Us healthcare people can be nasty cycnical minded swines sometimes.

Sent to an eleven year old child suffering from an asthma attack, I arrived to find the child breathing normally. His oxygen levels are better than mine, his breathing is nice and relaxed, and on listening to his chest I can detect no wheeze or chest infection.

The child tells me that his chest is still feeling 'tight' even though he has no other symptoms of any difficulty in his breathing.

Why is it that myself, my crewmate and the nurses at the hospital all have the thought that today is Monday and therefore a school day uppermost in our minds? Could the child be faking his illness just to get out of school?

As I say, we have nasty cynical minds.

Still, it meant a nice early trip to the hospital where I could score something to eat...


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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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I was at the preview screening of Hallam Foe last week, invited by the lovely Gia. (I'm not going to review the film as it was still a rough cut, but while I normally like my films to have spaceships and explosions I was enthralled by this film. I would recommend it. I also loved the soundtrack.)

There were 33 of us, bloggers in the main with a lot of familiar faces. Someone remarked that it was the 'A List' of British blogging - something that troubled me a little.

You see, the thing that I love about blogging is that it is something that evolved without hierarchies (apart from my now horribly dated joke). It came about, in part, as a way to build communities without leaders. Every voice is equally valued, everyone has the same chance. It just makes me a bit itchy to think about how some people have been elevated to the 'A List'.

The thing that does give me hope though is this - All the people who I personally know via blogging are all lovely people, something that I was talking with Euan about this very thing. I believe that blogging self selects nice people. If the definition of 'nice people' includes willing to listen to other people, to consider their viewpoints and to examine and challenge your own thoughts then, if not predisposed towards this before starting blogging then the process of blogging will teach you how to do this.

Maybe I think too much, maybe my blood sugar is too low - but I get vaguely embarrassed at there being an 'A List', and even more embarrassed that I might be considered part of it.

This job followed on directly from the previous posting. We were sent to 'Female, head injury, police on scene'.

The patient ticked both the 'crack user' and 'prostitute' boxes on the "Is your patient a crack whore?" form.

She was in the garden of the house shouting and swearing at the lone police officer and the ambulance duty station officer who had been sent out as a first responder. Between near incoherent offensive language we discovered that the woman had a bit of a bruise to her head.

The mother had got into an argument with her fourteen year old daughter, after years of this behaviour the daughter had finally snapped and hit her mother around the head.

I spoke with the police officer, he told me that the child had only recently been returned to the mothers custody. The social workers involved in the case had said that, "The mother needs to take some responsibility for caring for her daughter". The police officer was the same one who had driven the daughter home from the foster home.

The mother was well known to the police for the reasons given above.

He was feeling guilty as apparently the child was a 'good kid'.

Our patient was complaining of all over body pain, my crewmate took her into the back of the ambulance and did a sterling job of calming her down. The drive to hospital was uneventful.

The daughter had to be arrested, we are all crossing our fingers that the mother won't press charges.

We meet such lovely people in our line of work.

Only a short post as I need to get up in five hours for a long drive to... well... I'll tell you in a bit. That and Hallam Foe, why getting a 'job' when I'm not wearing my uniform is a pain in the bum and a general post about why it is nice to be a blogger, but also a bit worrying.

I am *such* a tease.

I don't like it when we get 'dropped calls', where someone has called for an ambulance, yet put the phone down (or been cut off) before all the details have been given. I don't like it because, without all the information in place it is hard to get a 'feel' for how dangerous the job might be.

I don't like being stabbed.

The call as we got it was 'child reporting mother cutting wrists', then the child hung up. This could run the whole spectrum of calls from a hoax to a psychotic woman running around with a kitchen knife. I've been to both types of call, and it's why I don't get too wound up by hoaxes...

We arrived to find the police already on scene, Control had called them in advance as they had realised that the scene may well be dangerous. The two police officers were standing outside the address, they had been unable to gain access and were contemplating kicking the door down.

"Is everything alright?", a woman shouted down from the flat above our position.

We explained that we were looking for the woman of the house and asked if the neighbour had seen her.

"She left about ten minutes go, her and her husband got into a car and drove off".

I used my finely tuned experience of watching CSI to note that there was no sign of blood in the area and drew my conclusion that the call had been a hoax.

"Hey!, ambulance man with his nose to the floor looking for pools of blood", the neighbour shouted again, "her son is over there by your ambulance, maybe you can ask him".

The police and I walked over to where we had parked, the child was talking to my crewmate who rolled his eyes as we approached.

"I'm sorry I called you", the ten year old said, "My mum was angry at me, so she locked herself in the bathroom and told me that she was cutting her wrists. So I called for an ambulance, but she was only pretending. Then mum and dad threw me out of the house and they drove off in the car. I don't know where they went".

One of the police officers asked the child if he had any relatives he could stay with. The child knew of no adults to lok after him.

"Sounds like a social problem", I said to one of the police officers.

"Yep".

"Not a job for an ambulance", I continued.

"Nope", the police officer looked crestfallen with the amount of paperwork that he was going to have to do. I've read enough police blogs to realise that any job involving children is a huge pain, more so I would think if the child has been through the experience this one had been through.

"We'll be off then", I said with only a little schadenfreude. I could trust the police to look after this situation.

Little was I to know that our next encounter would be with a stereotypical 'world's worst mother'.

To be continued...

It is a constant danger in this job that a patient, or more likely a patient's relative will make a complaint against you. While a member of the public can moan about a perceived insult (and half of the complaints against the ambulance service are due to 'attitude'), there is little that we can do about a patient who is generally acting like a twit.

I have been pretty lucky in my career, in that I've only had two complaints made against me - once while a nurse and once while working on the ambulances.

The nursing compliant was that I checked the correct dosage of a drug with another nurse before giving it to a child. My boss at the time called me into the office, patted me on the head and told me I was a good boy and should keep up the good work.

The ambulance complaint went to a local investigation.

I was called into the office and asked if I remembered calling a patient a 'bitch'. As I have a poor memory I didn't remember until the ambulance officer gave me the paperwork for the job.

We had been called to a patient who had been arguing with his family, he'd drunk half a bottle of wine and pretended to be unconscious. As he didn't want to 'wake up', we decided to take him to hospital. While in the back of the ambulance he slapped my leg.

I told him that he 'slapped like a bitch' and that he really shouldn't do it again or I might get upset.

I know... not the best insult in the world, he'd surprised me and I had to come up with something on the spur of the moment. If he'd hurt me then I would have thrown him off the ambulance, but as it was such an ineffectual strike I found it more amusing than anything else.

The officer had to investigate the allegation, so he interviewed the other staff present and they supported my side of the story. He then had to travel to the patient's home and interview him there. Luckily the officer saw the character of the patient and convinced him not to go any further with the complaint.

If I'd complained to the police it would no doubt be considered 'not worth prosecuting' by the CPS, but if the patient had continued to complain I could have been seriously disciplined.

All of which only makes me think that I shouldn't leave any witnesses...

A friend of mine, a nicer bloke you'll never meet, has just been through the wringer with a malicious allegation - it's so sad that there are people who are willing to ruin a career out of spite.

Another blogger has been stopped from writing. In the grand scheme of things where people are killed for their words not too important but nevertheless not good in a 'free' society.

Please ignore an typos, grammar mistakes or utter balls-ups in the following post. It has been written while trying to recover from a busy couple of nightshifts. Were I driving I would be using the same skill as a man with a bottle of whisky inside him. I need sleep, yet must remain awake otherwise there is no way I'll be able to get my body clock 'reset' back into societal normal time. My brain is working at about quarter speed.

Thank you for your understanding - I can only hope that any emails that I answer later today will not consist of random extracts from the works of Stephen King.

We were sent to a seventeen year old boy who had been drinking too much of the nastily strong cider that our seasoned alcoholics seem to love. The sort of stuff that comes in blue plastic bottles and costs a pound for three litres. He had made his way to a friend's house and then collapsed on their kitchen floor. The family he had 'gatecrashed' were concerned and had called us.

The family were very nice, they realised that he was too drunk to be left alone but his family lived in Essex and had no way to collect him. It seemed pretty obvious that the young man needed to be in hospital, his was a case of alcohol poisoning and to leave him behind would have been dangerous.

We tried to rouse him from his slumber and were greeted with abuse and finally a thick stream of vomit. Vomit that he proceeded to lay his head in. The family told us that he was awaiting sentencing for breaking a man's jaw and that he was expecting 2-10 years in prison. They mentioned this because they didn't want to see us punched by his, now puked covered, fists.

We decided that it would be wise to call the police.

Two police officers arrived and, after apologising for calling them out, we explained the situation. We all agreed that the hospital would be the best place for him, but in a pinch the police could arrest him for 'breach of the peace' and then take him to the station where the police doctor would send him to hospital. A round about route, but in either event he would eventually be cared for in hospital.

The policeman spoke to the boy firmly, but with compassion. He noted the signs of self harm on the boy's wrists and took a fatherly tone. It was great to see the police officer persuade the boy to attend hospital when previously the patient had refused all offers of help.

Due to the chance of violence the police officer travelled in the back of the ambulance with my crewmate in order to maintain our safety. Thankfully we reached the hospital with no further incident.

While waiting for the nurses at the hospital to accept the patient I started chatting to the police officer and he agreed that it was incredibly sad to see the patient in such a state, that he was starting down a life of self abuse and crime. We could both easily see where this teenager would end up and we both thought that it was both sad and frustrating that this descent would probably be inevitable.

It was the common humanity of this seasoned police officer that is so unrecognised by the media and the public that makes me privileged to work so closely with these professionals.

While cleaning the ambulance outside the department I saw a drunken patient ejected by security. Complaining loudly, the patient headed over to the same police officers and demanded that they 'do something'. The police officers calmed the drunk down and advised him to head home.

He climbed into his car and started to drive off.

The last I saw of this man was him, stopped by the police ten yards down the road, being breathalysed.

Thanks for all the kind comments congratulating Laura and I on dating - they are appreciated even if it does feel that you lot are trying to marry us off...