Purple plus

First job of the night. Suspended. I hadn't even got my paperwork together; I wasn't due to start for another ten minutes! No other vehicles available so could I run on it? Yes, of course.

It was a long way off and it took me 7 minutes to get there at a good speed. Another ambulance crew were on scene and were dealing. The man was dead in his bed; had been for a while. Stone cold and rigor mortis just creeping in to the fingers and around the face. Nothing any of us could do.

I find myself dealing with death with a detachment that probably makes me look cold. I was about to remind myself of this when the wife of the man said "His eyes are still open".

"Do you want me to close them?", I asked

"But his eyes are open", she repeated.

I went over to the bed and together we closed his eyes for the last time.

"What am I going to do now?", she cried.

I put an arm around her shoulder until a relative took over. What the hell did I know about this woman's pain after all? I didn't know her husband - he wasn't the first and he won't be the last for me but I empathise strongly with her emotions. I imagine what I will feel like when a person that close to me dies. What then will I do?

I left the house and let the crew do their job. My skills were useless here and I was nothing but an extra hi-vis jacket. I got on the radio and called it in as a 'Purple plus', the term we use for the dead. We call the morgue the Purple Annexe. It should be obvious why.

Immediately after the Purple plus, I got called to another 'suspended' in a location I had just driven past. When I got on scene he turned out to be a drunk who was fast asleep on the pavement - can of extra strong lager and half eaten fish and chips by his side (in case he needed a sugar boost halfway through his inebriated nap). I shook him hard and got him up. I discussed the error of his ways with him, as you do, and he seemed to be taking it all on-board ('course I'm kidding). Not at all; he was angry, aggressive and smelled bad. In fact, he was the perfect start to my shift. After an age I persuaded him to stagger off home, wherever that was.

Drunks have a wide and curved walking route. They move towards the dangerously busy road but they rarely step into oncoming traffic (funny that) and then they veer wildly in the other direction, cutting an amazingly accurate arc towards an obstacle, any obstacle, which enivitably stops them. They have a quick think and then proceed with the next stage of their route, yet another stupendous arrangement of short steps which somehow chaotically balances them precisely for the onward leg of their trip towards oncoming traffic again.

In short, they stagger. The less experienced ones fall. Then we come; heroes of the night.

** I am driving around with extra caution now because I believe my nemesis of the road is out there and is looking for an excuse to take me out :-)

A new system is running our calls. The computer selects the first 'nearest' vehicle to the call origin and sends it to the MDT. Never mind that the location of the call is miles away and that halfway there it will be cancelled to a nearer vehicle (inevitably). I have been running on calls that get cancelled all over the shop and so I am now calling in to verify whether or not I am required. This results in a cancellation being sent without my having to move. It seems very inefficient in my opinion.

Nevertheless, this new system gives me a glance at calls in other sectors. For example, "Blisters on vagina", but given as a RED3 because she claimed to have difficulty in breathing. I couldn't see the connection physiologically, but maybe that's a bloke thing. If I had the same problem down there I'm sure I'd gasp but I doubt I'd be short of breath.

Another came in from a doctor who was 'shaking badly' in his hotel room. What would you ask him? Would you ask him for a self-diagnosis? A few doctor, doctor jokes might spring to your mind.

I thought some of my calls were strange and funny but there are other worlds out there.

In the end I went back to the station. That stopped the seemingly endless out of area calls. It means I can't sit on stand by and watch the world go by as much these days. Hey ho.

Be safe.