Just a bit of proof...

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.

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One of my first ambulance posts on this blog was about how I'm terribly upset that I can't run over the people who dive out in front of my ambulance.

I have a new pet hate though...

The Royal London Hospital, situated as it is in the middle of Whitechapel has very poor parking.

However I don't think that it excuses people in private cars ignoring the 'no entry' sign at the front of the ambulance entrance, nor the "Don't park here, ambulances use this space" markings that fill the area outside of the A&E department.

So when I turn up at the hospital with a patient in the back of the ambulance it drives me mad to see so many private cars taking up the space that us ambulances use.

You can call up security to come and have a look, but I think their powers are limited.

What I would *like* to do is take out my ambulance keys and carve into the car paintwork, "You have parked in an ambulance bay. Don't do it again you idiot".

I wouldn't mind but the driver was going to the 'walk in centre'.

if I were truly evil I'd post a picture of their car up here and 'name and shame' them. But that way lies mob rule...

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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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.

Busy, busy, busy.

Midweek was fun, the presenter was lovely, Sargy Mann is a real gent, Rupert Everett is lovely and Sissel has some really interesting ideas. Everyone was really nice to me who, lets face it, is a jumped up taxi driver who basically lucked out.

After Midweek I got home and was immediately phoned to do an interview on BBC World service on the basis of the Midweek interview. So back into a car which was driven by a driver who didn't seem to know the route.

The World Service interview will be on Outlook on Friday (at varying times in varying time zones - link to follow). Tomorrow I'm having my photo taken again for Weekly News.

I managed to get home around half past six and was busy for reasons that I shall divulge next Friday...

Back to work tomorrow, blogging will be up after 7pm I'm afraid unless I get a chance to scribble something during work.

Right... It's taken all day but I should have answered all the emails that needed answering. If you were expecting something from me and haven't got it - you'd better resend the email.

I am such a slacker...

There is often something endearing about the pleasantly confused elderly, at least in the short term. For us at least it makes a difference from the confusion that has little old ladies grabbing your testicles because you are obviously 'a Nazi come to take me to the gas chambers!'

We were called to one of our less regular warden controlled homes, I've been there a couple of times and have normally been impressed with the staff there, not just because I had a cup of tea and a cake once when I helped them out a little outside of what is normally expected of us.

It was two o'clock in the morning as we pulled into the parking area of the home. We'd noticed a little old man in a heavy coat pulling a wheeled basket being flummoxed by the automatic gate.

The warden, looking at the end of her tether came out to meet us. She pointed at the man, "There he is, he's confused and I can't do anything with him".

The patient didn't really want to go to hospital, he wanted to go for a walk. Chatting to him I could tell that he wasn't in a right frame of mind. My crewmate expertly took the warden off to one side and got the information that we needed. I on the other hand worked on the patient.

Luckily he didn't need much persuading, after a bit of a chat I found out that he had a long-running problem with his elbow. I explained that 'as we are here', it would be our pleasure to pop him down the hospital so they could have a look at him. He was a really pleasant bloke, and I enjoyed having a (slightly muddled) chat.

So we had a nice little journey down to the hospital where we discovered the probably source of his confusion.

Someone had cancelled his night-time sleeping pill. It's a well known effect of stopping sleeping pills that (particularly in the elderly) it can cause night-time confusion, agitation and wandering. I believe that an early episode of 'Scrubs' had a running joke to this effect. Still, at least the hospital could make sure that this was the cause for the confusion, not something more serious.

Tomorrow I shall be a guest on the Radio 4 show 'Midweek', this is broadcast at 9am and repeated at 9:30pm. Also appearing will be the actor Rupert Everett, Sissel Tolaas an artist who works with smell, and the blind painter Sargy Mann.

My PR and organisational genius Rachael is really happy about me being invited to the show.

Oh, and it looks like she was right, women's magazines only want books which are written by pretty young female authors - and I have none of those qualities. Oh well, their loss.

Right now I am waiting for my hair to dry so I can get it cut, then I shall be answering all the emails that are sitting in my inbox (being one of the few bloggy people who hasn't read 'Getting Things Done' I am a terrible person for answering my emails). Then later today I shall post an ambulance story.

I'm sure there is something I've forgotten...

NeeNaw has already written about hoax calls, yesterday I had one that we knew was going to be a hoax but would have to be investigated anyway.

The call came down to our computer terminal as 'Child on phone claiming to be 52 year old male with difficulty in breathing, no answer on ringback, probably hoax, please investigate'.

While this seems pretty cut and dried it's probably for the best that we are sent to investigate, it only takes one misunderstanding and someone to die and the whole service would be dragged over the coals. I can just picture the headline 'Ambulance thought my dying husband was a hoax caller!'.

So we went to the callbox and sure enough there was a gang on perhaps eight young teenagers standing opposite the phonebox. One of them did that annoying thing where run into the middle of the road, stamp their feet then wave at you and shout that they have broken their leg.

We pulled up next to him, "Call an ambulance did you?"

The teenager faked ignorance.

"It's against the law to dial 999 for no reason", I continued.

He just laughed.

So in an uncharacteristic fit of quick-thinking I pulled out my mobile phone and took a picture of him.

He looked shocked and ran off to his friends and muttered something quickly to them.

My crewmate completed the illusion by pretending to talk to Control on our radio.

The gang of kids disappeared.

The good thing is that (a) It's not against the law to take a picture of someone in the street (he has no expectation of privacy), (b) If he's done nothing wrong he's got nothing to worry about and (c) if it was him hoaxing us, then it might give him a sleepless night worrying what we'll do with the 'evidence'. Of course there is nothing that we can do because we can't prove that he was the one to make the hoax call, so the hope of a little worry on his part is the best we can hope for.

I'm sure some Social Worker* would be upset at my actions, but when we are overloaded with calls such idiocy could cost someone their life.

*Talking of Social Workers, a friend of mine went on a call last night where a Social Worker got involved - said Social Worker got out of his car, urinated in the gutter and then bullied an elderly but otherwise healthy patient into going to hospital. Words fail me.

My last patient has put two related thoughts into my brain (and so I write this in order to expose my brains to you).

Number one - After seven shifts on the run (and the prospect of another seven in two days time), an EMT's patience can wear a little thin. So when you deal with a hoax call followed by a 'frequent flyer' and said patient is especially smelly, whiny and annoying your acting skills are put to the test..

...That and your ability to ignore the pounding headache developing in your left temple.

Number two - When you are driving the aformentioned smelly patient to hospital and you brake, there is an almost visible cloud of smell that rolls forward and encompasses you. In this case it was a mixture of stale urine and body odour. This will not help your headache or reduce your wish to punch said patient in the throat.

I think I need to do some serious relaxation on these days off - shame I have to sort out the MOT/insurance and road tax for my car, as well as all those other jobs that needed doing a week ago.

(I don't know why I'm bothering with the car, very few people in Newham seem to worry about such things as driving licenses and insurance...)

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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...Is a man who has been accidentally stabbed in the arm by his wife. She has run from the house, the police are in attendance and there is a distinct smell of 'herbal' cigarettes in the air.

A pleasant patient and an easy last job.

Nighty night.

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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A medal for my crewmate please...

We picked up one of our... Erm... 'less fragment' frequent flyers. She stunk, as is usual with her, to high heaven.

I'm driving, my crewmate is in the back of the ambulance with the patient.

The people at the football at West Ham are just emptying out.

It takes us *43* minutes to travel around 500 yards weaving through traffic that often leaves me a credit cards thickness of space on either side.

My crewmate doesn't complain at all and just makes conversation with the patient - something that I wouldn't have enjoyed.

We arrive at a hospital to find another crew in the same situation 40+ minutes in transit, only their patient has drunkenly urinated all over the floor of their ambulance.

This is exactly the sort of job that we don't get the recognition for.

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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Lets see if this one disappears into the Aether, the two posts that never arrived will get turned into 'proper' blogposts at a later date...

We got called to a lovely old lady who has had a bit of a 'funny turn'. The non-specific symptoms mean that we will did all the tests that we can (to rule out anything nasty). Then we toke her to hospital because they have much more comprehensive tests.

The patient is very brave as she is agoraphobic and hasn't left her house in five years. I spoke to her daughter on the phone and she seems very nice as well.

Due to being taken out of the house she was very anxious, something that we did the best to minimise.

I hope everything works out alright for her.

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Update: The nurse at Newham hospital was extra-special nice to the patient and gave her a cubicle to herself. Then the patient's daughter arrived and that calmed her down a lot.

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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I've just been told to 'F**k off' by one of our regular abusive alcoholics.

She then tried to push me over.

She's 75.

I'm 6'1"

Funny how we can laugh at these sorts of things. She's been left at home, no doubt someone will be called back to her before the night is over.

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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A word of warning to everyone in my patch. There appears to be a guard dog on the loose in the Forest Gate to Ilford Area. It has already bitten one man (our patient) on the hand and under his arm. It is described by our patient as 'large, brown' angry and with a lot of teeth'.

We've informed the police and I suspect that they will be calling out the dog support squad to help catch it. The problem is that in this area there are a lot of small children who play in the streets. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we won't get another call to the area, this time with a savaged child.

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Sent from a mobile phone, probably from the cab of an ambulance.
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