Dead or alive?

It was lovely and warm today. The wind kept me from being too hot in my uniform and stab vest (the shirt tends to stick a little to the vest at the back, which is unpleasant). Central London was busy with traffic, as it always is, and drivers were getting edgy. This was compounded by the many holes being dug around the place by men in yellow tabards whose aim is to re-lay something like a thousand miles of water pipe to replace the old Victorian ones - they lasted over a hundred years, I'll bet the new ones need to be replaced in a decade.

Strangely, as I sat in the car in the traffic and contemplated this, I heard the Python song, 'Always look on the bright side of life' floating in the air as a Royal Mail van passed. It seemed to parody the actual mood of the streets.

I was busy today. The amber car is dead (for the moment), so I am on a CS call sign day or night. That means only red and amber calls; mainly red. So, it all kicked off with a call to a male 'fitting. ? cause'. I arrived and the ambulance was already on scene and the crew were dealing. The man wasn't fitting at all, he was shivering.

Then a man who was described as collapsed and unconscious. He was sitting in the street with a little gang of his friends - all Czechs and none speaking much English, so it was a challenge from the start. Although my first thought was that he was just drunk, his friends assured me, in pidgin English, that he had not been drinking today/ He certainly didn't look well; very pale, quite confused and disorientated. I set about my obs. and all seemed normal, apart from his demeanour. The crew arrived and the paramedic on board - a good friend of mine from my old station, found his temperature was high. My thermometer had read normal but there you go, it just shows you how important a second opinion and a working thermometer are. There was also a familiar smell, which had become noticeable on moving him; the smell of bad urine, so a possible UTI. He was packed off to hospital and I drove back to my usual patch.

On the way I received a call for a RTC involving a motorcyclist and a van, only seconds up the road from where I was. I weaved around the queue of traffic and found the scene of the collision. The injured motorcyclist had been clipped by a van and thrown from his bike, luckily at low speed (sometimes the Central London traffic is a saving grace). He had nothing more serious than a sprained ankle, which he twisted on his journey from saddle to tarmac. An ambulance arrived before I could cancel it and the crew took him on board for a trip to A&E.

After a couple of cancelled calls that had me driving in a circle, I was sent to South London for a multiple stabbing. A rendezvous (RV) point was given and I had to wait there with the police until the all-clear to attend was given. Now these RV's can be tricky things to arrive at safely. I have, on one or two occasions, driven right past the incident address en route to said RV, quite embarrassing and possible dangerous. Receiving an RV and getting to it without crossing the actual danger zone is a distinct and nowhere near precise science. Rarely have I received the address of the incident, so that I can avoid it!

I arrived at the RV point, this time without getting confused and there was nobody there to meet me. I wondered if I had got it wrong and called my Control desk for more information. They told me that the police wanted me to move to another location, where I would find my patient. It was around the corner (literally) and took me all of 5 seconds to locate.

The police were up on a balcony in an estate and I was guided to a young man who was lying on the floor, his lower body covered in blood - at least his clothes were. Bizarrely, I was told that he had been stabbed hours earlier at about 5am and had only just been discovered when a couple of PCSO's had come across him in the street. He had been making his way home after the alleged assault.

I had a look at his injuries, which seemed confined to his lower limbs and could see at least one deep stab wound to his right leg. I dressed it and then found other, less significant wounds in other parts of the leg. He also had a few to his right hand, where he had been protecting himself from the onslaught. He was allegedly set upon for no reason by a gang of youths who had taken a dislike to him.

The man was still fully clothed, except for the ripped right trouser leg and I had him moved carefully into his flat so that I could examine him more thoroughly. It's important not to assume that the wounds you see are the only wounds around, even if the patient states he has no others, so his clothing was removed and I checked his head, neck, chest and pelvis. Nothing. Then I asked him to take his trousers off and there they were...at least five other stab wounds, two of which were very deep; one in this thigh and the other through the shin bone of his left leg. Surely he must have felt that one?

Many people claim to have been punched and this is what he thought had happened. He also had a wound to his eye and it was clear that the assailants had tried to stab him in the face too. He was very lucky, a couple of inches in the wrong direction and he would have staggered home whilst bleeding from an artery and I wouldn't be patching him up.

No rest and another call - an epileptic who had been fitting and was now recovering. When I got there the ambulance crew were already dealing. Not required.

After that I had a few minutes to myself and soaked up the sun by standing outside the car for a bit but that leisurely punctuation was disturbed by a call to a 30-year-old female who was fitting in the street. I arrived to find her lying on the pavement with helping hands on her. She was very confused and tearful. She kept repeating that she was a nurse and could I tell her what her BP was. She had fallen hard enough for witnesses to hear the thud of her skull on the concrete, so she was at least concussed and she was definitely post ictal. Her confusion was magnified by her repeated requests regarding where she was, who I was and if her BP was normal. I think she had experienced her first seizure and had been unfortunate enough to have it where the landing zone wasn't soft enough.

And the best call of the day, for sheer stupidity, was to a one month old baby, ? suspended. The worst kind of call for me and no doubt for a lot of my colleagues. I really don't want to be holding someone's dead child and explaining to them that I was "doing the best I could" because that's a rubbish deal.

The call description stated 'not crying' and this was all the information I had when I set off. I called Control and asked them for a little bit more info. In fact, I asked them if I was going to a suspended baby or not. They replied that they were still taking the call so had nothing else to offer yet, except that they were treating this as a Red1 - suspended.

When I arrived, an ambulance had just pulled up at the address and there was a motorcycle solo paramedic already inside. I felt that this must be a genuine dead baby - why else all the fuss? I went upstairs to the flat and entered the living room. I saw a very emotional mother, a worried relative, the ambulance crew, the solo paramedic and a baby lying on the floor...hiccupping.

I'm not even going to bother elaborating on this call.

Be safe.