Just when things seem okay….when life looks a little bit rosier….when work is getting bearable…when it does not seem like the whole world is conspiring against you to make your day one of those exasperating “will I lose my job if I say the wrong thing?” kind of days….
….Up pops a job that I have not had in a while.
“Puzzle Palace (Command & Control) to Kingmagic 69 are you receiving? Over.”
“Kingmagic 69 to Puzzle Palace receiving go ahead with message. Over.”
“Can you attend on Red number 3 Somebodies House, Elsewhere Street, for a 79 year old female suffering from a ‘medical condition’ ? Over.”
“Roger all received.”
And with that the “Blues & Twos” went on and we made progress towards our patient. Traffic was not busy but we still had to negotiate through some road works and past a school during the school run. It was “eyeballs peeled” time! After a short while we turned into the street we were looking for and pulled up outside number 3. I say we pulled up outside number 3, we actually pulled up about four doors away due to there being no parking space outside the house due to the amount of cars there.
Leaping gazelle like from the cab and grabbing the resus bag and the “Jolly Green Giant” bag, I speedily ambled to the front door of the address. Before we had chance to press the door bell the door opened and a parade of people started to file out of the house, and got into the three cars that were parked outside..and drove away. After what seemed like ten minutes we eventually were ushered inside and shown to our patient.
Standing in front of the telly wearing her overcoat, head scarf and her handbag looped over her arm was our patient. She started to walk towards the door before we even had chance to utter a word. “I,ll see yer later mam!” was voiced by the only other person in the room. The daughter, I presumed in the best traditions of Sherlock Holmes.
“Erm excuse me. Can you tell us why we,ve been called?” It is at this stage that all professional Ambulance peeps around the country await the answer with baited breath. Usually its a straight forward reasonable reply that makes sense….”My hearts stopped“….or “I fell three weeks ago and my big toe is still bothering me“….or “I,ve just watched ‘Casualty’ on the telly and I,ve got what that actor fellas got!”
The reply came from the daughter….”Me mams bin ill for years an ‘as a skin sumut or nuther! The doc said ‘e would come after surgery but I can’t wait in cos I,m due at work in an ‘our!” “Can yer tek ‘er to the hospital til I finish me shift?”
It was at this time that my career flashed before my very eyes! In a parallel dimension I imagined myself smashing the porcelain ornament that stood on the mantelshelf, and ramming the sharp remnants hard into the side of the daughters unprotected neck standing back to watch the ever decreasing life blood pump ever more weakly from the carotid artery creating a macabre masterpiece of modern art on the wood chip wall paper.
My eyes refocused to the present dimension. “Why can’t you take her to hospital?” I asked politely still weighing up the ornament/carotid artery option. The local hospital is about 10 minutes drive from where we were. And upon further questioning it turned out they had been waiting two hours for us as the job was originally an urgent detail which had been upgraded to a 999 due to it running out of time! The GP thought that if they were so insistent on contacting him then the patient needed to be in hospital!
So…we had travelled on “Blues & Twos” unnecessarily putting our lives and other road users life at risk to attend a lady who did have an existing medical condition, but the daughter needed her to be looked after for the afternoon due to her shift at work! And if the GP had been able to get out sooner (and this is not his fault) he would have given the family a bollocking for wasting his time. Something we can’t do as we tend to get sacked….quite easily!
The ladies pre-exsisting medical condition…….Dermatitis!
Purpleplus 
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Peter Quinn
I’d be first down the Job Centre, I thought you had been quiet, now I realise you were speechless,
Oh. My. God. It beggars belief. Except it doesn’t. What is wrong with people?! Lil Sis x
I to am amazed, and I thought you cleverly used humour to make your point! I’ve just written a post about a paper cut which came through as haemorrhaging and severe respiratory distress! How I love those words! He he.
Some people see you guys as a taxi service…
UHDD…speechless but the voices inside my head that day nearly won!
BG…people are strange, common sense is not quantifiable.
Tp…Thanks Tp. Its humour that keeps us going!
Nick…some people are just plain thick, stupid, arrogant etc. These jobs are getting rarer round my way but they do appear now and then!
In most parts of the country, those jobs are becoming more common!
Always best the brain and mouth don’t share the same script!
Absolutely unbelievable, though people never fail to amaze me…xx
I hate these calls…………. I have known work colleagues in the past to phone the GP back and ask them, as politely as possible, what the hell they were thinking calling an ambulance for someone who is obviously capable of getting to the hospital under their on effort!
Argh!
Louise…part and parcel unfortunately of the job. Education and having managers with a bit of gumption to deal with the abusers of the service would be nice.
que amargos de mierda agante bob marley!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!