Second job of the night is a two day old baby that coughed up 'something white'. It's an easy job where the parent carries a healthy baby into the ambulance, I drive it 800 yards and the local hospital provides reassurance.

Forgiveness is also due because the birth was difficult and the baby was born two weeks early. Although there is some negative marking for thinking that baby '...needed suctioning for amniotic fluid still in the lungs'.

I'd just like to say that my (female) crewmate finds babies cute.


I don't.

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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For those that are interested, I'll be in Second Life from around 2pm on the Radio 1 island. The BBC are apparently simulcasting their music festival

So the first job turned out to not be an elderly person with common medical ailment, but instead a young man who had hit a car. Then while limping home had caused three people to call an ambulance.

Add in another call in the same general area and you had a potential for chaos - however our Control staff are pretty good so everything was sorted out.

The patient had reached his home and then started hyperventilating, with all the symptoms that this brings. Luckily he wasn't seriously hurt and once he had calmed down it made for a fairly easy job and a pleasant trip to the hospital.

If you are wondering when I have time to make these entries - I'm driving tonight so I can post these while my crewmate books the patients in.

I'm looking after the patients tomorrow which fills me with some dread...

...More of which later.

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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I was wrong about our first job. We are yet to go out as the crew who had our ambulance before us had to deal with someone who had nearly cut his arm off with a falling window.

We let them go and cleaned the motor ourself.

There was a reasonable amount of blood on the floor.

I 'm sure I've told you before that I don't get the sexy' jobs...

We also needed to get fuel and head down to another station to do some paperwork. I am now eagerly/anxiously* awaiting our first job.


*delete as applicable.

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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Thanks to Heather, who let me know about this.

There is a copy of the Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Bill posted on the internet.

Looks interesting – the proof that will be needed for a successful prosecution will be so high only those people who really make an effort to obstruct us will fall foul of it.

I would have thought that existing legislation would have been enough though.

Feel free to discuss in the comments.

After working for two weeks straight I have had a chance to spend two enjoyable days hiding from the world while sitting on my backside reading,watching TV and of course – playing World of Warcraft.

Now I return to work for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday nightshifts.

Deep. Joy.

 

The standard breakdown for a weekend nightshift is as follows.

19:00 – Clock on at the station.

19:01 – First call, normally to someone elderly, probably chest pain

20:00 – Man with ‘man-flu’

21:00 – First assault of the night, outside a pub.

22:00 – ‘Unconscious’ male in street – normally a homeless guy.

23:00 – Another assault.  Fueled by alcohol.

00:00 – ‘Unconscious’ – drunk in street.

01:00 – Child with a high temperature – everyone in the house is awake.

02:00 – Young man with bellyache / young woman with dizziness. (We are now the only ambulance running from West Ham)

03:00 – Nightclubs kick out.  An assault who doesn’t want to go to hospital.

03:30 – Drunk in the street or a drunk who has injured themselves.

04:30 – Get back to station.

04:31 – Maternataxi.

06:00 – Another Maternataxi.

06:30 – Return to station – start watching the clock for sign-off at 07:00.

06:57 – Get a job for a little old lady, miles out of my area with cardiac chest pain.

06:57:01 – Start swearing.

07:25 – After a ‘scoop and run’ return to station to sign off – all ready to repeat the night in just 11 hours and 35 minutes.

Tell you what – I’ll do one of my ‘updated throughout the night’ things.  I can’t guarantee that this is how things will unroll (and this in part is the pleasure of this job), so we can see how far away from my prediction things fall…