In the control room, we have a mapping system which shows exactly where every ambulance the service owns is. If the vehicle is in use, we can see their callsign (something like “T601″ - the first letter and number denote the ambulance station it comes from), if it is not being used, we just seen their fleet number. As well as seeing them zooming around the map, we can also see how fast they are going, which direction they are travelling in, or, if they are still, when they last moved.
A few weeks ago, I was on the FRU desk when one of the cars was involved in an accident and went up in flames (blog entry). That vehicle has long since been towed away, of course, but on the mapping it still remains at the place where it “died”, now telling us that it has been stationary for nearly a month. Funnily enough, the crash happened only a couple of streets away from where I live, so now whenever I walk past that corner, I feel the ghost of that FRU haunting me.
There are various other long-term stationary vehicles dotted around the map too, which presumably are also “ghosts”, and sometimes I sit and wonder what happened to them all. I know there was a vehicle in Putney once that mysteriously went up in smoke for no apparent reason. It was just after July 7th and at first we all thought it was an Ambulance Bomb! Also, for a long time there was a “vehicle” which seemed to be floating in a reservoir in Tottenham. Whether this vehicle really met a sticky end in murky water I have no idea!
January 11th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Oh how I laugh when control ring me up on the car and ask where I am!
I’m in one town, the car is showing in another, a million quids worth of tracking technology and they still don’t knw where I am.
SD
January 11th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Oooh…spooky stuff….funny how when the vehicle isn’t even there the tracking works and yet the vehicles that do work as ecparamedic claims….there actually nowhere near where they say they are!!
January 11th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
We had several vehicles that were apparently stationed off-shore due to the vagaries of GPS when there was a built in error for non-military applications.
The error however wasn’t supposed to be quite that large………..
A recent conversation went like this………..
Me. (Phone rings)… ” Hello Control”
Control. ” Hello SD, where are you?”
Me. “Dunno, I was just going to ring you to find out………..”
Control. “……. silence………”
SD
January 11th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
What a fantastic opportunity for management to show visitors what excellent coverage they have across the capital!
Half our tracking systems don’t work, which often means the data terminal is also bust. It’s not all bad though, to have a stealth vehicle, where control have no idea where we are!
Nicenurse x
January 11th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
cant the system administrators (the tech guys) remove the dead vehicles from the system?? or at least give then a gravestone
January 12th, 2007 at 12:10 am
There were actually two in Putney that went up in smoke within a few weeks of each other. Strangely, one of them is now back on the road after a refit. Makes you kind of nervous about using it….
January 12th, 2007 at 2:04 am
I love ghosting moments! Phoning a FRV on their moble.
“Everything ok?”
“yup”
“Can you confirm location?”
“yeah……why?”
“Oh just wanted to make sure your ok, your tracking 2 miles offshore in the English Channel”
January 12th, 2007 at 3:19 am
Stealth vehicles rule, nicenurse.
Hoo! Haa!
January 12th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Must say, SJA Dispatch has its benefits then! We have to manually place all of our units on it, and update them as needs be. No GPS to cock it up, no tracking systems to fail. Only human error can mess this one up - wait a minute…
Matt.
January 12th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Sorry for the unrelated comment, but I would like your advice on something. I have long wanted to work for the ambulance service, and I have just applied to become a first responder. Now, I am going to do this because it seems like a good thing to do but I would be interested in knowing what everyone with more experience of these things thinks. Are they genuinely helpful? I know some voluntary positions in other services aren’t looked upon very favourably by full timers, and in a selfish kind of way I would like to know if it would help me progress into a full time position. Any comments from any angle would be much appreciated. Thanks.
January 12th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Dan,
Several of our more recent members of staff have been Community Responders before joining the firm. However quite a few who have joined as responders with the express purpose of getting a toe in the door have been disappointed when they haven’t got in, I’ve certainly had plenty of them in the passenger seat of my vehicle.
A few of the staff have a problem with responders, personally I always take as I find. The good news for you is that they won’t be on your interview panel.
I don’t know what it’s like where you are applying, but trainee places are always vastly oversubscribed over here, view being a responder as part of your preparation rather than the be-all and end-all and build on your aerobic fitness, soooooo many fail at that point.
SD
January 13th, 2007 at 10:16 am
ecparamedic,
Thanks for your advice. I expect that the situation with training places is the same in Cardiff (where I am), I am still waiting to hear back from the few people I know working for them.
I didn’t think it would guarantee a training spot, but as long as it is counted as a positive point then it’s probably worthwhile. I know that police recruiters don’t look favourably on someone who has been a special. Even if it wasn’t, I would still do it even if just dispatch and the crews thought they were a good idea.
Well thanks again for that, and if anyone else has a different angle I would be interested to hear it.
Dan
January 13th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Before we were overseen by satellite tracking systems we were able to “run silent, run deep” and managed to make it back to base sometimes to finish on time.
Perhaps control have upgraded to “star wars systems” and can now send a laser guided missile small enough to blow up ambulance vehicles?
January 13th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Dan
Re Community Responders
Not sure if it helps or hinders you in your chosen career, but if you belong to a well trained community responder group that has a good relationship with local crew’s you will learn a lot about how to help people (who are very vulnerable) in a supportive and non judgemental way, with respect for their dignity and a full appreciation of the issues surrounding patient confidentiality.
Life enhancing skill’s which ever way you look at it.
But do it because you care about people in your community, not because it looks good on your CV
Good Luck
January 17th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Sounds like a software glitch to me. Being in IT it seems likely that this is a bug which is actually built to fix another bug
if the GPS signal is lost (which seems to happen often enough!), then the map you’re looking at should show the last known position. Which is what is happening. However, what to do when the GPS signal “never” comes back on again? They didn’t think of that! Guess they forgot to build in a time-out, or a wipe of the last position on the map if it suddely turns up in another spot (after being towed away, for example). Funny…. Software… Tsss…
January 18th, 2007 at 3:26 am
I work as one of the tech for a simliar system (not in the UK) and unfortunatly it’s not quite as easy as hitting the ‘delete’ button to make ghost units go away.
The problem is that the attached history of that unit has to be kept and renamed in case some lawyer 5 years later demands to know where unit X was on Y date so he can sue someone. We shift the ID’s of de-commed/broken/under repair units into a digital ‘holding pen’ which isn’t shown on the map to get around this, but its a bit complicated.
Flo - the catch is defiing ‘never’. Maybe a unit only gets called out on special ocassions or in in repair for 2 months. Making a unit turn invisible until it is used again causes a lot of problems. The unit may actually be available, but because it hasn’t been used for a long time it doesn’t show up on the dispatcher board. And I doubt the unit P+ FRU actually started broadcasting again at the wreckers if it was on fire - fried battery = no power = no transmit.
But my suspicion is that no-one has actually told the techs “this unit is buggered, make it go away” - it happens waaay to often here.
As for the unit which went for a swim, we had one which raised a few eyebrows a while back - Latitude X, Longitude Y, Altitude 10+ kilometers…. Guess the International Space Station called the emergency number.
January 18th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Thats a job for Thunderbird 5!
January 18th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
I will be visiting London February 6-13 and would like to tour a dispatch facility. I’m a supervisor for the Salt Lake City Fire Department in Utah, where we work closely with Medical Priorities.
Any information about a contact would be great. I was given the name James Gummet, but don’t know where to locate him.
January 18th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Just in case you haven’t already seen it this site is getting lots of media interest very interesting!!! http://greatwesternambulance.blog.co.uk/
January 20th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Wah.. got my application forms today for a call-taking position! There’s only 2 jobs going and they tell you “if we haven’t contacted you in a fortnight, ferget it - it’s cos yer rubbish”. I feel sooooo confident - not!
January 27th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
I had to call an ambulance last night unfortionately which reminded me of this blog. Luckily everything turned out to be okay.
I don’t think i’ve ever commented before, i’m not much of a blog reader but i visit here from time to time and it’s definately a favourite.
Andy
January 27th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
This is one of only 4 blogs I read - always good value & interesting. The sharp end of the NHS I guess
January 28th, 2007 at 12:20 am
Andy,
99.9% of the time it works just fine, human nature dictates we remember the 0.1% of the times.
SD
January 28th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
LOL!! I really like that. Ghost ambulances roving the streets of London. Sounds like something Stephen King would write. Anyone thought of making a horror movie about it?
February 12th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Matt,
If your the Matt I trained how to use the S.J.A. system then….. how dare you???
oh hang on you’re right lol
March 8th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
I have to tell u I am absolutely loving this blog. Im in South Africa and studying Basic Life Support or Ambulance Assistant as its better know. I lived in London for 4 years, worked in Harrods as a make up artist and then decided BORING I needed to do something more rewarding and so the EMS bug got me.
I have been into one or two blogs re paramedics but this one is brilliant and I have gotten a few deathly (no pun intended) stares from co-workers when I burst out laughing. Im also learning a lot just by reading your comments. Great stuff Nee Naw, keep if up yeah?