Just as I was preparing to leave work, there was a serious stabbing on my patch. The HEMS team sent the helicopter. I explained what was going on to the night turn allocator, and set off on my way home.
Just as I was leaving the building, I heard a loud whirr overhead and looked up to see HEMS flying low above me. My first thought is “Oh, I wonder where it’s going?” Then I remembered, of course, it was going to MY call. The call I’d handed over less than five minutes ago.
It’s funny, when you leave the building, you hand over the calls and the ambulances to the next person and you forget the world you are walking out into is the same world that you’ve been sending crews out into all day. Sometimes you switch off too well when you leave and forget that it’s still all going on. Of course, sometimes I don’t switch off as well. Occasionally I wake up in the middle of the night in a blind panic because I think I’ve fallen asleep at my desk and that no one has been watching the screen. Then I remember I am in bed and there is no screen.
HEMS must have finished with the stabbing by now. I wonder if the boy is alive?
April 27th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Have you ever had the "I'm still at work, and I've forgeotten how to do my job" dream? Now *that's* a nasty one.
April 27th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Or when you wake up and think you've forgotten to finish something… Worse still is when you realise you're right – luckily when this happened to me once I was a lowly admin worker in IT and no-one was going to die because I'd forgotten to send an email, but I still didn't get back to sleep that night!
April 27th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
I used to hear alarm noises (from remote dial up video sites) in my dream and would often dream i was at work… in my bed. wearing my usual bedtime attire! (its a number of items between -1 on 1!) very disturbing when an alarm comes in in my dream and i dare not get out of bed to answer it!
April 27th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Hm, was this last night? I live near Dalston and we had a helecopter flyling low over us for aaaages
April 27th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
I'm guessing no happy ending if it was this guy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8021440…
April 28th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Do you ever find out what happens to anyone you send calls to?
Perhaps it's better not knowing – keeps things separate
April 28th, 2009 at 6:08 am
We can ask the crews, but usually we can only find out what happens in the first couple of hours at hospital. A lot of the stories end up in Metro, though…
April 28th, 2009 at 6:09 am
It wasn't him, but it has been in the news and sadly the patient did die. I had a feeling he would.
April 28th, 2009 at 6:10 am
It was last night but it wasn't Dalston (I was working on a different sector from usual). Maybe the helicopter near you was something to do with the link Hannah posted below?
May 28th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
yeah i wonder
June 8th, 2009 at 6:22 am
i don't think so what happen to them ………………………..
May 22nd, 2013 at 12:20 pm
It was last night but it wasn't Dalston (I was working on a different sector from usual). Maybe the helicopter near you was something to do with the link Hannah posted below?
May 22nd, 2013 at 12:20 pm
We can ask the crews, but usually we can only find out what happens in the first couple of hours at hospital. A lot of the stories end up in Metro, though…