I was sat at my old station in East London catching up with one of the Motorcycle Response Units (MRUs).  He was chuckling about a job he’d just attended.

I asked him to spill the beans . . .

“Well, it’d come down as ‘DIB – Red 2’, in the park.  It was woman.  An adult woman mind!  think she was about 27 or so . . . born, erm, ’77 I think.  Anyway, doesn’t matter.  Point is, she’s an adult and should have known better.  And her friends, bloody hell.”  He was chuckling as he relived the moment.

“Go on!  What”  I get easily wrapped up into other peoples’ anecdotes.

“. . . well, they were in the park with their kids and the kids were playing on one of those round-a-bout things, you know?”

“Yeh yeh”

“So she decided to have a go too.  And, when she come off it, she was all dizzy like,”  he started laughing out loud at this point, “. . . as you would be yeh?  Ha ha, and she decided – along with her adult friends, that she should call for an Ambulance”

“WHAT!!??”

“Yeh, when I turned up, even the kids were surprised, ‘but she’s only been on the round-a-bout mate’.  I couldn’t believe it”

“Did she have DIB then?  Did she faint?”

“Nah.  I’m telling you, she was dizzy, nothing else – that was it!”

At that point, the attending crew walked in.  Their incredulous looks said it all.  Without a word, laughs were exchanged across the mess room.  The MRU challenged their clinical skills . . .

“Well?  Did you ‘blue’ her in to Hospital or what”

“Of course.  But first we made sure we got HEMS on the case to sedater her”

And thus the banter continued . . . and well it should!  We could get angry at these ridiculous call-outs – especially when you look at the cost of the resources involved.  But you can’t . . . we’d all end up suffering strokes I’m sure.  Instead, for us on the front line, the easiest thing to do is laugh.  And let some other poor bugger get angry at it all.

Binder