Not how it should be

You get to see lots of awful things, things that people shouldn't see. You also get to hear about many more.

I had just gone clear at the hospital when we saw a man in a wedding suit coming towards us. It was dark and he'd been crying. Having been messed about all night by control and other idiots we had a laugh commenting that trouble had probably kicked off at his wedding and the inlaws had a ding dong. Or his wife had run off with the best man.....or been killed in a tragic accident. Black humour, we all have it. Next thing a job pings up on the screen, a discharge. Its 2345 we're in our meal break window, for God's sake.

"Need to get this job completed as soon as possible" it read. 25 yr old Male terminal cancer just got married wants to die at home. Shit. Do I feel bad now.

Professional head on as we head to the ward. The nurse pulls us aside to give us the gen...diagnosed 3 weeks ago, due to get married in November but told to bring the wedding forward. Shit.

They had just fitted a syringe driver and were topping him up with more morphine. I stuck my head around the door. There is no way he's going to make the journey I say to the nurse. Doctor says he will. Who am I to argue. His mum comes out and tells us what a wonderful day he's had.

How do you celebrate I wonder? My mate is thinking the same. It's not like you can go get hammered and do the Hokey Cokey, because this isn't what it's all about.

The nurse asks for a hand, I go in and try to make him physically comfortable. What do I say to his wife? Have you had a good day I say and immediately try and grab the words before they go into her ears. She looks at me gone out. Your mum in law was just telling me about it I say and her eyes soften. I go out and tell my mate that there is no way he'll make the journey. It's about 40 minutes to his house by road. All of a sudden I get shouted back in and the nurse asks me to help her move him over the bed so his wife can lay next to him. We quickly move him but he dies in our arms. His mum pushes past to tell him quickly that she loves him before he can't hear her, and I go out, because it's a private time and I was in the way. the nurse is in tears. We're all in tears because it shouldn't happen like that. You are meant to get hitched have a family and grow old. Double shit.

Lawn mowers

"How much does he want for it?" I say to Edna "only a tenner" not bad for a lawnmower I guess. I haven't the heart to tell her I just bought a house with a yard, like the ones on Coronation Street. "Tell him i'll pick it up when I've finished the run" I tell her. It's been a long hot day and I duly pick up the mower and stick it in the back of the wagon. We're 20 minutes from our shift ending and about to go green. We're sure to go back to base. Good old control...they forgot a discharge who's been waiting all day and very, very pissed off. I wheel him in the back and he looks at the inconspicuously hidden under a blanket lawn mower and his face looks like its going to explode. "Is that what I think it is"? he splutters. "Actually yes" I reply "We were just on our way up to the ambucopter, we have to get it to hovver and we mow a 'H' in the grass so it knows where to land" thinking that i'm done for and I can see the complaint letter coming in. "Goodness" he says "I never knew you had so many different duties".
Got away with that one.

emails

Someone sent me some of these in an email, I don't know who wrote them originally but they're true...

• It Drives you absolutely nuts when someone calls you an "Ambulance Driver"



• You refer to firemen as trumpton.



• You know that full moon = Insanity



• When driving in your own car you try to book at scene when you reach tescos



• When you get to a cardiac arrest and they get an output back your gutted!!....too much work!



• You crouch down in your car as you go past accident scenes so the crew already there won't see you



• You remember every pt by their injury or disease and not their name



• when you wipe your feet on the way out of peoples homes



• When you back into parking spaces on your days off



• If you and your partner have discussed dinner plans over a dead body



• You thrive on serious trauma



• You're up at 3:00 am on facebook, all in a days work



• When you don't let anybody get between you and the exit route at social gatherings



• When you've wanted to hold a seminar on 'Suicide - How to Get It Right The FIRST Time'

Why am I in the job?

Why am I in this job? Good question. It's one I ask myself and I don't really know the answer to. I need to be in control. Not in a psycho way. I need to be able to take control. I was once in a situation where I wasn't in control, others were in control. I don't cope very well with that. I cope better when I pull the strings.