Ah, the pure pleasure of being in the middle of a domestic dispute, oh how I love the shouting, the swearing and the pulling of hair.

We were called to a patient with a long term illness, his daughter arrived at the same time as the ambulance and was crying before the front door was opened. Our FRU driver was already there talking to the patient and his partner (a surprisingly young looking woman).

Barely had we set foot in the flat than the arguing started, it appeared that the daughter had some 'issues' with the patient's partner, so they started shouting at each other over the (rather ill) patient.

They were shouting at each other so much that the patients concern that he was about to be incontinent of faeces couldn't be addressed in time. Heaven knows we tried to get him to the toilet, but with both women screaming at each other it was perhaps inevitable that he would poo on the carpet.

Enough was enough, so I locked one of the women out of the house so we could actually find out what was wrong with the patient. The problem was pretty simple and not worth the aggravation that we were getting from these warring relatives.

Then there was a fight between the two women with items of clothing getting torn. I managed to calm things down a little by threatening to call the police. We were all getting exasperated by now and just wanted the patient on the back of the ambulance and safely on the way to hospital.

Thankfully the son of the patient arrived and managed to calm his sister down somewhat, we were then able to 'load and go' to the nearest hospital.

I don't know what the argument was about, and to be honest I didn't care. All I wanted was to look after the patient and go on to my next job. In the end neither of the women were any help to the patient (or to us). It's in situations like this that you have to bit your tongue and yet remain forceful enough to stop people beating each other up.

I don't know how the police do it day after day...

I'd want to pepper spray everyone.

Someone left a message on my phone, I think it was a social worker - if it was you then I couldn't understand what you were saying. You can find my email address in the 'Contact Me' link in the top right of this page.