We'd just been kicked off our ambulance station for 'Active Area Cover' - the psychic computer that tells us where the next call is coming from obviously had a headache as this call was next door to our ambulance station.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
She's in her twenties, she has a cold.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
The call has been given as a 'severe difficulty in breathing' It's one of our highest priority calls.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
We've been doing calls like this for the last few days, this is just like the others.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
When we reach her, she's standing at the top of the stairs smiling at us.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
Her husband follows the ambulance to the hospital in his car.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
The hospital is less than half a mile away.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
When I *politely* remind him that the 999 number is for life-threatening emergencies and that he could have taken her in the car he gets defensive and tells me that he is not a doctor.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
They went to hospital two days earlier for the same problem. The hospital gave her Paracetamol for the temperature and told her to take it regularly.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
She last took it fourteen hours ago
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
We tried to give her advice, but she ignored it.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
We take her to hospital, I grind my teeth, the husband follows behind in his car, Control call out on the radio - looking for an ambulance to attend to an elderly chest pain.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
It's not news anymore, it's not unusual, it doesn't seem to matter. Our 'No Send' policy is foiled by a patient reporting a blocked nose.
Category 'A' response blue lights and sirens. Fast car also sent.
Elsewhere in our area a man was dying from a heart attack.
