You may take the silence of the rest of the night in one of two ways...

1) I was asked to move to a station so far out of my area that no mobile phone signals reached me so I couldn't post. Also I did jobs so interesting that I didn't have any time to write stuff.

...or...

2) There wasn't another 'single' ambulance staff anywhere in London so I was able to have a nice sleep on West Ham's sofa.

Hint: I'm rubbing sleep from my eyes.

There are a couple of options tonight, all of them involve me working - so I shan't be getting paid to sleep anymore.

I'm not really looking forward to tonight because of what is happening later today and because of where I work.

I work at 'West Ham'.

Later today the football team 'West Ham' are in the FA cup final (sort of like the UK version of the Superbowl for any Americans).

It looks like it will be a warm day. The pubs will be open - and showing the Cup Final Match. I suspect that there will be (as a friend of mine would put it) plenty of chance for police overtime.

In addition ambulance manning isn't at it's best.

Oh well...


Of course - now I'll probably get nothing but babies with runny noses while two streets away there will be running battles between two groups of drunk football hooligans - something that we have a long and valued history of in this part of town.

Well... That's the last time that I try and predict what will happen in a night.

For a change it's not me that is injured, but instead my crewmate.

We had just returned to station and as she climbed out of the ambulance her foot caught in a hole between the kerb and a dip in the grass, I looked over and saw her rapidly disappearing from view.

To be brutally honest, both myself and the FRU driver's first action were to... *ahem*... 'make fun' of my crewmate - that was until she told us how badly her ankle hurt. A quick examination under the darkness of night told me that the best place for her would be the A&E department.

So I drove her, in her own ambulance, back to the A&E we had just left.

Our Duty Station Officer met us there, discovered what had happened and left her in my capable hands as he drove off to deal with a crew that had been assaulted.

My crewmate was seen quickly in the A&E (perks of the job you see) and x-rays were taken of her badly swollen ankle - thankfully nothing was broken, although the prognosis is that her recovery will take 2-6 weeks.

I'm going to drive her home, then come back to station and see if Control has found someone to replace her.

Oh well - it was nice having a regular crewmate - if only for a little while...