Here is the thing.

I’ve got a friend who works with the blind and partially sighted.  Unaccessible websites drive her (rightfully) potty.

My web design skills are so poor that I’m not sure how accessible this website is for that sort of person, I’m not sure how screen readers and magnifiers cope with the design.

(I would change the design, but I haven’t a clue how to do so in order to make it more accessible).

So I had an idea, one that I don’t think anyone else is doing, and that is to podcast my reading of my posts.

Preferably at the same time I write them, but if I’m writing them at work, then as soon as I get home to where my (new) microphone is.

So if you have trouble reading my site, you can instead listen to me read it out.

So there will be two podcasts, a weekly one where I’ll talk about all different stuff, and this new one where you can get a vanilla audio version of my posts.

The feed for this is http://randomreality.libsyn.com/rss/Audiopost

Obviously I’ll have to fiddle around with it a bit, to get the right settings/file size/format, but hopefully it’ll be a step in the right direction towards making the internet and blogging a bit easier to use for the blind and partially sighted.

Let me know what you think.

I don't publish my referral statistics, so for all those people who use this particularly crap form of online spam.

Don't bother.

M**********rs.

One day you may need an ambulance, or I may meet you in the street - it is then my abhorance of violence will be overcome and I will leave you unable to pick your nose...

It's funny how the niceweather we are having at the moment makes you look at everything in a different, happier light.

Take today for instance - I was sent to a 'Life status questionable' in the street. Now a 'life status qestionable' is supposed to mean that the person who called us doesn't know if the person is alive or not.

What it means in reality is that the caller has either driven past in a car without stopping, or the patient has such an offensive smell that the caller dare not get close to them.

So I rush to the scene, and find an alcoholic sitting in the street. Around him are his four alcoholic friends.

the person who made the call is nowhere to be seen.

"He's just tired", I'm told by one of his friends.

"Why's that?", I ask.

"Well, he's just walked from Whitechapel", Whitechapel is about 6 miles away.

"Oh", I say, "No wonder he is having a bit of a sit down".

"This'll help him out", says one of his friends giving him a can of Special Brew.

The ambulance crew turn up, and we all have a little chat on the corner of the street - everyone is as nice as pie, and no-one is really injured.

I know that I should be annoyed (waste of ambulance time and resources, waste of lives on behalf of our alcoholic friends), but it wasn't really their fault that an ambulance was called.

And the sunny weather just put everyone in a nice mood.

Long may it last...

Of course saying that nice weather means that young men drink long into the night, and then beat each other up

Very little scares me, violent drunks, dark alleys, terrorist bombs, careening around corners at silly speeds - none of these things bother me.

But I do have one completely irrational fear.

And today, I faced that fear.

Terror is often depicted as happening at night, in the middle of a thunderstorm - but for me terror happened on a sunny Monday morning...

The first job of the day was nice and simple, a little old lady with a leg infection who needs some antibiotics that can only be given at hospital.

Just don't ask me why this was a high priority call, and therefore needed a rapid response unit.

I spent some time chatting with the patient and her relative, nice enough folks just feeling let down by their GP. Little did I know the trauma that would soon be inflicted on me...

The ambulance crew turned up, and put the carry chair next to the patient. The patient was having severe pain on standing, so one of the crew and the patient's daughter grabbed an arm each and gave her some help standing.

During this I'm standing in the kitchen door, and the other crew is standing in the hallway door.

Then I see it.

I have big hands, and the spider that ran up the back of the patient was just a shade smaller. I was standing some way away and even with my poor eyesight, I could see it's huge fangs, it's hairy legs, and an evil glint in it's eyes.

I froze.

I'm not f**king wrestling with that monster, was the first thing that sprang to mind.

Sprinting onto the patient's head it sat there for a moment, no doubt deciding which of us would make the tastiest meal.

The daughter screamed, the (female) crew helping the patient screamed, the (male) crew standing in the doorway swore, screamed, and ran out into the hallway to hide.

"Get it off! Get it off", the daughter screamed.

The spider decided to sit on the face of the patient, it's legs gripping the patient's ears like a facehugger from the Alien films.

"Eeek!" screamed the patient.

The daughter then smacked her mother right in the face, and the spider went flying across the room. I had visions of it smashing into a vase, bringing it crashing to the floor.

(Did I mention that this spider was fairly large?)

I'm standing there like a lemon - my long dormant arachnophobia flaring into action, I was petrified.

I don't like killing things animals, I even fish out the silverfish from my bath before washing my hair - but if this thing came near me it would be a fight to the death.

The patient sat alone in the room in the carry chair, breathing heavily from her daughter's assault.

Neither of the crew wanted to go near the patient in case the spider was merely lurking...biding its time until it could attack. My bags were taken off me and I was told in no uncertain terms that it would be me who would approach the corner in order to actually collect the patient.

A deep breath, a muttered Litany against fear, and I scooted across the room and, keeping my eyes on the many dark corners, swiftly bundled the patient up and got her out of the house.

"Don't worry", said the daughter as we left the house, "Mum's dog will soon eat it".

Depends how big the dog is, I thought...

I’m mentioned in the Observer today, along with some other great blogs.

Others mentioned are Mental Nurse (Which I never knew of, but after reading the first post has gone onto my bloglines subscription)

Brian’s Brief encounters, a police blog that I mentioned last week.

Tales From The Chalk-face, from a teacher (I keep telling my brother, a teacher, to blog, but he is too worried about losing his job).

And my mate Suw Charman who is our home grown genius of blogging.¹

 Also mentioned is Joe Gordon who is probably the first UK person sacking for blogging about work.

 

So if you are coming over from the Observer, welcome,  and pleas enjoy browsing the archives.

—

^1.Disclaimer: I only recently gave up trying to snog her.

Is this true?

(And do people really have to wait until 2008?)

From the nice Mr. Ellis.

I’m often asked why I started blogging – the honest answer is that I saw a technology that was being used by other people to create great stuff, and it looked like a lot of fun.

To be honest ‘it seemed like it would be fun’ would explain a lot of my life-choices, including the whole ambulance ‘thing’.

I’ve been listening to podcasts for quite a while, and thought that it was something I’d like to do.

So I have exactly that.

My first (very rough) podcast is up there for the whole world to hear.

WARNING: This podcast was made with the worlds cheapest microphone – when/if I do another one then I’ll spring for something more expensive.

I have no ‘stings’ (the annoying “This is radio KNEX 107.1 from Montana” with a sound effect over it), I also have no ‘amusing’ sound effects and I’d really like to have a nice copyright free piece of ambient music in the background (which means I need to dig out my old sequencing software at some point).  What I do have is two great music tracks, a bit of me talking (in betwen the ‘umms’ and ‘errs’).

(I’m wondering how much work I’ll have to do on my ‘radio voice’)

My excuse for how it sounds is this – cheap equipment (a bad workman always blames his tools) and also I have no experience in this sort of thing at all.  Still my bloggin improved with practice, so hopefully this will as well.

—

You can get the first podcast from randomreality.libsyn.com  the feed, for all those using podcast clients is randomreality.libsyn.com/rss/podcasts

The music is ‘Rodeohead’ by Hard n Phirm, and ‘Introspection’ by Osymyso 

So, what do you think?

You can send your comments to podcast@randomreality.org, or just leave them in the comments box.  I’m looking for podcast safe music, (i.e.creative commons licensed), or places where I can download the same,  ‘radio stings’ and anything else that’ll make the show better.

Rotten eggs can be thrown when you next see me.

I was going to moan.

I was going to tell you about the driver who tried to play 'chicken' with me. I would have told you about the brain-dead idiot who ran out, without looking, from behind a bus, causing me to leave 20ft long skidmarks (on the road thankyouverymuch). Maybe I would have mentioned the kid who thought it would be a fun thing to pretend to jump out in front of my car. All while on blue lights and sirens.

I might even have complained about the maternity department who told their patient to "phone for an ambulance" (which she plainly didn't need).

I definitely would have told you about the two drivers who couldn't wait for five seconds before swearing at the ambulance crew and myself for 'blocking the road'. Didn't matter that we wanted to see if the guy lying on the pavement was dead or not. They only stopped shouting when two policemen sauntered over to them in their "I can't believe you are that stupid" way, cultivated by long hours in Newham.

I would have moaned, but I've had two Chinese takeaways, so I am now feeling content and will therefore tell you about how the internet saved the day.

I got called to a 14 year old female in a block of flats who had collapsed.

Nothing particularly interesting about the actual collapse, but what was interesting was how the ambulance was called.

The patient was talking to a friend via a web cam.

Her friend saw her collapse (well slid down under the view of the web cam).

Her friend then phoned the patients house, where the phone was picked up by the patients gran.

Gran then rushed into the patient's room where she saw the patient collapsed on the floor.

Gran then phoned for an ambulance.

We turn up.

We save the day.

Yay for us.

So all hail the internet, saviour of teenage girls!

WARNING: This posting may be just a tiny bit uncharitable. Blame it on me working a busy nightshift.

Poxy bloody heroin addicts.

This post may also be just a shade judgemental...

I got sent to a call, "Male collapsed". I'm first on scene and as I enter the flat there is a partially dressed man on the floor with a woman kneeling over him.

At least she is honest.

"He's clucking, because he used to inject, and now smokes heroin. We had a fight now he's acting strange".

'Clucking' means that he is withdrawing from heroin.

"Is he on methadone?", I ask.

"Yes, but they don't give him enough", she replies.

Heroin addicts never think they get enough methadone, which is a drug that is used as part of heroin addiction treatment.

She continues, "so he went a bit strange, so I gave him a few runs to see if it made him any better".

'Runs' are a description used in smoking heroin.

So his addict girlfriend (she admits to sharing a drug of choice) has seen him go a bit strange and thought that giving him some heroin would help.

Normally this wouldn't be too much of a problem, we'd take him to hospital and let them sort it out...

But this one doesn't want to go to hospital. He is refusing despite using our range of persuasion tricks.

Apparently the local A&E doesn't give him enough methadone either. Apparently he has to take heroin with him when he goes to A&E so he can have a smoke of it outside the department.

We are stuck. We can't drag him out, his girlfriend and mum can't persuade him to go, and the police won't be able to do much.

This is also the sort of job that can (in the local slang) 'go bent'. In other words, this is the sort of patient who will take great pleasure in dying five minutes after we leave.

The ambulance crew decide to get an officer on duty to come down - this covers our backs, and means none of us should get the sack should the patient decide to stop breathing.

I'm sorry to be judgemental, but as soon as you start thinking it's a good idea to start injecting heroin into your veins, you stop being a human being, and instead step outside normal society.

I've never met a heroin addict I've liked.

On the flip side, there probably aren't that many heroin addicts who have found ambulance crews that they like.

It's on jobs like this that I rely on the training, and on my belief that, no matter how little I like the patient I'm treating, if I'm nice and polite to them it makes my life so much easier. I'll also treat them to the best of my ability, because anything else would just be wrong.

But it certainly doesn't help to think that while I am treating this patient there may be some little old lady, lying on the floor with a broken hip, awaiting an ambulance which is slow in coming because we are tied up dealing a heroin addict.

It also makes me both angry and sad that this person has completely wasted their life instead of doing something useful and productive. And don't forget the relatives, friends (and quite possibly) victims of crime) that are affected by his addiction.

And then after this job I get three maternataxis one after another.

Still, as my mother says "It must be nice to be busy - it must make the shift pass quickly".

I'd still like a cup of tea every so often...

And with a bit of luck I'll be in a better mood tomorrow. In the meantime - Does anyone know a good nightclub in London for a Saturday night? Does the LA2 still play 80's music? Every time I work nights I look with envy at people enjoying themselves - so this weekend I intend to enjoy myself and maybe go 'clubbing'.

My ‘one word’ review of ‘Lost’ which starts today on Channel 4 at 8:30pm (For those in the UK anyway).

Unmissable

I’ve seen all of the first series (thank you Bittorrent¹), and it really is compulsive viewing.

Do people in offices still talk about TV around the water fountain?  If so, then I suspect that this could be a big topic of conversation.

—

 ^1. So why exactly is my computer full of malware? Could it be some of the websites I visit?

There is another excellent policeman's blog that I read regularly. He is quite unlike any of the other police bloggers out there in that he has a very distinctive style of writing.

Sunday's post however was excellent as, while I have written about the same subject before, "Brian" has written the post I always dreamed of writing.

Go, read, enjoy.

And if you are lucky, I'll have a 'nice' job to write about tonight.

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.