Blood Sweat & Tea Read online

  (c) Will this cut enhance my ability to attract members of the opposite sex? To be honest, no haircut has ever done this but I live in hope.

  (d) If I go to my local hairdressers will I get the trainee ...and if I do will it be possible to get a refund?

  Anyway, I went in and got a 'short-back-and-sides' and rather unfortunately I'm deaf as a post when I'm not wearing my glasses (for those who have 20/20 vision, you don't wear your glasses when getting a haircut). So when the whole place erupted in fits of laughter I didn't know if it was because of a rapidly growing bald-spot.

  (Still while I can't see it, it doesn't exist.)

  The best I can say is that I'm not having to brush my hair out my eyes with a pair of gloves covered in someone else's vomit.

  Which is nice...

  Bloody Cat...

  I'm sitting here single on station (you need two people to man an ambulance, and if you haven't got anyone to work with you are 'single' and therefore unable to work. However you need to stay on station in case they find someone else in London who is single. In that case you find yourself trekking across London to work in a place you've only seen on telly). I'm hungry and bored, partly because it's night-time, and partly because there is no-one else on station.

  However I have a plan...

  To counter the boredom I have a DVD I can watch on the station's new DVD player (bought out of staff funds, so no we haven't been defrauding the NHS). The hunger problem will soon be solved by the microwave curry I have sitting in my car.

  Let us now introduce a new member into the cast, when I said I was alone that was a bit of a lie, there is the station cat. Well at least I think it's a cat as it is so threadbare it could be anything. This cat is so stupid it lies in front of your ambulance just when you need it the most, and refuses to move until you physically have to kick lift it gently out of the way. However, it is intelligent enough to realize that when someone is using the microwave there will be an opportunity for begging for food 5minutes later (13minutes if the food is frozen).

  I nearly fell over the damn thing stepping away from the microwave, only to spend the next 10minutes discussing with a mouth full of Chicken Korma why it wouldn't like to jump up on my lap and make off with my dinner. It went a little something like this...

  Miaow.

  'No you can't have any.'

  Miaow.

  'You wouldn't like it.'

  Miaow.

  'Go eat your own dinner.'

  Miaow.

  Gets up, plate in hand, to check that the cat does indeed have food/water/toy mouse.

  Miaow.

  'Will you bugger off!'

  Miaow.

  At this point I put the plate (still with some of my food on it) on the floor, which the mangy beast sniffs and turns his nose up at. Said 'cat' then goes and hides under a table.

  Horrible bloody creature.

  It's now dead, there is only one person on station who misses the bloody thing.

  Why this is a Good Job

  My crewmate and I went to a man having a fit on Christmas day; he was a security guard and built like a brick out-house. This fit wasn't your 'normal' epileptic fit, but instead the man was punchy and aggressive. To say it was a struggle to get him on the back of the ambulance is to say that Paris Hilton may have appeared in an Internet video download. Cutting a long story short, the patient is diabetic and his blood sugar had dropped to a dangerously low level. Luckily, we carry an injection to reverse this and after wrestling with him in order to give him this drug he made a full recovery before we even reached the hospital. This is a nice job because we actually helped someone rather than just drive them to hospital.

  Other benefits of the job include (but are not limited to...)

  Working outside in the fresh air, I don't know how office workers put up with air conditioning.

  For much of the time you are your own boss - do not underestimate this.

  Driving on the wrong side of the road with blue lights and sirens going; it's not about the speed it's about the power.

  Being able to poke around people houses and feel superior even though you haven't done the washing up in your own house for 2days.

  No matter how annoying the patient is, knowing that within 20minutes it'll be the hospitals problem.

  Meeting lots of lovely nurses, and knowing that I get paid more than them.

  On the rare occasion, being able to help people who are scared or in pain.

  Every time I have a bad day, or feel fed up at work I think back to this list, and soon start to feel better - although I no longer get paid more than the nurses I meet.

  Death and What Follows

  There are some people, who despite being lovely people, you dread working with; one such person is Nobby (not his real name). He is what is known in the trade as a 'trauma magnet'. He's one of those people who will get the cardiac arrests, car crashes, shootings and stabbings; by contrast I am a 'shit magnet', meaning I only seem to pick up people who don't need an ambulance. Other than having to do some real work for a change I really enjoy working with him.

  I was working with him a little time ago and we got called to a suspended (basically this is someone whose heart isn't beating and they have stopped breathing). It's one of those jobs that require us to work hard trying to save the punter's life. We got to the address and found relatives performing CPR on their granny. You might have seen it on TV as a 'Cardiac Arrest'.

  (Let me correct a few ideas you might have about resuscitation. First, it rarely works, 'Casualty' and 'ER' have led people to believe that you often save people; I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who have survived an arrest and most of them arrested while I was watching them in hospital. Second, it isn't pretty, when someone arrests there is often vomit, faeces, urine and blood covering them and the area around them. Finally, people never suspend where you can reach them, if there is an awkward hole, or they can find someway to collapse under a wardrobe they will do so.)

  This poor woman was covered in body fluids and was properly dead; there was no way we were going to save her. One of our protocols says that we can recognize someone as beyond hope and not even commence a resuscitation attempt. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it this time as the relatives had been doing CPR (which is the right thing to do) and so we had to make an attempt.

  Nobby and I got to work and tried to resuscitate the patient for 30minutes. Our protocol goes on to say that if we are unsuccessful after attempting a resuscitation for 'a specified time' we can end it and recognise death, which is what we did.

  However, during our resuscitation attempt it seemed that the entire extended family had arrived and there were well over 20 people in this little terrace house with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. It's always hard to tell someone that their mother had died, but it has to be done, and if you can manage it well you can answer some of their questions and hopefully provide some healing for them.

  The GP (general practitioner) was informed, as were the police (a formality in sudden deaths). The family had called a priest and he was there before the police arrived, while the GP was going to 'phone the family'; what he expected to be able to do over the phone confused me.

  We tided up and went on to another job.

  Two weeks later, Nobby was called to a chest pain. He turns up and finds himself in the middle of a wake, surrounded by twenty familiar-looking people.

  Can you guess who the wake was for? Its a funny old world...

  I worked with Nobby again for the first time in 2years. He still remembered the job, and what happened after it. I told 'Nobby' that he'd be included in this book but he wasn't happy with his pseudonym and told me that he would prefer to be referred to as 'George Clooney'. I refused.

  I Do Like Some Drivers...

  Although I often moan about the idiocy of other peoples' driving when faced with a big white van with blue flashing lights on top; I am sometimes pleasantly surprised at the lengths some people will go
to in order to get out of the way. For example, yesterday we had people nearly grounding their cars on roundabouts and roadside verges, squeezing into parking spots I wouldn't be able to fit a Mini Cooper in and swearing at other drivers who wouldn't move out of the way. I've had workmen stand in the middle of the road and stop traffic, lollypop ladies fence off crossings with their 'lollypops' and van drivers who I have clipped while squeezing past them wave me on and tell me, 'don't worry about a little damage'.

  Yesterday we had all the above on one call (except hitting a van driver), it was like the Red Sea parting before us. It was a beautiful thing to behold; it left us in awe and wonder.

  Shame we were going to 2-year-old with a cough.

  This is a rare occurrence.

  The Dangers of Prostitution

  Occasionally you get a job that makes you laugh; normally because the person you are picking up is an idiot. We got called to a chip shop in one of the main roads in Newham - unfortunately there are about 20 chip shops on this road, but we managed to narrow it down by looking for the shiny white police car parked outside. The call had been given as an 'assault' which can mean anything from a slap on the face to a fatal stabbing.

  In this instance it was a young lad, the spitting image of 'Ali G', who was complaining that he had been hit on the nose, needless to say there wasn't a mark on him, and it turned out that he had been hit by his girlfriend. The police wanted to take statements, but he wasn't interested and when I tried to assess him he told me that the ambulance wasn't needed as 'I'm St Johns innit, and a security guard'. This fella couldn't scare a toddler, so I suspected he was telling a little bit of a lie. As he wasn't hurt and 'refused aid' my crew-mate and I retreated to a safe distance to do our paperwork...

  In the course of the night we found ourselves at the local hospital (dropping off yet another ill person) when who should walk in with another crew from my station, but our earlier 'Ali G' lookalike. I asked him why he decided to call an ambulance when he'd already sent us packing and it turned out that another woman had hit him... the prostitute he'd hired after his girlfriend had slapped him. Turns out she had hit him and then robbed him of his jewellery. He couldn't have put up much of a fight because he only had one scratch on him.

  It's pillocks like these we have to put up with... and call 'sir'...

  However, it is also jobs like this that we can use to have a good laugh with our workmates. So people like him do serve some purpose.

  My Night Shift

  Much fun and games last night, working in the Poplar/Bow area. Not only did some German bloke graffiti on the back of one of the ambulances, but he also called the crew from a payphone and ran off, repeating it twice.

  There are a lot of strange people out there...

  MacMedic (an American ambulance blog) gave a rundown of what his shifts are like, so I thought I'd do the same, in honour of our brothers in foreign climes.

  All these people called an ambulance last night by dialling '999'.

  (a) Fractured wrist - young lad at the Boat show.

  (b) An alcoholic 'frequent flyer' who has just been released from prison... We thought we'd got rid of him for good.

  (c) A 15-year-old with a runny nose.

  (d) Very minor RTA.

  (e) Domestic Assault, with no actual injury, but police already on scene.

  (f) 'Facial Injury' which turned out to mean 'Some bloke kicked my door'.

  (g) Assault with a cut hand - actually a decent injury with tendon involvement (which means surgery and physiotherapy).

  (h) Varicose Vein that had burst - plenty of blood everywhere.

  (i) A 29-year-old with chest pain, hyperventilating, with very upset relatives.

  (j) A suicidal overdose in a house filled with young men with short hair and tight T-shirts (ifyouknowwhatImean).

  (k) RTA with a traffic light pole coming off the worse in a two-car collision.

  (l) An 8-month pregnant female who had fallen earlier that day.

  and...

  (m) A fitting 9-year-old; only parent spoke English, and they decided to stay at home and send the father who doesn't speak English with us, because 'The hospital has interpreters...'

  Now, out of these thirteen jobs, only five actually went to hospital...

  This counts as a 'good shift', reasonably interesting jobs and no-one tried to hit me.

  I Hate Psychiatric 'Services'

  Sorry folks, bit of a rant here... but I last slept 22hours ago...

  We got a call to a patient who was 'Depressed - not moving', normally with this type of call it's some teenager having a strop, but this time it was a little different. Basically, the patient, who suffers from depression, was discharged from the local psychiatric unit 3weeks ago and recently had her dose of antidepressants reduced. Yesterday, she was crying all night, and tonight she was just sitting staring into space, refusing to make eye contact and not talking at all.

  One of the things that we as an ambulance crew cannot do is physically remove someone to hospital if they don't want to go - that would be kidnapping and is frowned up by the law. This young girl was not going anywhere despite my best attempts to persuade her - she just wasn't communicating.

  The solution would be simple: call the Community Psychiatric Nursing (CPN) Team to come and assess her and, if needed, arrange her compulsory removal to the psychiatric unit (called a 'Section' under the Mental Health Act). The problem? It was 10p.m....

  First off I phoned the psychiatric unit that she had received treatment under. After talking to two idiots who had trouble understanding plain English, I finally managed to get the number of the CPN team. Now, the London Ambulance Service (LAS) is quite smart; when we want to arrange an outside agency we go through our Control because all the telephone conversations are recorded... so if someone says they are going to attend they damn well better. I got onto Control, passed the details to them and waited for them to get back to us.

  I'd just like to say that in all my years of medical experience I have never had a simple referral to a psychiatric service; they always seem to try shirking any form of work by 'forgetting' you or by being just plain obstructive. Maybe I'm just lucky and get the idiots every time.

  Needless to say we waited... and waited... and waited... from 22:20 until 23:00 we waited; then at 23:02 Control got back to us. Apparently the CPN team all goes home at 23:00 and hadn't answered the phone until 23:00 on the dot. So they refused to visit the patient. The moral so far is if you are going to have a psychiatric breakdown in Newham don't do it after 22:00.

  So we switched to plan 'B' which is to arrange the out-of-hours Social Worker to come and visit, as they double as Psychiatric Liaison. Again we went through Control and waited... and waited... and waited... Finally we heard back that the social worker would ring the family and would like to talk to me. (Outside agencies try this trick, as they know the patient's phone isn't being recorded, and so can say whatever they want, with any disagreement being my word against theirs) The social worker explained that she was very busy and so would prefer not to come to see the patient and have I tried the out-of-hours GP?

  Back to Control I went and got them to try and contact the out-of-hours GP (A GP, for those not in the UK, is the patients family doctor) Can you guess what we then did? We waited... and waited... and waited... Finally, Control got back to us and informed us that the out-of-hours GP hadn't arrived for work yet and that when they did, they would have to see two other patients first.

  All through this time the family of the patient were very understanding and were happy when I explained that the GP would call at some point in the night. All I could do was advise them to remove anything that the patient could use to hurt herself, and keep an eye on her, calling us back if they felt the need.

  Total amount of time an Ambulance was tied up trying to get outside agencies to DO THEIR DAMN JOB - 2hours and 19minutes... and not the worlds most satisfactory outcome.

  As I mentioned to our Control - sometimes yo
u feel very lonely out there on the mean streets of Newham.

  It is still the case that as soon as the sun goes down, various community services disappear and people in trouble need to rely on the ambulance service and the A&E department, even if it isn't the best place for them.

  Sticky Feet

  There is something deeply disturbing about walking on a sticky carpet - especially when the flat is in a complete mess and the punter has called an ambulance four times in the last 2days for a pain in the chest that has lasted 2years. I'd like the jury to note that the pain hasn't changed in any way, it's not worse, or moved around the body, he has no other symptoms. But the patient just seems to like calling ambulances. I wanted to wipe my feet on the way out of the flat.

  It also doesn't help when the patient smells so bad that I want to leap out the side window. We didn't have any air freshener (and apparently, neither does the hospital).

  When we got to the hospital the triage nurse took one look at the patient, muttered 'Not him again' and sent him out to the waiting room. I suspect that it may just be a ploy to use biological warfare to empty the waiting room.

  I still keep getting called back to him for the exact same 'problem'.

  Workload

  Once again I know a lot of visitors here are from America, so I'm going to explain how the LAS works on a day-to-day basis. This will either be very boring or immensely interesting - your choice.

  Ambulances run out of dedicated stations, we don't share stations with the Fire Service. In fact, some years ago, when it was suggested the idea was shot down as we would be disturbing the firecrews' sleep throughout the night. Each station has it's own call-sign 'K1', 'J2', 'G4' for example, then each ambo has a suffix that is attached to this so one ambulance running out of station J2 would be called J201, while another would be J207.

  The stations are spaced approximately 5 - 6miles apart, and you mainly service the area surrounding the station; however, with interhospital transfers and other irregularities you can quite easily find yourself across the other side of London.

  It's an old joke that when asking if we need to travel so far the dispatcher will ask us if it still says London on the side of the ambulance.