It's the usual job.

We are led into the police cell / magistrates court holding area / place in the supermarket where they keep shoplifters*

The patient is there, having collapsed with difficulty in breathing / chest pain / asthma attack / drug reaction / withdrawal / claustrophobic panic attack / catatonia*

My crewmate and I assess the patient, we try not to touch the walls of the cell because they are often...icky.

I notice that there is nothing wrong with the patient/ unusually something actually wrong with them*

I talk to the custody officer / police officer / security guard*

I tell them that, while there is nothing wrong with the patient, and it is likely a waste of everyone's time I'll take them to hospital.

The reason for this is to cover my back, just like they have in calling me. After all, a death in custody, while rare, is no fun for anyone.

So off we trot with the criminal / suspected criminal / illegal immigrant / drunk* in tow, in handcuffs and accompanied by an escort.

They'll be back in their police cell / magistrates court holding area* soon enough, but not before wasting everyone's time / money / patience / goodwill*

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*Delete as applicable.

While I'm at it, can anyone recommend a cheap tele-convertor for my Nikon D40X? It doesn't have to be anything special, just so that I know it fits.

A school has installed CCTV cameras in classrooms in a bid to avoid disputes between teachers and pupils and to tackle theft, the deputy head has said.

Mr Rush said that the reaction from staff, children and parents had been entirely supportive.

"The children are very happy here because they know they are on a school site where they are safe.

And this is the problem, that children 'feel safe' because they are under the watchful eye of a CCTV camera. They are being trained to believe that.

Likewise they are being trained that it is only right that your fingerprints can be taken so that you can borrow books from a library, that carrying ID cards is the norm and that you should feel safe now that you are put on a database as soon as you are born.

State control of your data is increasing and they people concerned have realised that 'getting them while they are young' seems to be the easiest way to slip these databases and surveillance systems in to place.

Seriously, look at the responses to the library fingerprints link - shouldn't we be concerned that we are creating children who will accept anything for the sake of 'safety'?

The question therefore is what can we do to educate children about the flaws in such systems?

My immediate thought is to make Orwell's '1984' and Doctorow's 'Little Brother' compulsory English texts. But what else? Perhaps ORG/FIPR/No2ID should start setting out their stalls at school fetes, and town shows, or start making child friendly websites?

But what else can we do?

I'm open for suggestions.

(And the first person to say that 'if you've nothing to hide then you've nothing to fear' will have their net curtains removed, their walls replaced with glass and be made to sign a declaration stating that they trust this, and all other future governments, as well as every soul that works for the civil service, the NHS, social services, transport your local council etc...)

We walk up the stairs to the teenager who has 'fallen, swollen arm', to be greeted by a fourteen year old girl with her arm in a tubigrip.

I start with my usual opening gambit, "Hello, what seems to be the problem?"

"I fell over yesterday innit", she says, "now my arm hurts and it's swollen innit".

('Innit' is how a full stop is pronounced in my part of the world).

"Let's have a look then", I say and she pulls the tubigrip off her arm, "so, how did you fall?"

"Dunno just fell over, and it hurts now innit".

I take one look at the injury, the bruising and swelling around the hand in a rather specific place.

"So, you didn't fall over did you? What did you punch, a wall, a door or a window?"

She looked at me as if I'd grown another head.

"You can't fool me, for I have fearsome psychic powers", I tell her, "Also it's a classic Boxer's fracture, so, wall or door?"

"Yeah, alright", she admits, "I was having a row, right, and I punched the wall."

"Fair enough, you'll need to go to hospital for an x-ray and treatment - and in the future don't try lying to ambulance staff, for we are wise in the ways of the world".

I wiggled my fingers like an old-time psychic, "We. know. all."

She looked at me with an open mouth.

He gets out of bed, washes and dresses, kisses his wife goodbye and, promising to be careful, heads off to work.

Some hours later I get a call to a male having difficulty in breathing.

We get there as quickly as I can drive because there is something about the job that makes me think it is serious.

We arrive after the FRU, the patient is on the floor and the FRU is performing CPR - the patient has no heartbeat and isn't breathing.

What happened? Did he have a sudden heart attack? Did he choke on his food? Did he have a clot in his lung?

I'll never know.

We do our job, it's a long resuscitation attempt for a number of reasons, lots of interventions.

The FRU who was first on scene tells us that the patient's workmates were taking turns in doing CPR, one of them puts his head around the door and explains what he saw.

"He just collapsed", he says looking worried, "I tried to help but I was only doing what I've seen on TV. I was going to do mouth-to-mouth, but I didn't want to blow the vomit into his lungs..."

We all tell him that he did the best possible thing, that he should sleep easy tonight - but I know he won't.

At the hospital the staff work hard on him, but it is an effort that has no result - one more person dies today.

The police are asked to inform his wife. It's a job I don't envy. They bring her to the hospital, I'm outside cleaning the ambulance so I don't hear her tears.

I wonder who will tell his workmates.

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After my shift I visit my mum and give her a hug - as I leave for home she tells me to be careful.

"Always", I say.

So,

Sometimes I help with delivering babies - but I'm not a midwife.

Sometimes I deal with drunks - but I'm not a barman.

Sometimes I deal with assaults - but I'm not a policeman.

Sometimes I deal with mental health problems - but I'm not a psychiatrist.

Sometimes I deal with other people's grief - but I'm not a counsellor.

Sometimes I leave sick people at home - but I'm not a GP.

Sometimes I fix stair-lifts - but I'm not a mechanic.

Sometimes I just sit and listen to other people's problems - but I'm not an agony aunt.

Sometimes I just move a person from one place to another - but I'm not a taxi driver.

Sometimes I drive an ambulance - but I'm not an ambulance driver.

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It's that last one, 'ambulance driver' that I'm mostly called, that or 'Paramedic'. Yet 'ambulance driver' is the one that most annoys my boss.

"They call you an ambulance driver", he tells me, "I thought we'd moved away from that?"

He's right of course, an 'ambulance driver' seems to just drive the ambulance, or at least that's what some people think. It's something that the ambulance service has been trying to stamp out for quite some time as we obviously do much more than that, something that I like to think that I show on this blog. The thought that one of the crew does nothing but drive the vehicle while all the medical work is done by the other is wrong, yet one I'm often met with.

So, what is my job title? It's 'EMT', or 'Emergency Medical Technician', which makes me sound like I fix ambulances or mend the medical machines that go 'beep'. When I deal with the media I call myself an EMT and they ask what that means, 'Is it the same as paramedic?' they ask, to which I reply that it is - except that Paramedics have a few more drugs and sharp things that they can play with, but that we ultimately do the same job.

I'm an EMT-3, or maybe an EMT-4 (I'm not sure, the difference is negligible), but there are EMT-2 ('probationers' who can't work alone or with another EMT-2) and EMT-1 (who have a lot less training and only go to the most minor of calls - which almost never turn out to be anything serious).

Then there are ECAs - Emergency Care Assistants, that have such a poorly defined role I don't think that even they know what they are supposed to do.

My role - EMT, Emergency Medical Technician, is such a poor term I find myself having to explain it all the time. It's like calling nurses 'Pill Dispensing Technicians', the police 'Handcuffing and Paperwork Technicians' or someone who works on a film set making sure that the audio is right a 'Sound Technician'.

This is why people end up still calling me an 'Ambulance Driver', because more people have an idea what that means than EMT.

Let's face it, if this blog were described as an 'EMT blog' how many people would know how to search for it?

And this is why, when I turn up at a patient's house and the worried relatives turn around and look at me they say, "It's all right now, everything will be fine, the ambulance driver is here".

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For the last two days I have been avoiding blogging, email, twitter, going out, or entertaining friends; in fact anything that could even slightly be construed as 'work' (while though I enjoy all those things, it can wear you down a bit). My calendar has, for some time, had the past three days marked out as 'Get my feet back under me' because it is the first time in months I've had a few days to myself where I can get over the busiest part of my rota, conferences, PR, visiting friends and catching up on stuff like laundry and re-centre myself.

Three days where I did little other than watch TV, play 'Oblivion' (where I am now a master assassin), eat take-aways, and read a little. It's been absolutely lovely - but now it's back to work, including setting up my new project, which promises to have me even more preachy than normal. And of course, spending twelve hours at work staffing an ambulance.

(This is to say that, if I owe you an email or twitter, you'll be getting it in a day or two)

"Look luv", I say to the woman on the bed, "if you can hop onto the chair I'll carry you downstairs where we can get you to the hospital".

The woman on the bed lifts one leg high into the air and grunts in pain. I'm not worried, I think that the reason why she doesn't want to get onto the carry chair is because she has poor pain tolerance.

"Your contractions are every three minutes?, I ask her, "your waters are intact, so you've got ages to go before you give birth".

I'm really not worried, I'm more annoyed that this woman isn't doing as I tell her, namely to pant through the contractions then get on the chair so I can get her in to see the midwives.

"You've had the contractions for only four hours, it takes much longer than that to... Bloody hell! are you pushing? Don't push - you don't want to push do you..."

I turn to my temporary crewmate, fresh out of training school but he seems fairly sensible, "You'd better get the other maternity pack from the ambulance, and the suction, and the oxygen bag. Oh, and ask Control to get us a midwife 'cause it looks like we are going to deliver here. Don't run but, y'know, don't dawdle either".

He trots down the stairs.

"I'm going to have to take a look", I tell the woman and she lifts up her skirt to show me her genitals.

In training school there were two things that we were told to be wary of causing offence, the first was traipsing around Mosques in our boots. The second thing was that Muslim women don't want men who aren't their husband looking at their bare flesh - strangely enough, when someone is about to deliver a baby they don't seem to care. I would guess that common sense tends to trump religion when you (and your husband) are scared and in pain.

I tilt my head to one side, trying to visualise exactly where the baby is. Then she pushes again and I deftly side-step the gush of amniotic fluid that jets out of her towards me. The professional in me observes the fluid as it shoots past my ear, it's nice and clear which suggests that the baby hasn't pooed in it. The un-professional part of me gives myself a mental high-five for not getting caught by the spurting body fluids.

My crewmate returns with the kit and I ask if he's ever delivered a baby before, he says he hasn't and that his current family came pre-loaded with grown children. He tells me that the hospital hasn't got a midwife to send so it looks like we are on our own.

I explain everything to the mother to be, and to the father to be, and the brother, and her previous child. The previous child was born by caesarian section, so this is the first 'proper' birth she has done. Luckily it's not my first.

I put on the gloves as she pushes again. This time she pops out a bit of poo. I wipe her (something I thought I'd given up when I gave up nursing) and contemplate that when mothers to be start pooing the baby is often not far behind.

We get the equipment ready - clamps, scissors and blankets. My crewmate and I are both gloved up and ready to go.

Once more the mother sticks one leg straight up in the air and gives a strangled cry.

I can see hair. Which means I can breathe a sigh of relief - not a breach birth. But the hole through which the baby will be making an appearance seems rather smaller than the previous times I've delivered.

I'm not worried, women have managed to give birth in the past and in worse conditions that the one that I find myself in. Heck, I've delivered babies in much worse conditions than this. At least in this case there is light, everyone speaks English and we aren't fiddling around in the back of a car unlike the first delivery I was involved in.

There is some more puffing and panting, some refusal of painkillers and slightly worrying moment when I wonder if the head will ever make an appearance.

Outside the brother is chanting and praying, it seems that he's doing a good job as I can hear him through the door. I'm guessing that it's one of those 'welcome the baby into the world' sorts of things.

Then with a tear, a scream and a pop the head arrives.

A quick feel and I realise that the cord is around the babies neck, so I untangle it. I help with the rotation and with a final big push the rest of the baby arrives and I catch it.

The cord is clamped and cut, and I rub the baby dry, hoping or a cry. A crying baby makes a happy ambulanceman, but baby seems quite content with sniffling and sneezing a bit. Good breathing, a nice strong heartbeat and reflexive movement - I'm quite happy.

The baby is fine, so I hand it off to a relative and check the mother - some slight bleeding, enough to wreck the mattress, but nothing too nasty. She seems a fair bit confused as I explain about the placenta and not for the first time in my career I wonder if anyone ever reads the instruction manual for their body.

She's happy though, the pain is over and she has a baby to show for it - a huge grin arrives on her face.

"Is it a boy or a girl?', the father asks. To be honest I haven't looked, I was more worried about the baby breathing, so we both go delving into the baby wrap to see what sort of equipment it's got between the legs.

It's a girl.

I can relax now, mother and baby are fine, people are congratulating us and all we do now is wait for the midwife to turn up. I try to remember the criteria for the Apgar score, I know that the baby is fine, but it's something nice to put in the documentation. Memory fails so I pull out my phone and look it up on Wikipedia. Baby scores a solid ten out of ten and I learn that Apgar is someone's name and not an acronym.

Then I learn what a backronym is.

I put my phone away.

The midwife arrives and does the mid-wifey things that midwives do, like yanking out the placenta and reminding us that the baby should be kept warm. We know that the baby should be kept warm, for most of us that is the one thing that we can actually remember from our four-hour training session on how to catch a baby.

Mother and child go to the hospital, as mother needs some sutures in a place I'd rather not have a needle anywhere near - but unlike other occasions, our midwife congratulates us on a job well done and makes us a cup of tea in the maternity department tea-room. I ruminate over a biscuit that I've never had a midwife arrive before the baby is born, and how they manage to get their timing that precise.

A good job, everyone is happy and I got a cup of tea at the end of it.

Can't ask for much more than that.

What has happened here is tragically sad and my sympathies go out to the family.

A GRANDAD lay dying of a heart attack in his home — while a paramedic stood outside for 16 minutes filling in risk-assessment forms.

And last night Roy Adams’s heartbroken daughter Sarah claimed he would still be alive if there had not been a delay.

She added: “It’s awful. The medic could have saved my dad but instead he stood outside for 16 minutes. All that crucial time was wasted.”

I'm yet to see a 'Health and Safety' form that we fill in on the road - yet more 'Sun' exaggeration. But then they do seem to have a real hatred of people actually being safe at work.

When I was working solo, you made your 'health and safety' assessment in your head - if it felt safe to enter on your own then you would enter, if there was something about the call that made you nervous, then you would wait for backup. From the story in the newspaper, it would seem that the solo thought it was unsafe to enter - but after waiting sixteen minutes for a police escort to arrive, decided to enter on their own.

Probably what happened was that the solo wasn't happy to enter on their own for whatever reason, waited for the police and after they didn't turn up for a while entered the household at their own risk.

From the Times Online article about the same job.

The ambulance service spokesman described the risk assessment as a “mental checklist” which included considering the safety of the scene, types of risk and whether extra help or equipment was required.

“We have a duty of care to treat patients but we also have to look after our staff,” he said. “In this case the medic conducted the assessment, had safety concerns and decided to call for back-up.”

Well done that 'spokesman' for getting the real situation across to at least one paper (even if it is the toilet paper 'The Times')

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But it's not just about the poor reporting - what really sticks in my throat is the comments by the Great British Public who take the rubbish that is printed in the Sun as gospel. When every story becomes a trial by media it's interesting how quickly people are to judge something based on 380 words that they have read in a tabloid paper.

this idiot should be given life in prison

This medic should be struck off straight away, no questions ...

Typical Britain today,what a b****y disgrace, everything is Health and Safety, Hitlerite jobsworths ...

These people want us to risk our lives to save them when they make comments like that? What next? Moaning because I have two perfectly good kidneys and I should give one of them up for transplant so that someone else can live? Offering to be stabbed in place of someone else because we 'save lives' and are 'paid for it'?

How many of these commentors, after seeing the damage a knife can cause, would volunteer to walk into a place where there is a real fear of losing your life. They are very brave sitting behind their keyboards, but I bet they couldn't walk a mile in our boots.

And calling us 'Hitlerite' - well, I hope that whoever made that comment makes that viewpoint known to any ambulance crew that comes to help you in the future...

I do despair sometimes.

And should the Solo be vindicated, how many column inches would the Sun spend on that?