A double stabbing has just occurred in Newham. Even we ambulance folk are noticing more knife crime. It's probably unrelated to Saturday's fatal stabbing though. Brings the total number of stabbings in this area since Friday that I know of to...

...Five.

Domestic violence is obviously a big and nasty problem; but you know...sometimes you have just got to laugh.

We were called to a case of domestic violence, injuries unknown but the husband was still on scene - so we waited for the police to arrive before us. There are a number of times I'll happily turn up to a job with a chance of violence, but domestic violence gives me the willies. There is way too much chance for very angry people to be carrying knives.

We arrived on scene and I think the police had been there for some time, there was a male shouting, waving his hands and talking into a mobile phone. The police were looking more than a bit fed up with this person.

As we got out of the ambulance it soon became apparent that this male was our patient as he waved a finger in our faces - a finger with the barest of cuts on it. It also soon became obvious why the police were looking so fed up - he was one of those people who simply wouldn't listen to you, he was more interested in running back and forth while ranting and raving about whatever was on his mind.

It seemed that he and his girlfriend had been arguing, he had grabbed her and in return she had bitten his finger. The way our patient was carrying on you would think that his finger had been bitten off. Well...the 'cut' was more like a scrape than anything, it would need a clean and maybe some prophylactic antibiotics, but hardly a suitable job for an ambulance.

After some trouble we managed to get him into the ambulance and warned him that if he didn't calm down we'd throw him out the back. Well, he calmed down a bit, but he was still shaking and ranting when we got to the hospital, but at least the volume was a bit more sociable.

What struck me is that he moaned and cried about his bite wound by an order of magnitude more than the patient who had degloved her finger.

Utter rubbish, but when someone calls for an ambulance we have to go, even if it is for a scrape to the finger.