For some reason or other (omninous thundery weather? a proliferation of football?) we’ve had one of the busiest weeks ever. It’s been one assault after another. Maybe it’s because summer is over and people can’t sunbathe any more so they switch to killing each other instead. We had one incident where a man fatally stabbed his girlfriend then killed himself by jumping in front of a train, another when a man stabbed a woman and then, when the police arrived, started stabbing himself. A seventeen year old was bashed to death with a metal pole. Things came to a peak on Tuesday night when I was working on one of the busiest sectors and two crews pressed their priority button at exactly the same time. (Crews press their priority button when they want to “blue in” a patient - that is, they rush the patient in on blue lights and get us to warn the hospital that they are coming). I told the first crew to go ahead, but the second crew (not realising that the other crew had also pressed their priority button) thought I’d said the wrong callsign and started giving me the blue call. The trouble with our radio system is that when crews are talking, they can’t hear us or each other, so if they are both talking at once, there is no way to stop them. What I heard was this:
“This is G603… EC39… blue to the Royal Free with… the Royal London… sixteen year old male assaulted… multiple stab wounds to the chest and head… and back, was unconscious now GCS 14… ? arterial… blood pressure 110/80, pulse 94… blood pressure 84/60… 5mg morphine given… eta 6 mins…. and we’ll be there in 2 mins.”
In other words, a load of gibberish. I’m fairly good at multitasking, but there was no way I could separate these two out, especially as the calls were so similar.
“G603 and Ec39, you were both coming through at the same time. Did not receive you. EC39, standby please, G603, go again…”
“I said, this is G603, blue to the Royal Free with a 16 year old male assaulted, kicked in the head and…”
EC39 press their priority button again and talk over the top. “Sorry, I know you said standby, but our ETA to the Royal London is 1 minute…” G603, meanwhile, are still talking.
So in the end, the Royal London got the world’s sketchiest ever blue call and I ended up seriously cursing the people of East London for all attacking each other at once.