Drama Queen?

A whole big dramatic chain-reaction took place on a call for a cyclist versus pedestrian. He was pedalling at a pace the wrong way up a cycle lane and she was minding her own business and crossing the lane, looking in the direction of normal traffic flow. It was clear, so she proceeded.

Maybe she should have taken a second to look the other way, but she didn’t and she was thumped by the cyclist. She was thrown onto the pavement, hurting her arm on landing, and he was chucked from the bike and dropped onto the road with some force.

The whole thing was witnessed, so when I arrived I was frantically guided in by a windmill with distress on his face. The reason for this became clear when I parked up and exited the car. The cyclist was howling and screaming in pain.

He told me he’d damaged his pelvis before, after a previous cycling accident in which he was, in his own words, ‘left for dead’. He said his pain was 10/10 and screamed out when any suggestion of examining his hip and pelvis was made.

‘I need to have a look to assess the extent of any injury’, I said.

‘Don’t touch me! I don’t want you to look at it!’ he shouted back.

Now, there are times when it is clear when someone is over-cooking their pain and there are times when it is doubtful that any injury of significance exists. This, however, was one of those borderline cases. His actions, demeanour and language suggested more going on behind the scenes than this possible injury, but his physical appearance (one leg shorter than the other and some rotation), hinted at something else. Of course, anyone can make one leg shorter than the other by appearance, if they so desire... but who am I to judge?

His pelvis or femur may well have been damaged by the catapulted landing but some of the things he came out with were outlandish and illogical for someone who needed immediate medical attention. I felt it was a combination of over-doing it and a reluctance to acknowledge the means to an end. He was like a petulant child refusing a tissue for a runny nose.

He relented when we got him into the ambulance and, even with the initial rotated, shortened look, his hips and pelvis seemed fine, sturdy and in position. The poor woman standing on the pavement, however, was left to worry herself grey about what she might have done to this guy. She thought he was dying.

I attended to her soon after leaving the crew with our screaming (now morphine controlled) cyclist and had a look at the woman’s arm. She had a significant bruise there and swelling had developed, so I took her to A&E to have it x-rayed. I suspected that, ironically, she’d be found to have much more wrong with her physically than our speeding patient. She made quite a point of ensuring she was led away and out of his sight when she arrived at the department and he was still waiting, apparently pain-free now, on the trolley bed in triage.

I know a few people like this and I'm sorry to sound arrogant and judgemental, because I'm sure there is an excuse for them somewhere. But they think that someone like me... and my colleagues, are so easily fooled... are so inexperienced and gullible, as to believe they have an injury that has the potential to kill, and yet underneath it, they are dramatic. There is no drama in real pain, there is only pain.

In the wee hours, just before going home and when the strangest cases surface, I was asked to investigate a man who was fitting outside a Casino. ‘Door staff on scene’ I was told.

I arrived to find the door staff doing their job... staffing the doors, whilst my patient lay flat on his back on the pavement. They had given him a wide berth and I treated him to a closer inspection.

‘He just dropped down and started fitting or something’, the tall, wide, door staff men said.

The young man was bleeding from the head and this made me cautious about what was happening here.

‘So where did the blood come from?’ I asked.

I thought I was being diplomatic but I must have sounded accusatory, because their reaction to the question was immediately defensive and highly unlikely.

‘Mate’, they chimed. ‘He just fell down and had some kind of fit. The blood just appeared.’

Hmm, I thought. Just appeared, did it? To be honest with you, my first thought was that he’d been a bit mouthy with them and they’d given him a push. I know that’s not fair but it’s happened before and wouldn’t be an unrealistic scenario given the time of day, the place, and the wild, drugged look of the man on the ground.

I had to struggle with him a few times to keep him under control and his arms flailed in my general direction as I did so, but it was clear early on that he wasn’t going to remain calm and my initial thoughts were that he’d sustained a significant head injury, or he’d taken something to cause this behaviour. Of course the logical pathway is followed routinely but it also takes into account the possibility that he was just like that normally; that is was in his genes.

I asked the doormen a few times about the man’s injury but they kept their distance and stuck to their story. The patient was going on about people coming after him and seemed highly agitated about the prospect that he was going to be attacked. So, he started ranting at me, as if I was the threat. This made me a little uneasy about my prospects of staying safe, even with the two large gentlemen standing at the Casino door. I tried to call in for backup and got no response. Then I called in again... and again. I pressed the priority button on my radio and got zilch back. Then, as a last resort, and because I really needed a cop or two to help me out, I activated the crew emergency alarm. This is used when we are under attack or need urgent, urgent, police attendance. To be fair, all I needed was urgent police attendance. Just one urgent... not two.

Pressing my ‘I’m in real trouble, come and help me quickly’ button made no difference and I heard nothing back. I must have been in a blind spot.

The ranting patient was on his feet and pushing at me to get past. The two doormen looked on nervously, which I found chillingly confidence-busting. Did they know something about him that I didn’t? Did he have an Uzi in his pocket? I was inspired by the knowledge that his pockets were far too small to conceal such a weapon. I’d just have to avoid his fists instead... or the world's smallest Uzi.

An ambulance rolled up as I managed to get the man to lie down again. I had to keep a little distance from him because he was still convinced he was about to be mobbed by a gang.

He said that he’d run 3 miles to escape a mob of youths that had attacked him and who ‘hated’ him. He had come a long way across London, just to collapse in a heap on the pavement.

There was no sign of any gang, so we got him onto the ambulance and the crew called for police on my behalf. It was too late for physical protection but we still needed this matter cleared up.

When the cops turned up, they knew the man and said he had a long history with them. That history included drug use and violence, so I hadn’t been over-reacting after all. His story about being assaulted and chased for miles may well have been true but, from what I was hearing, he’d more than likely brought it on himself.

And so another weekend night ends with a sunrise and a spatter of someone else’s blood on my sleeve. It’s crazy.


Be safe.

The Station is out there...

Okay. The new book is out at last. You should see it on Amazon, etc very soon (I'm told these things take a few weeks). In the meantime, you can buy it direct from the publisher. Don't be nervous about them being an American company, charging you in dollars... they have a UK distributor, so you shouldn't be waiting for weeks and you shouldn't be paying more than the book's value to get a copy.

You can buy it in hardback or softcover - it's up to you.

Follow this link:  www.thestationbook.com.

Please let me know what you think of it. remember it's a work of fiction and does not purport to reflect anything true or real about the ambulance service.....

Oh, and can you all please get your friends to buy it... plug it on Facebook and Twitter... give it a buzz if you like it. I want to do well with this one... it'll encourage me to write another one. I really don't care that I am blatantly plugging it. Nobody else is, so why not me?

Ta!

Xf

Mickey's dead

I watched a mouse dying today. Yes... a mouse. Scruffs had caught it and was playing with it, but I took it from him and put it into a bucket so that I could chuck it into the field behind my house. I've given many a mouse a second chance by doing this. This one however, well, he was feisty and he managed to clamber up and out of the bucket before I had a chance to stop him. He obviously didn't trust my intentions.

He plopped onto the grass and ran for his life, but Scruffs was on him again and he was pawed to a stand-still. I told my cat to let him go and he did (Scruffs is generally obedient, believe it or not - he sits on command), but the mouse made a fatal mistake - he dashed away from the safety of me and my bucket. He ran straight into Scruff's path again, and this time Scruffy boy was having him. He grabbed him in his mouth and made to escape into the house with it.

I managed to get him to drop the little thing though and I picked it up and saw straight away that it was limp and weak. Scruffs hadn't pierced his body with his teeth; he rarely does that, but I guess the crush of his mouth had been enough to cause internal damage.

But I thought the little thing may also be playing dead, because they do that. I put him on the ground and watched him. His breathing was shallow and quick, and when I dropped him to the ground, his little paws jerked out, as if he was scared of the fall... or wanted to be kept out of harm's way. Then he just lay there, eyes open, and began to gasp in long, crying breaths. I recognised this. I've seen humans do it. It's called agonal breathing and it's the last thing that any breathing creature will do before they die.

I watched as he opened his little mouth and silently screamed, time and time again, over and over... and then he just stopped. His eyes never closed and he never looked in pain but he clearly was.

Why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because as I watched him die, I felt more emotion for him than I have done recently for people.

I've had a bad year, and you all know that, but I don't deserve anything for it because there are plenty of people having bad years... and some having much, much worse. But my year has helped me focus on what's really important and it's helped me see the futility of trying to educate the public about how not to abuse their emergency ambulance service. It's hardened me against those who deliberately destroy their lives when there has never been the threat of a cat to kill them, against a backdrop of children and babies who have terminal illnesses and whose parents are living only in the shadow of inevitability for a loss that will be so great that they cannot fathom life for themselves any longer.

I'm not giving up and I'm not clinically depressed... but I am changing my mind about things.

I went out tonight. I went to a gig ('Battle of the bands') that was specially organised by my colleagues for my colleagues and in aid of charity. I spent a few hours drinking with them, laughing with them and listening to music produced and performed by them. It was great fun and a sobering reminder to me that I am not part of a company, or an organisation. I am part of a family. Every one of the people I saw tonight (the club was almost exclusively full of London Ambulance staff) do the same job as me. The fact that I write this blog and have done other things is completely irrelevant. These people also have to deal with the reality of the job, day in, day out. They know that there is no answer and never will be. Certain members of the public will always abuse their emergency services; they care not a jot that we care.

I listened-in to a call recently in which a man had dialled 999 for help because he was in pain. From the very start he was aggressive, abusive and very threatening towards the call-taker. The call-taker remained calm and professional against a tirade of swearing, animosity and direct threats. The man even threatened to punch the first medical person he saw. This was simply because he had toothache and we hadn't sent him an ambulance as a matter of priority.

Someone's 83 year-old grandmother was lying on the floor, unable to get up. She'd been there for hours waiting for us because we were tied up with other 'emergency' calls, and this guy didn't care to know, even when that was being explained to him by the polite call-taker.

I love my job. I believe my colleagues love their jobs - they must do, because they could apply to drive a train and earn a hell of a lot more and take a hell of a lot less abuse.

Christmas is coming. It's the season you all know makes my blood boil, because it's when the worst of people come out of the rotting woodwork of society. Lawyers, doctors, City bankers and a host of other 'respectable' professions will get drunker than normal, and will pile abuse, vomit and spit onto us. Please, read the mouse story again.  Try to understand what happens to people when they live the prediction of such things.

I recently noticed that someone gave me a less than flattering review for 'Life & Death on The Streets', (a professional moaner, judging by the number of other books he's also whined about) and, to be honest, I don't care because that's the name of the game. But he described me as 'just another gobby ambulance person', or something very similar. He went on to describe how I did the usual moaning about the state of things in my profession. I realised that this critic was probably not in the ambulance service, or anything at all to do with the NHS. His or her opinion is that we should all just shut up and 'do our jobs'... as many others out there think. But this isn't just a job, it's a vocation; you either love it or you don't, and for all of us... me and my colleagues, after years of abuse and violence and assaults; years of pandering to those who think they need us but do not, and a mini-lifetime of the same old faces doing the same old things to get to hospital - I think we have earned the right to be gobby.

Me, my emotions, my colleagues and one dying mouse have kicked me back into reality.

Be safe.

Yes, I've been lazy

I haven't died or disappeared; not yet anyway! I've just been very busy with other things and writing has not been a priority.

The novel is arriving in October because I am publishing it is the USA, so it'll be out there before it gets here. You'll be able to get it in print or download it for Kindle or any other reader from Amazon, etc. I'll put a link on the page for you when it's ready. So far the reviews have been good, so I'm encouraged.

I was sent this link to an episode of Trauma that I appeared in about 7 years ago; it was my first one-under and my first job with the HEMS team. It's worth watching because you won't get many TV opportunities to see a resus taking place on a tube station platform. See if you can spot my youthful self in there. I can't believe how time rolls on, honestly. Thanks for sending me that Suzi, it's been years since I last watched!

I'm also shoving my music up into the public domain. I've decided I don't care one way or the other if it's not liked because it was so long ago anyway and there's nothing worse than having created stuff and then allow it to die without an airing! I started by re-releasing a Christmas single I had out back in the 1980's; 'Father Christmas' it's called, ironically. It's on iTunes, so have a listen and if you like it, buy it and make it a retrospective worldwide hit :-) You can search for it with the keywords father christmas mister e, which is my singer/songwriter/muso pseudonym. I'll be releasing a lot more music over the next year or two... that way, when I die, it'll all have been loved or slagged off... but at least heard.

I'll be back to normal blogging soon, I promise. Just got to get all these other projects out of the way first!

Xf

Post Mortem

Well, well, well. Even I am surprised at the way the riot aftermath has been handled. The Press have run and re-run images and CCTV footage of the individuals responsible for looting and criminal damage, shaming most of them very effectively and sending a clear message to them all about the way we, the people, feel about their behaviour.

I got a lot of feedback, as expected, from my last post and a few of you did not agree with my opinion but that's fine. It is, after all, only my opinion. However, I received emails and messages from young people; teenagers and school children, who agreed totally with my rant. Some of them feel embarrassed to belong to the same generation, social class or geographical area as the idiots that torched and stole their way through last week.

The Government and the police got together and decided to name and shame all those that could be identified. The newspapers listed them, along with their charges and sentences, and the TV news made spectacles of them bumping into lamp-posts and hiding their faces, as they tried to avoid the kind of mass publicity that would ruin their lives.

Not one person has moaned about the 'rights' of these thieves; nobody has complained, as far as I know, about their names and faces being publicised for the whole country (the world in fact) to see. And that makes me feel very glad. Would a Labour Government have allowed this? Who knows... but it worked. It created a contrast for the people involved in the trouble, so that they could measure themselves and their actions against rising public opinion, which was hugely against them. We have, in effect, done exactly what was required of us - we put our badly behaved hooligan kids on the naughty step and told them to think about what they've done. We have commited our little criminals to the media stocks.

But, there are a few anomalies. Those that did not 'fit the bill' for this type of feral behaviour -  like the millionaire's daughter who acted as the getaway driver for a gang of looters. she was obviously bored of daddy's money and wanted a bit of low-life excitement. Then there was the out-of-work musician who called the cops 'facists' because they arrested him. He'd stolen a musical instrument. Or the ballerina who decided to steal while it was possible, and then gave herself up when she saw her face being publicly advertised as part of a rogue's gallery. She'd asked herself why she'd done it.

This wasn't all about the usual suspects. This was about opportunism and spleen-venting against authority, as if the individual cop on the street had anything to do with University fee hikes, or unemployment levels... or the price of a ballerina's clothing.

Among the unusual suspects, we had the real hardcore problem; arsonists, serial criminals and murderers. They are going to face justice very soon and when their faces are revealed - especially the ones who mugged the injured student - they will understand that something is changing in this society. People are no longer going to allow them to rule the roost.

For mowing down three innocent young men who were protecting their community, there must be a very long sentence, without parole - please. And for murdering an ageing man who was unilaterally protesting against the behaviour of these louts as they mobbed around him, the individual(s) responsible should never see the outside world again.

We need to examine the underlying problems of course, but for now, I think those affected directly by this need to be punished properly.

Xf

It's a hard life

Hands up if you are one of the few people in this country who use phrases like 'disenchanted youth' or 'nothing else to do'... or 'they have no prospects', when you talk about the individuals, some as young as eleven, who 'rioted' and stole from honest hard-working business people?

Good for you I say. And jolly good for those of you who revel in the 'they have rights' syndrome of society in which the youth of today are allowed, by merit of the goody-two-shoes of the European courts and other weak-minded people, to haunt the streets, mug the injured, throw stones, bottles and other debris at police officers, and torch shops and homes. Well done for complaining bitterly and endlessly about the 'heavy-handed' behaviour of law enforcement when faced with hundreds of feral, braying teenagers, hell-bent on causing injury or death. Let them stand there and take it. Let them leave their batons in their belts because that, surely, is sending out the right signal, isn't it?

We now have a dangerous situation in this society. So dangerous in fact that I fully expect to receive the usual number of threatening, poisonous remarks that I get from time to time when I vent about these things. I'll get them from people who fully support an individual's right to violently protest and let the authorities know who's boss - the same people who hate authority and loathe the way others live. Our societal situation is no different to that of a household, where parents (or in a lot of cases, single mums) have no control whatsoever over their children. There is no discipline, no moral guidance and absolutely no punishment or consequences for bad actions.

There are hundreds of thousands of disaffected people in this country. There are millions or people who can't make ends meet and who live in deprived, God-forsaken places, but not all of them behave like this. Not every single mum, or single dad has lost complete control of their off-spring either... but there is a seed of this problem in that kind of family set-up. A lot of our problems stem from a total lack of micro-Government within the home.

I saw a large, mouthy woman have a go at a man on the news yesterday. She endorsed the point I now make here. She said to the reporter that kids 'are treated like scum, so they behave like scum... what do you expect?' It was her universal excuse for looting, arson, violence and murder on the streets. It was a statement that would never in a million years, provoke the response 'Yes, you are absolutely right, and here is the solution'.

Then a man appeared and put his opinion forward, stating that what she had said was no argument and couldn't possibly justify what was going on. Interestingly, her short, fat eleven year old boy started to remonstrate with the man, as if he had a functional statement to make about it! The mother then verbally attacked the man, saying it was 'his ignorance that had led to this problem' and that he should 'jog on'.

Here's my point. I am from a council estate; I come from one of the hardest places in the country, where violence and theft was very common, and expected. I grew up in a working-class environment, not a poor one, because in those days there were jobs for everyone, but I still had a rough time of it. I suffered all of the stuff that child psychologists and social workers would label 'high risk' for bad behaviour... but I also had something else. I had a healthy fear and respect of the police and authority. I was given certain tools to enable me to see right from wrong, and to be properly scared if I did anything illegal. I open doors for the elderly and females (shamefully sexist, I know). I say please and thank you and feel guilty when I don't exercise manners when expected of me. Simple tools are required so that children do not become wild animals; strong, disciplined family environments are critical. I don't mean abusive families.

The Press has been to blame for a lot of the disrespect shown to police these days. Whenever a cop makes a mistake, or gets stupid and over-steps the mark, it gets inflated into a series of hysterical headlines that carry on for days, or weeks, so that Joe Public is in no doubt about who the real enemy is. The death of an innocent person at the hands of the authorities is an outrage, there's no question, but it might be worth considering under what circumstances some of those deaths came about. Was there a life-threatening situation in play... like a riot? Was a weapon being brandished? Are we saying that cops aren't human and that they can't feel frightened for their own lives?

If you don't agree with me, then what's your solution? Don't just attack my writing, because that's dumber than burning a shop for the sake of it. Tell me what YOU would do to sort this out and how it makes things better for us all.

I believe we need to return to values that are intrinsic to a safe, decent society. We need discipline; proper punishment for serious law-breakers. Let's bring back National Service. We can keep our armed forces up to strength and give these kids a place to go, money in their pockets and a sense of duty and commitment. It's not the cure-all, I know, because there were students, a teaching assistant and many other non-deprived individuals involved in the stealing spree - it wasn't just 'council-house scum', but it would begin to change how our children behave.

Three people died as the direct result of the violence that went on further north. These men were protecting their community. I found it interesting that while Turks and Pakistanis... and other 'minority' groups got themselves together to defend their homes and businesses, a twenty-odd year old moron ranted about how all the Polish were 'taking our jobs'. This guy, who also appeared on the news, looked like he'd never worked in his life and would never go on to do anything useful in society. The Poles do the jobs that Brits won't do, so his whole logic is flawed. He's repeating a rhetoric that is off-the-shelf racism and hatred. Thankfully, the white English didn't dishonour themselves because they too began to stand up for their streets. This, I believe, is partly why things have quietened down.

One man is shot by police in London. It's tragic but there must be a reason why an officer felt threatened enough to open up. If there isn't a good excuse, then he will face the consequences, but anyone carrying a gun should expect to risk being shot, let's not have any mindless arguments about that! A few days later and this country is in crisis; hundreds of businesses will either go under, or will face hefty insurance bills - or will move away from the very places they were serving and providing jobs to. A father tries to resuscitate his dying son, whose been mown down by a car, and we still have individuals whose mentality is so warped they can find sick reasons for it all to have happened. Even the family of the man shot by police had stated that the riots have nothing to do with their son's death.

We need to respect the rights of our children but we must stop telling them they have rights. Parents must start to show strength and deliver punishment so that kids learn there are consequences for their actions. They must also deliver praise and support. Society must create the biggest naughty step imaginable or we are all surely going to Hell.

Xf

A dark place

There is a sick feeling of no control or recollection of what’s about to happen. I’m being taken away somewhere where I can’t escape and where no one will find me. 


There are no land marks or road signs here. There is nothing. I used to scream for help but no one ever heard me or helped me so I don’t scream anymore. I can feel my body sliding out of control underneath me; soon I will have no authority of the muscles or bones that normally obey my every command. 


I’ve decided I’m not going to fight it anymore. Instead I will wait. It might be minutes, it might be hours or it could even be days sitting here alone in the darkness until the clouds start to lift releasing beams of aesthetic light through the deep smog that hangs slightly above a path. I don’t know where the path starts or how far along it I am but I know if I carry on walking soon I will be back.


This was written by Stephanie Smith. She's describing epilepsy. She's describing her fears. I thought some of you might like to pay her blog a visit. She is young and she needs empathy and support from others like her, so please be kind to her.


Xf