2300 29th Dec - 20 mile blue light run with mother birthing with placenta previa. 0630 30th Dec - 45 mins CPR on a middle-aged man whose wife had just got up, expecting to spend the day with him gardening. 2300 30th Dec - keep pace for three miles alongside a swollen, black, freezing river until the inshore recue volunteers could retrieve the body; 2330 - 15 mins of CPR on the body of a young woman, in the back of an ambulance full of wet clothes and stinking river water, being driven by a policeman, so that 2 of us could work on the patient. A&E can't manage miracles, even though they tried for 90mins. In amongst the above, the "usual" night shift drunks and assaultees. 0330 31 Dec - find that I'm losing the plot whilst giving my second "fatal" statement of the day. Shaking, vomiting, weeping, I take myself home. I've been off since. I'm writing this at 0512, because I cannot sleep. Sometimes, dear readers, we DON'T cope.