Heroes

Yeah, well these guys were part of a fancy dress cinema club. Batman and Robin were among a number of others whose costumes portrayed film characters but it’s not these guys I’m talking about – it’s the two young men who saved an old woman’s life when she toppled into the Thames. The two gentlemen, Dan and Mark (whose permission I have to name them incidentally) will probably never receive the thanks they deserve for what they did.

The call was to a 70-year-old female who had fallen in the river. No other information was given and, to be honest, on screen it looked like another tragedy and a fruitless search for a body. I arrived and there were a number of other colleagues already on scene. The woman had been fished out of the water by the rescue services and was being treated and kept warm by the medics attending. I was asked to check out the two lads who had also been in the river. This was news to me; the call had not described any others involved, so I wondered what kind of condition these two men would be in. I went around to the police office and found them standing in their shorts, drying themselves off. They both looked fine. I asked them what had happened and they described how they had seen the woman sitting on the embankment wall by the river when she suddenly frothed at the mouth and toppled in.

Dan immediately jumped in after her whilst Mark called the emergency services. I believe Mark then got in to help his friend, who admitted he had struggled against the strong (and lethal) current as he tried to keep the lady’s head above the water. All of this happened in broad daylight and in the most treacherous river conditions. You have to admire the sheer guts of these guys – there was no hesitation and they did this with no thought to the risk they put themselves in. It’s the kind of action we do not condone in our society, in fact, the more liberal minded among us tend to chastise risk-taking behaviour but how many of you have actually had to make such a choice? People who know me personally will tell you that I will take enormous risks for other people and many of my colleagues will do the same without a second thought but there are definitely things that take a lot more nerve to do. Jumping into that river is one of them.

So, I have named them and thousands of you now know their names, even though you will never meet them. Hopefully, the old lady will make a full recovery and will thank these lads personally – she definitely owes the rest of her life to them.

Last time I saw them they were walking along the embankment, on their way back to work, dressed only in their shorts.

My morning had started out as a calamity. The radio on the vehicle I was assigned to drive was malfunctioning (well, not functioning at all) and I had to go to the contractor’s depot to get it repaired. I arrived half an hour before they opened, so I waited until the engineers showed up. I explained my predicament - half an hour tops they told me and once again I sat and waited.

Three hours and thirty minutes later, they pronounced it alive and well. I got no further than back to base when it snapped, crackled and popped. Ominously, I could smell burning. I took the vehicle out of commission and found myself another, there were no managers around and so I managed it myself. I took on my usual vehicle and, after a clean out and a re-kit and a thorough wash, I was ready to earn my pay. I was five hours into my shift now and had not answered a single call.

When my first call came in it was for a 33 year-old female who had fainted at work. She was lying on the floor when I arrived and she made no effort to open her eyes for me, even though she was conscious and her eyes were probably working just fine. Neither would she speak above a whisper (I don’t do whispers very well) so it was difficult to communicate with her properly. It wasn’t until I stopped being so gentle about it all and hardened my voice a little that she responded. Now she was okay. All her obs. were normal and she was just a little emotional. The crew arrived and she was taken to hospital anyway. I think that’s what she wanted to be honest.

Then, an interesting call to a jewellers shop in the West End. A 60-year-old male had suddenly lost his peripheral vision in his right eye. He was working as normal when he became aware of his limited vision and a headache, which niggled him at the same time. I arrived to find him being taken care of by the shop staff. He was a bit pale and he was quite nervous about what might be going on. He had a slightly high BP but, apart from his visual deficit and his headache, he had no other obvious clinical (neurological) abnormalities. Neither did he have any significant medical history for heart attack or stroke.

The crew arrived to take him to hospital and I accompanied them to the street. I learned later that the man was thrombolysed because, although his CT scan was normal, the doctors suspected something abnormal was going on in his head. I couldn’t agree more.

A fainted female at another place of work but this time she refused to go to hospital to be checked out. My suspicion was that she had probably had a seizure; she was confused, vague and sleepy and didn’t really have the look of someone who had simply fainted. She looked post ictal to me and so I urged her to consider going to hospital but she just wasn’t interested. She had capacity to refuse and her colleagues were not happy to be left with her in their care in case something more serious occurred. Kind of selfish of her I thought.

A collapsed male next. He worked behind the security desk of a bank in the city. He had felt his legs go weak after a bout of pain in his side as a result of reaching over for something. The man’s colleagues were a hoot and kept making jokes about him but they were genuinely concerned and their banter was designed to keep him smiling, which it did - me too.

He looked very pale and I considered the possibility of a cardiac connection, although it’s not uncommon for people to semi-faint after a sudden crisis of pain, simply because the body releases adrenaline to cope. In fact, when the crew arrived and we looked at his vital signs and his ECG, he seemed to be in good shape, so I reckon the pain-crisis theory holds water in this case. I left the man in the care of the crew and I expect they let him get on with his day.

One minute away from this call there was a young woman lying in an alley after falling and cracking her head on a concrete window ledge. I was sent the call as soon as I greened up and off I went. There was a small crowd around this lady, who was eight months pregnant, and they were propping her up and tending to her bleeding head with a handkerchief. I took my usual position next to the lady and we chatted about what had happened.

I noticed on my short walk towards her that the street was very steep and the paving very uneven. I also noticed that this lady was wearing high heels - not really a good idea in late pregnancy. I presumed the combination had made her stumble and from what she told me, it sounds like that was the case. No loss of consciousness, no complications with the baby, no anxiety required. Her head wound had stopped bleeding, thanks in part to the beautifully white handkerchief (now available in crimson) and she was fully alert and aware. She was also very worried and tearful.

Once I had calmed her nerves (she was worried about her unborn child) and assured her that there was enough cushioning in there for her baby to be just fine, I walked her the few yards to my car. She was quite cold, so a blanket or two and a warm car were just what she needed.

The ambulance arrived and I thanked the gentlemen who had helped the lady when she fell, especially the one who lost his nice hankie.

My last call of the shift was to a block of flats not far from my station. I was attending an elderly lady, in her late 80’s, who was generally unwell after treatment for bowel cancer. Her neighbours were milling around her and I could sense their anxiety. She was a very frail woman but also quite independent; she lived on her own and relied on a once daily visit from a carer, otherwise she fended pretty much for herself. Her neighbours told me that the last time she went to hospital, her house was broken into and she was robbed. The lock had never been repaired since, despite the council being asked to do it repeatedly for the past few months. Disgusting. The lady had lived in the flat since the blocks were built in the 1930’s. I looked out of her window and wondered what she had seen from that view over those decades.

The crew arrived and gently carried her down the stairs and into the ambulance. A couple of kids were outside and they asked what was happening (estate kids always ask what is going on or who is ill). Then they saw the old lady being carried into the ambulance and one of them said, “I hope she gets better”, and you know, I think he meant it.

Be safe.