Tip Top T Shirts…!!!

Inspector Gadget T Shirt

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a fashion monster or style guru then have a look at the T shirts and stuff that you can obtain from Inspector Gadget. Some people collect beer mats, some collect train numbers and others collect sexually transmitted diseases…but that’s another matter. Me…? I collect T shirts. And you cant go far wrong with acquiring a snazzy blue ‘Ruralshire Constabulary’ garment. I might even have a go at producing a ‘SWAB Team 6′ T shirt in the near future.

'You Couldnt Make It Up'

A Very Very Iddy Biddy Slight Whiff of Cheese…!!!

Bikes and Cars don't Mix Very Well...!

Making progress towards the scene we notice traffic backing up on the hill. Alternating the sirens between yelp/wail/whistle/bull horn/get out the way you moron we manage to squeeze into the gap between the couple of parked cars that have stopped at the incident. One of the cars was obliged to stop where it was due to the fact that there was a motorbike sticking out of the window!

Even though we were pulling into the small space as near to the car/bike, we were still being ‘flagged’ down by two bystanders. I think some bystanders must get a nervous condition at scenes of RTAs which compels them to wave continuously until the incident is cleared and swept up! “Yes, yes, we can see thank you very much!”

Alighting from the truck my colleague makes his way over to the RRV who, first on scene, has hold of the motorcyclists head providing cervical support. The biker is sat up, his helmet laying next to him in a non usable condition anymore. Nearby is the car that has ‘eaten’ his bike. The car driver is upset and crying thinking it is all her fault.

My crew mate speaks to the RRV pilot whilst I start getting the kit ready. Cervical collar, spine board, head-blocks, straps, stretcher, blankets. Once all the kit is assembled I trundle the rig off the lift and towards our patient.  I notice he is pale…very pale. He is clammy…very clammy. But he is conscious and can tell us that his leg and both knees are killing him!

Taking control of the patients head from behind enables the RRV pilot to place a collar on him. Very carefully we lower the biker onto the hard backboard and secure him with the head-blocks and straps etc. We decide to do a more detailed examination in the back of the truck. To make best use of the straps we take his boots off before securing his feet in a figure of 8.

Me & my mate overcome with Cheese...!

But upon removing his boots and socks…dogs within a hundred yards begin to howl, mothers clutch their children to their bosoms and birds flee from nearby trees. The smell is most foul…putrid…a mix of swamp gas and age old Gorgonzola cheese!!! Once in side the truck, the windows are opened as best as possible and the air con is switched to mach 5! Only then do the the ‘tuff-cuts’ come out and his clothing is cut away to reveal the extent of his injuries.

Everything appears okay. GCS of 15 (Glasgow Coma Score..15 being the best, 3 being the worst), blood pressure fine, pulse steady, colour returning nicely. All his other vitals are fine with a good clear chest and no rigidity in the abdomen. The only obvious injury he appears to have is a compound fracture of the left tib/fib (open break of the lower leg bones) but the bones have sneaked back into the safety of the skin!

My crew mate starts feeling for pulses to make sure there is no interruption in the blood supply below the site of fracture. “I’ll just check out any witnesses and get a clearer history.” And with that I jump out of the back of the truck. And get a lungful of clean air.

Looking at the condition of the car/bike it is amazing that he has only sustained, as far as we can tell at the moment, a broken leg! The car is written off and so too is the bike! The car driver calms down a little when I tell her that the biker is okay. She says that she was stationary on the other side of the brow of the hill when she heard a massive crash and she was showered with glass. Instinctively she turned around and saw a helmeted biker almost sat on the back seat!

I open the back door of the truck and ask my mate if hes ready to go? Suddenly I am taken back to my Army NBC training with CS gas in the gas chambers somewhere on Salisbury Plain. My eyes are stinging…! My nose is assailed with a smell most foul…! My skin feels as if a warm ghost has softly wafted past me in the dead of night…! A warm ghost that probably owned a cheese factory and probably met his demise after falling into a curdling vat…!

Wiping away the chemically induced tears and trying to breathe through my ankles I just about make out the shape of my crew mate…he is pale…very pale! He is clammy…very clammy! ”Are you okay?” I call out to him. With an almost imperceptible nod I just about see him through the yellowish air that seems to be emanating from the bikers ‘dancing gear’! Doors shut…I start the truck and off we go to A/E to sort the bikers injuries out.

En-route I happen to glance at a shop window and see in the reflection my crew mates mouth and nose trying to squeeze through the tiny gap in the side door window! He looks yellow…but that could be the tinted glass of the shop window! After depositing our biker in A/E we tidy up the back of the truck and leave all the doors and windows open to try and ‘vent’ the vehicle!

Later on we arrive back at A/E with another customer and the whole department smells…it reeks of gone off cheese! I have never dealt with any one whose feet stank so much in all my career! It has put me off pasta and Parmesan cheese for good!

Worlds Most Cheesy Feet...Ever...!!!

Night Manoeuvres…!!!

 

The streets were dark and silent except for the rumbling of our Ambulance tyres on the cobbles. It was still three hours from sun up and another five before the end of our shift. As we slowed down the blue light strobes seemed to catapult their radiance from the wet cobblestones onto the many windows either side of us.

“There!” shouts my crew mate and points towards our target, number ‘36 Surgical Stocking Street’ in the older part of ‘Crinkleyville’. The call had been sent to our mobile data screen detailing us to our next customer: ‘Mrs. Gutbucket’ 75 year old female…query if injured or ill…call terminated before details could be acquired.

Pulling up outside the address I sorted out the kit to take in with us and headed for the front door. It was in the middle of a whole row of terraced houses built around the 1930s. The houses here mainly consisted of two up/two downs with the front door leading straight onto the pavement and the back door leading into a small backyard.

Using a ‘belt & braces’ approach I rang the doorbell, knocked the door knocker and rattled the letterbox. No answer or noise came from within the house, although as always happens lights came on a dozen houses away either side to see what the commotion was! Looking through the window at the side of the door we could see nothing. Curtains firmly closed and no tell tale chinks of light betraying an occupant.

To the far left of the terraced houses we spied a passage. We made our way around the back of the property to see if we could get a reply at the back door. Stumbling in the dark and knocking over all manner of rubbish and scaring off the local tomcats we eventually arrived at the backyard door. ‘Bollocks!’ it was bolted!

Using our experience and skills from numerous similar jobs we trundled a nearby wheelie bin over to the back gate. With the agility of a ‘one legged elephant pissed in the dark’  my crew mate clambered onto the lid and leaned over the gate and undid the bolt. We were in the outer cordon now! More knocking and banging ensued upon the back door and more looking through windows trying to see if there was life around.

Still no answer and things did not bode well for the 75 year old occupant. Luckily the downstairs window was slightly ajar which looked to be a good opportunity to gain access to the house. Before going in I rang control to see if they had managed to recontact the caller?…no reply, the caller had obviously dropped the telephone whilst talking to one of our colleagues in the great ‘Puzzle Palace’ control room.

The Window of Opportunity

‘Right I’m going in!….Cover me!’  my crew mate just stands there fed up with hearing the same line every-time we have to gain entry to a building. ‘Ged on wi it!’  he scowls and re lights his roll up that he had extinguished prior to getting this call. ‘I’ll get in and open the back door if I can, you just keep shining that torch so I can see where I’m going!’

And with that he suddenly shines the torch full in my face as I’m halfway through the kitchen window! Everything goes in slow motion as I vaguely recall tripping on the sink taps and clattering to the kitchen floor bringing down the curtains and blinds with me! Regaining my composure and remembering my training from Ambulance Ninja school, I bounce deftly onto my feet and trip over the cats basket as I lumber towards the back door!

Ninja Without a Torch!!!

Quickly I let my crew mate in…not to assist in the search for our caller but so that I can call him a ’stupid twat’ to his face! He feigns total innocence and exclaims ‘Whaaaat? I aint done owt!’  Looking like Alf Ventress out of ‘Heartbeat’ my crew mate stands there with half a roll up dangling from his mouth. Shaking my head and taking some of the kit we venture deeper into the house.

Through the kitchen door we enter the main living room and everything looks quiet, nothing out of place. Switching the light on we both notice the phone still on its receiver. ‘I’ll give comms another ring and get a heads up on whats happening!’  Picking the receiver up I dial into our control centre and tell them that we cant find anything so far.

A pause ensues from the other end of the line….‘That’s odd then because we’re talking to the caller right now, shes managed to pick her self up after falling over!’…..’Are you sure you’re at the right address?’

Telephone Communication Device

And as the realisation starts to dawn on us that we’ve broken into the wrong house a sound is heard from upstairs….followed by movement….followed by footsteps on the stairs….followed by the appearance of one very irate man holding a golf club in a far from welcoming manner!  

‘Sorry we’ve got the wrong address mate!’

And with the speed that would possibly qualify us both for the next Olympics we pick our kit up and leg it! Hurried radio messages are passed to our control to let them know we may have woken someone up and that a supervisor skilled in the arts of diplomacy and negotiation maybe required. Then shortly after we have regained our normal breathing rate the front door of the address we were called to opens and a voice calls out…‘I don’t need an Ambulance now thank you boys! My son is coming to take me to the hospital!’

I Hate Nights…!!!

‘Street Soldier…!!!’

A Group of ‘Hoodies’ or ‘Soldjas’ (also known as a ‘Thicket’)

Walking into the Police interview room we were shown our ‘patient’! A scrawny ‘yoof’  lounging in a chair with his feet on the desk. We had been called because the Police officers were a bit concerned about his behaviour as he was not making much sense and was rambling on and on. It was when he was in one of his more lucid states that he told the Police officers that he had taken a whole lot of XTC tablets!

Right…first things first:

• his airway was fine as he would not shut the f**k up!
• this meant that his breathing was okay
• hence his heart was working
• and that he was fully conscious!…unfortunately!

Shining a light in his eyes revealed pupils big as saucers! A sign of either oxygen deprivation, fear or as in this ‘yoofs’ case the possible taking of substances known or unknown! “How many pills have you taken then?” I asked him resisting the urge to knock his feet off the table and get him to sit up. I was aware of all the cameras and microphones around so I basically sat on my hands trying to avoid punching the little s***s lights out. (Not conducive to good patient care and my bosses would probably frown upon such action)

“I’ve tekken tweny I fink. No probs tho. Drugs are gud man. Dont affect me know what I mean?”  It looked and sounded like he had taken something and he probably would be okay but we need to cover our backs same as the Police. So we decided to take him down to A/E to be checked out. This is where he started gobbing off big style and demanded to be taken home and that “the ‘Filth’ had no right to arrest him because he earns good money and dat ting!”  He started to finish off every sentence with “Innit!”

So whilst waiting for him to be bailed I ask him general questions about his drug taking, alcohol intake and what his job is? “I aint telling youse nuffink…I’m a ‘Soldja!’ I know people you know what I mean. Innit!” And then in all my night shift befuddlement I ask him “Soldier eh? What regiment?”  He looks up at me not understanding so I ask again, “What regiment are you in then?”

“I aint in no army man! I’m a ‘Street Soldja’ innit!”  I feel my knuckles tighten as my hands curl into fists behind my back. He spouts off about how he can get hold of guns and is not afraid of ’nuffink’. I cant stand these so called ‘Street soldiers’ who run around in gangs terrorising the local community and getting away with it more often than not. But, if I or any other member of the public, should give one of these so called ‘Soldjas’ a well deserved kicking it would be our jobs and livelihoods on the line.

 

All the while he is acting the big man swearing and swaggering around. What has happened to the good old days of ‘Gene Hunt’ and the ‘Sweeney’ when a well placed ‘dig’ to the kidneys or an ‘accidental’ elbow to the back of the head was all part of the criminals occupational hazards.

The Police were glad to get rid of him although it seemed he was playing the game knowing that if he played the ‘overdose’ card he would get bailed or de-arrested. We all have to pay our mortgages and its a big risk for a little s**t like he was. So it was off down to the A/E to add him to all the other drunks/druggies/assaults/half-hearted suicides/dick heads and other assorted jetsom and flotsam of society. 

I was thinking that he need a reality check…then I tought that what he does on a daily basis is his reality. Because people like him are allowed to get away with their behaviour whilst law abiding people are expected to put up and shut up! He knows that he can almost do as he likes and that ’respect’ (in the true sense of the word) does not exist for others only for the other ‘Soldjas’ in his gang.

What a knob head…!!!

“Respec…Innit!”

A Little Bit of Culture…!

After what seems like an age of going into peoples homes (in the loosest meaning of the word) and trying to converse with socially backward amoebas I thought I would post this.

Music trends come and go but classical music has always appealed to me. I was lucky in having a music teacher at school who taught us how to ‘hear’ the music not just ‘listen’ to it. Apart from Mozart I enjoy the genius of Beethoven and Rachmaninov. Oh and of course the Nutty Boys from ‘Maddness’.

This is Mozarts Symphony #40 1st Movement. Enjoy.

Shameless…!

Standing by around the corner we listened to the engine cooling down with the occasional ‘pop’ and ‘fizzle‘ after our drive from station towards the scene. We had been told to ‘Stand Off! and await arrival of Police.’ Reports had come in of a street fight still in progress with half the neighbourhood apparently involved.

Occasionally a car would come screeching around the corner either in an attempt to flee the scene or just in the normal standard of driving around here on the ‘Beelzebub’ Estate. After approximately five minutes we both could hear the approaching sirens of the Police coming up behind us. Along side us a Police patrol car pulled up and my mate wound the window down.

“Are you the Ambulance?” asked one of the Police officers to my mate who was in the  driving seat. I detected a nano second of hesitation before my crew mate replied “Yeah, that’ll be us right enough!” cleverly disguising his annoyance at been likened to a big green and yellow truck. “See you round there then!” And off went the Police ahead of us to the street fight.

Turning into the street we were met by a large crowd of people either side of the road in some kind of ‘Mexican Standoff’. In the middle of the left hand crowd we could just make out a small group huddled around someone on the floor. Once safely parked up we walked towards the person on the floor taking with us the O2 bag and trauma kit not knowing what we were going to.

It soon became obvious that the person on the floor was an elderly ‘lady’ laying face down on the concrete driveway. She was conscious and complaining of pain in her upper arm. After checking for other injuries we turned her over and placed her arm in a sling and put her in the back of the truck. Now we could find out what happened without all and sundry putting in their two pence worth.

As I started taking more detailed obs and filling in paperwork, the injured ‘lady‘ who was in her late sixties (with teeth missing, normal, huge cheap swag earrings, normal, mis-spelt tattoos, normal and dyed blond hair, normal) told me what had happened. She had got in the middle of a fight between her son and her grandson over some dogs and some birds. Every now and then her story was punctuated with “I ain’t pressing no charges!”

Her son kept pigeons and her grandson kept ‘Staffies‘ (The fashionable ‘yob dog’ at the moment). Unfortunately the dogs had been eating the pigeons which hacked off the dad no end. And so an argument had ensued that resulted in negotiations breaking down and ending in father and son beating seven colours of s**t out of each other. This is where our patient had come off worse as she was knocked to the ground, accidentally, and broke her arm.

Because this had moved from inside the house to the street, neighbours and passersby got involved and a ‘Wild West’ fight had started. As one neighbour said as I passed him leaning against his front door smoking a roll up “Its like a f******g scene from ‘Shameless’ better than watching telly this lot!” And I had to agree with him. Assorted youths were hanging around with approximately one in five of them holding a ‘Staffie’ straining at the leash. A lot of the houses had the old ‘tin curtains’ up to prevent youths breaking in and torching them.

The Police eventually caught up with father and son who had legged it from the scene and both were arrested. After booking in the elderly ‘lady‘ at A/E her son was brought in by the Police to sort out his very large and nasty looking split lip! Having handed over our patient and sorting out the back of the truck we stood outside A/E and watched a steady procession of assorted family members go into A/E. Every other word that we could hear from nearly all of them involved f**k, and ‘revenge’ and ‘b*****d’ and other famous old Saxon verbalization.

I am glad that I do not live anywhere near one of these estates and if I did I would be getting out sharpish!

 

A Brown Life…!

Making our way towards the community entrance of the block of flats we veered around the many upturned wheelie bins and assorted detritus of this secluded area of ‘No Hope Estate’. With the resus bag, monitor and big green bag carried between the two of us we stopped at the main door and pressed the big steel buttons on the communication panel. Trying to avoid the dried, and not so dry, remnants of someones meal that had come back up to see how the world was doing I pressed the flat number.

A metallic voice at the other end answered “Yeah? Who is it?”  sounding mightily pissed off. “Hello, Ambulance!”  I replied thinking that maybe we had the wrong address as were they not expecting us in the first place. Or were we lower down on their list of priorities ie. ‘drugs…extra strength beer…ciggies…shopliftling’? A buzzer sounded letting us pass through the main door and into the entrance hallway which reeked of cheap disinfectant but was spotlessly clean!

Luckily for us the flat was on the ground floor and within seconds we were squeezing down a dim passageway loaded with all our kit. At the end was a door leading into the lounge or living room. On first sight I had to blink a few times to readjust my vision after emerging from the dim passageway. A single bright lightbulb burned fiercely away in the middle of the ceiling which highlighted the fact that this room was very brown. Brown ceilings, brown walls, brown furniture and brown floor covering. But this brown was mostly made up of nicotine not paint or wall paper!

“Who have we come to see?”  I asked the middle aged male who had shown us in. He points to the young female sat on the edge of the settee and states “Her!”  “The daft bitch who should know better!”  Noticing a slight atmosphere in the flat I ask the female what is wrong with her? “I’ve got a chest infection and me inhalers are not working!”  Noticing, apart from her dishevelled appearance and her grey bra which was once white, a hospital bracelet on her wrist I ask how long she has been out of hospital? To which she replies that she discharged herself an hour ago against the advice of the doctors and nurses.

Seeing, and hearing that she has a wheeze, we put her on some oxygen and do some baseline observations. Everything points to a bad chest infection and we advise her to go back in which she agrees to. The boyfriend is not happy! But I’m more concerned about the bruises on the young womans arms which look suspiciously like finger marks. Once on the truck and settled down I ask her about the bruising. It turns out that they are injection bruises from where she has just recently started to inject heroin.

I ask her why she injects rather than smoke it? “Well I cant smoke it cos of me chest infection can I?”  So in her twisted sort of reasoning she finds it safer to inject so as to not worsen her chronic asthma! I feel at a loss as to comprehend  how far some people will let drugs take them over. It seems that her life, her home, her entire reason for exsisting is based around ‘Brown’.

Common Sense is a Rare Commodity!

 

 

Busting Some Shapes At The Discotheque…!

I have recently been to a fair few jobs within the confines of buildings dubiously labelled as ‘Nightclubs’! All the jobs were alcohol related and involved various degrees of violence or levels of drunkenness. What amazed me was how crap the dancing was! Whilst shouting to get the patients attention and trying to avoid the bouncer (sorry door supervisor/floor security technician) as he smacked the aggravating party in the mouth beside me…I was able to glance towards the dance floor and see the ‘yoof’ trying to dance in an effort to impress their girlfriends/boyfriends/mates/themselves/bystanders.

Here is how I dance when I’m out on the Guinness and enjoying myself….

Having been to a fair few ‘Discotheques’ in my time I find that the ones overseas tend to be frequented by a more select kind of people. In my area, as probably all over the UK, ours tend to be full of life’s undesirables to put it nicely.

As opposed to the likes of Sweden who have nightclubs full of nice people enjoying the social aspect of going out with friends.

A Pleasant Discotheque…

A Typical Swedish Discotheque…

A Rather Typical English Discotheque…

I just love seeing chavs trying to be all cool and wicked with their dance moves. That’s probably why the fights start to take away the attention of the crap dancing!

A Shaggy Dog Story…!

Blues on, sirens going and the truck leans over precariously as we make a sharp right at the end of the street. Ahead of us sees the full splendour of urbanite decay…knackered fridges and cannibalised cars in peoples front gardens. We slow down to negotiate the speed bumps, put in place years ago to slow down the joyriders who nick cars around here as if its a social prerequisite. All its ever done is give the joyriders more of a challenge and pissed off the decent car drivers who suffer the wear and tear on their vehicles.

As we slow down to weave between the abandoned wheelie bins which have been thrown into the road, I take another quick look at the screen to confirm the address we are going to is correct. ‘158 NohopeStreet’ on the ‘Barricade Estate’. Our lights are off and the sirens are silenced…we ‘run silent run deep’towards our destination. It doesnt pay to attract too much attention to ourselves around here.

Half way down the street we make a left into a cul de sac which is a posh way of saying a potential trap! Our eyes are scoping out the doorways and alley ways looking out for the tell tale signs that we’ve been set up. All is quiet on this dark street with the only illumination coming from the one street light that has so far survived the attentions of the kids with their air rifles and cross bows! The address reveals itself to us near to the end of the close.

Getting out of the truck I subconsciously check that I’ve got the hand held radio and mobile phone…just in case. And I make sure that I have my large heavy duty 3 cell Mag-lite with me also…JUST in case! Picking the green bag up and waiting for my crew mate to lock the truck I look at the front door of the address. Its like any other council door on any other council estate…its seen better days! At first sight it looks like a work of modern art until on closer inspection the door is actually a patchwork quilt of wood a result of previous visits from all and sundry.

The door is slightly open and a male voice beckons us in. “This way lads, sorry to have called you out and all that but its the wife…I cant get her to wake up!” This does not bode well. The male looks to be in his late thirties so how old is his wife and what does she suffer from at her age? These thoughts pass through your mind all the time as you continually reassess the situation. “Shes up stairs. We’ve just got back in from the pub like and she collapsed like!”

Making our way up the stairs we follow the male into a well lived in bedroom. I’ve seen worse…not much worse. And there she is laid on the floor covered in vomit and stinking of kebabs! (Always does it for me!) Inwardly I breathe a sigh of relief that she is okay and that all the husband wants to do is make sure she is alright, “She can hold her drink can our lass! Shes only been out since two this avvy!”  I mentally count down the seconds until we are going to hear that well known expression…5, 4, 3, 2, 1….”Do you think her drinks bin spiked lads?” 

A quick look at her pupils and trying to avoid the second hand kebab around her mouth so I can properly check her airway is met by“Waaaa thhhhefffff……geroff yer fffffff…..!”  Marvellous! Grabbing an armpit each and carefully lifting her up we place her on the bed where she starts coming round and attempts to focus on the two hi-viz jackets in her bedroom. “Hey I,m real sorry lads! I thought she was like real poorly like!”  the husband offers his profuse apologies. “No harm done mate. Just need to do some paperwork then we’ll leave you to it!”

My mate bimbles off to the truck to get the paperwork which we need to get signed before calling clear. As I’m talkng to the husband about the latest football scores and the weather and occassionaly helping his wife to sit up straight, a sudden commotion is heard from the bottom of the stairs. “Bollocks! The f****** dogs got loose!”  exclaims the husband. All I can hear is banging and struggling and muffled sounds as if something with fangs is trying to bark with a mouth full of ambulancemans trousers!

The husband flies out of the bedroom followed by me just in time to see the door being slammed shut and to hear the pavement being slapped with a pair of size nines running towards the truck! I momentarily recall that my crew mate has a morbid fear of dogs…and cats…and birds…well any animal really! “Can you grab the dog and I’ll check on my mate?”  I ask the husband to put the dog in the back room. Up until now I’ve not seen the dog yet. “Tyson! Tyson! Ged ere you mad b*****d ….!”  I hear the husband calling to mans best friend as I wait at the top of the stairs.

Once the beast has been calmed and secured away in the back room I make my way to the truck to find my crewmate locked in the cab. “You okay?” I shout through the side window, “Have you been bitten?” Nervously he holds up his leg and displays the tattered remains of his left trouser leg. “B*****d nearly had me throat out!” he states as a matter of fact. “So what happened then?” I ask again through the side window.

“I was just coming back in the hallway and looking down at the first step on the stairs when I looked up and came face to face with a snarling, face full of teeth and spittle!!!”  He looks petrified. “So I spun round as fast as I could but me f****** hi-viz got caught on the banister and no matter how hard I tried I could not move. And the vicious b*****d had me! Until I managed to slip out of me jacket and leg it through the door!” 

I leave my crew mate in the safety of the truck and return to the house to retrieve his hi-viz jacket. The husband apologises for everything which makes a pleasant surprise for this area. “Hows the dog?”  I ask. The husband opens the door and in trots Tyson’  into the hallway.  I take a quick pic on my mobile phone to let the lads back at base see this monster ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’.

And here Ladies and Gentlemen is the nearest picture to preserve confidentiality that I could find:

“TYSON the scourge of Ambulancemens trousers every where!”

The Stranglers…’Strange Little Girl’

Dug out some of my old LPs and cassettes from my ‘yoof’ and found my old Stranglers stuff. I was reminded of this track by Rogue Gunner  site some time ago. Brilliant track. Enjoy.