “there is a full term pregnant adult female with a head injury, a baby that she was carrying on her lap and six other children, none of which had seatbelts on”.

“Gaa!”, I mumble.

I get onto Control, “I’m going to need at least three ambulances”.

—–

I go to check on the woman – she is pregnant, wasn’t wearing her seatbelt and ‘bullseyed’ the windscreen.  She has the world’s tiniest cut to her head, and minor stomach cramps.

To ‘bullseye’ a windscreen, the head hits the glass and causes a distinctive ringed crack pattern.  There is often hair left in the glass.

A quick examination, and I’m happy she hasn’t broken her neck, and actually not that badly injured.  There is nothing much to do with her.

A very quick look over the multitude of children standing around shows a swollen lip on one of them, but probably nothing serious.

A female police officer is holding the 18 month baby, “I keep stroking his cheek and he keeps waking up and crying”, she tells me.

I take a closer look…seems a bit pale.

He also looks a bit ‘floppy’.

I stroke his cheek.

Not a flicker.

Shit.

 —–

My salvation then comes around the corner.  An ambulance.  A lovely big, yellow, blue flashing lights and sirens ambulance.  An ambulance that can take this child away from me and into hospital where he needs to be.

The police officer and I jog over to the ambulance and I give the quickest hand-over to a crew ever¹.  They take one look at the child and ‘blue’ it into the hospital.  (I later find out that the child was faking it all, and was absolutely fine).

I then have to examine each of the kids to make sure that they aren’t hiding any serious injuries, which thankfully they aren’t.  I then recheck the mother of the toddler, explain why her child has gone to hospital without her, and try to keep her calm.  While doing this I’m also trying to chat up one of the female police officers (but she’s having none of it).

So I’m kept a bit busy.

I’m also being watched by an increasing crowd of people, who aren’t impressed by the power of police tape, and so want to wander over and offer advice.  The police do a good job of shooing these people away, but it is a bit Canute trying to hold back the sea.

Thankfully, there were no serious injuries (although if I had the kit, I’d have liked to have immobilised everyone involved), and the other ambulances soon turned up to ferry away the patients.

My paperwork consisted of one report form with “Multiple patients” written on it, and a description of what I’d seen and done.   

Then I went back to station, had a cup of tea and then got sent on a job on the edge of my patch, described as “12 year old female, collapse”…

—–

^1.Apart from the time my handover was a disdainful, “the patient has a verruca”.²

^2.Incidentally, also the shortest triage note I ever wrote when an A&E nurse.

No, I haven’t dropped off the face of the planet.

Instead I have been healing my wrist (which still makes a funny clicking noise, but is at least less painful), finishing up my move to my new place (the final bit of carpet gets laid today – and so I should be ‘finished’ moving in), working on various secret little projects of mine, and most importantly reading the comments people have left on the last post.

A few things I’d like to say,

• Yes it was a nasty job, but within 24 hours it had passed from my mind (as a lot of things do).  Therefore there is no psychological trauma involved.
• Thanks to everyone who wrote nice things, it’s appreciated – but please do remember that any number of you could do my job just as well as I can.  I’m nothing special, I just happen to be the bloke who writes about it.
• There are a lot of tragedies in the world, but I can’t fix them, I can only do what I do.  Everyone else should do what they can do to make the world a little better, whether that is volunteering for stuff, or just making a little donation to charity.  Those of us who can access the internet are a privileged minority, and should use this privilege to do nice things for other people.

The plan had been for me to go to the Great British Beer Festival, and try and do a ‘proper’ report on it.  Unfortunately I woke up that morning with what can only be described as a hangover…

I realised that if I went to the festival my hangover would be so galactically huge that it would actually have to travel back in time in order to fit in the whole range of agony due to me.

So I decided not to go.¹

I’ve also been a bit incommunicado because (once more) my system picked up a shedload of spyware/malware/etc…  So I’ve spent the last few days alternately swearing at, and then cleaning up my computer.

Can someone set me up with an interview with the person who wrote the Aurora software?  I’d really like to get their side of the story

(And get them alone in a room, so I can punch them in the throat…repeatedly).

I’ve also been playing around with Podcast software, and in an effort to make sure that I keep my promises and actually start podcasting – I’m going to announce that the first podcast will be released early next week.²

For those that are interested, the video of my talk³ is up here, just pick a mirror and download the “Blogs and Social Networks” video (warning large download). You may also need a special codec, which you can get from here^4.

The “UK EFF” Pledgebank still needs a few more people to sign up.  Seriously, if you think you can spare £5 a month in order to stop us sliding down the same silly slope that is American technological law then sign on up.  Digital rights, digital freedoms, call it what you will, but if you want to be allowed to continue to tape programmes off the television, listen to podcasts, and fiddle around with things that you own, then it is in your own best interest to have someone fighting to keep those rights.

I’m back at work on Wednesday (two night shifts), so with a bit of luck there will be some entertaining things for you to read in the near future.  Until then, I’ll leave you with a post I call “Multiple Trauma And Floppy Children”⁵

 —–

^1.Which probably causes some astounding paradox that will rent open the space-time continuum or something, who knows…

^2.I’ve said it, I’ll have to do it now, rather than stand around in smoky bars just claiming that I’m going to do one.

^3.A video which isn’t half as embarrassing as I thought it might be.

^4.I take no responsibility if this codec contains loads of spyware.

^5.Which of course you will have read first, what with blog posts being in reverse chronological order.