The first episode of this documentary came out last week. I only got round to watching it after it had aired, as a friend contacted me saying they were currently watching it.
BBC One – Ambulance – documentary
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07xtg5j
I opened my work tray the other day to find an envelope. Inside was a letter. A standard letter suggesting with all integrity that I (amongst others) had managed NOT to kill someone.
Now, these letters don’t come often, but they do come. In fact, I have a few now. And I wager that anyone working in the job long enough will end up receiving at least one at some point.
I remember the job too . . . well, by process of elimination it’d be hard not to. Of the five cardiac arrests I’ve done this year so far, only one of them wasn’t called on scene! Continue reading
Over time, various folk have contacted me asking for advice on starting their career as a Paramedic. I always find this odd. I would have thought by my mad ramblings laid down in previous blogs, it was obvious that I’m a bumbling, kak-handed, accident prone disaster movie just waiting to happen. Why on earth folk would expect me to be able to dish out sound advice is beyond comprehension.
However, advice people have asked for and advice has been given. I’m never too sure it was the sort of advice folk wanted but I gave it a go. Anyway, someone recently suggested it a good idea to write a blog on it – so I have. But only a short one. With not much advice. More a statement. Or a warning. You decide . . .
Young-drunk-man-in-a-suit continued to hold his cracked, soon-to-be-dead phone up to my face. In his drunken sway, with eyes barely focussed, his demeanour switched suddenly from startlingly desperate to that of a damp and pathetic dog.
“You see . . .” he snivelled, “I love her. I know I’ve only known her for one date, but, she’s . . . she’s . . . I love her -”
And, before I could Judo-chop myself away to safety, young-drunk-man-in-a-suit flopped his head forward onto my chest and started to cry.
With hundreds of drunken revellers staggering about me in various states of inebriation, I continued to stand there, handset radio held to my ear waiting for a response from the police . . .
This is a little poem that’s been sitting on the back burner for quite a while now – I thought it about time to get it finished and put it out there. Dedicated to all of us starting out who might think it’s all too easy . . . try not to be over confident, be humble always.
Like a soulless zombie, I stumbled in from work and collapsed onto the sofa. Catatonic, I stared at the wall in front of me, eyes focused somewhere a thousand yards ahead. My wife had seen this look before – she knew it all too well. Horrors of a traumatic shift catching up to prey on a weary mind. In bed, all thoughts of a peaceful slumber, snatched away. In its place, a tortuous and endless eternity of painful memories. My wife knew that something bad had happened so, she sat down carefully by my side and took my hand in hers.
“Oh my love, what’s happened? You can tell me”
My lip quivered as tears welled in my eyes. After a long pause I explained . . .
“I . . . I had to pick up a patient’s poo today!”
