Yearly Archives: 2017

19th Floor – Lift Broken

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The tower block loomed in front of me, like a gigantic mountain sized monolith.  Due to a power cut, not a single light was on throughout the building.  This just added to its dark and evil mystique.  My eyes slowly moved up the floors searching for its peak.  But against the dark London back drop, the building seemed to blend as one with the night sky.

Somewhere up on the 19th floor, someone had turned their ankle and was in “so much pain, they could not walk”.  So, standing with my paramedic bag on my back and all the other essentials I always took into jobs, I prepared to enter the building.

“You going up there mate?”  A young resident was leaving the building and had clocked me with all my kit.  He was motioning up the building.
“Yep.  Are the lifts working?”
“Ha!  No chance mate.  Nothing is.  It’s all fucked yeh”

I looked up once again and did a quick calculation in my head.  Within seconds I was sat back in the car calling up control.  Sod that, walking up 19 floors with all that kit!

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Everything’s Gonna Be Alright

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It was a late finish.  Again.  And as my student and I slowly headed back to station very little words were spoken.  There was a numbness in the air that seemed to choke any delight that would normally be taken in witnessing such a beautiful sunrise over the city.

As we rounded a corner the blinding golden light of the climbing sun spread across us like a wave of warm tropical surf.  Turning on the radio to break the awkward silence, Bob Marley’s song, “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” sprung into life.

And, as the dawning of the new day poured its beginnings across the waking city I reflected painfully on the job we’d just done . . .

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PEP – Post Exposure Prophylaxis

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My breathing quickened and shallowed.  I was aware that I was becoming sweaty and that my arms and legs were feeling like lead weights.  Tingles began to creep from the ends of my fingers through my hands and slowly up my arms.

Slumping further into the chair, I desperately tried to keep my head up but waves of nausea began to take control.

“You sure you’re alright Binder?  You really don’t look well you know.  I think we should get you to lie down”

“I’m fine . . . honest . . . ” I lied.

And before I could give myself in to a good old fashioned fainting, the HART* guys picked me up and ‘assisted’ me to the mess room sofa where I lay for the next half hour slowly recovering.

An hour after taking my first round of Post Exposure Prophylaxis medicine and I was reduced to a gibbering wreck whereby my “life” had just been saved by HART.  Oh, the humanity.

Pic courtesy of @LAS_HART

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Catching a Break

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Do you ever look at some folk and wonder how they do it?  How they get positive recognition for something done over the rest of us.  How they always seem to be in the right place at the right time?  Like, there really is an element of genetic luck to peoples’ success?

And does anyone then wonder bitterly (like me) why it is they don’t!?  I mean, if ever there was the opposite to the hero type mentioned above, then I am certainly it.  I am the man with the anti-Midas touch.  Murphy’s Law incarnate.  An anti-hero at best.

Three examples immediately come to mind for this, some I have “touched” upon on previous posts.  The last of which happened not too long ago and completely sums up my whole existence.

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Update – at long last!

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Yes!

It has been a while.   A looong while.  And yes, there are good explanations to the lack of entries.  And explanations you will get, along with great stories/anecdotes/twists of truths/and downright lies.  But the main thing is, I have moved.  I am no longer in the LAS.  I have now moved somewhere up North.  Don’t worry, I’ll write about it soon.  But as you can probably imagine, it’s been hectic.

For now, stand by on the next entry as I begin to write it . . . . it’s a long one, but will do for a re-starter/re-boot to the blog.

I have dozens and dozens of blogs to write still of the times in London so they’re not going to stop.  And now I’ll have the new “up-north” ones too.  So, stand by . . .

Binder

PS Apologies but thanks for the patience