Nee Naw

Being a glutton for punishment who is seemingly unable to step outside the world of Nee Naws for more than five seconds, I decided to forgo my usual Friday night pastime of drinking myself silly in a local pub, and instead headed south of the river for another night of fun and frolics observing what goes on in Steve’s FRU.

Much to my surprise, we were in for a fairly quiet night. There’s no such thing as a quiet Friday night up in Control — the calls come in thick and fast throughout the night, starting with pissed teenagers in parks, progressing to the kebab related fights at closing time, all the way through to spaced out clubbers collapsing at sunrise after one pill too many. The area where Steve works is relatively posh and civilised, so the crews there get off quite lightly, but I was told this was a quiet night even by their standards. We didn’t see a bone fide drunk all night, and (much to my relief) were not called to a single vomit incident. We were, however, called to:

1) Small Child Fallen Off Bike
The evening had already gotten off to an inauspicious start due to the MDT (computer inside the ambulance which tells you where to go and why) utterly refused to start, and whilst I was trying to get it started with a well-aimed steel toe capped boot, Steve’s phone rang with a call. Cue a lot of scrabbling for map books and pieces of paper.

By the time we arrived at the call, the ambulance had already been there for a few minutes - I guess control had been trying to cancel us, but the cancellation hadn’t come through due to the malfunctioning computer. The crew were helping a dazed and morose seven-year-old into the back of the ambulance. He had a large chunk of skin missing from his forehead, but it had stopped bleeding and there wasn’t much else to do, so we bid the crew farewell and trundled back to station to change to a different car with a working MDT.

2) Don’t Care Home
“Oh god, not that place!” exclaimed Steve as the second call flashed up on the MDT. I looked and read “ALDERMAN COOPER SUNSHINE HOME, 1 POKEY DRIVE, SE29. 74 YEAR OLD FEMALE, SEVERE DIFFICULTY IN BREATHING”. If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know that care homes are not my favourite places, and sadly, stepping inside this one did nothing to change that opinion. A harassed-looking carer shoved us in towards the lift, telling us “first floor”.

“Which way when we get there?” asked Steve.

“Dunno,” said the carer.

“Um…” said Steve.

“There’ll be a nurse to meet you,” said the nurse hastily.

There wasn’t, of course. We spent two minutes looking gormless in the hallway and asking various disinterested staff members if they knew anything about an ambulance. They didn’t. Eventually someone appeared and jostled us towards poor old Doris, a frail woman languishing alone in a side room. She really did have severe difficulty in breathing (unlike 90% of people who think they do). Steve and the ambulance crew did her observations, which weren’t very healthy sounding. In particular, her blood oxygen saturation was very low, but picked up rapidly when she was given an oxygen cylinder.

“How long as she been like this?” asked Steve.

“Since she got here, on and off” said the nurse unhelpfully.

“How long has she been here?” asked Steve.

“Dunno,” said the nurse, scrambling around for the patient’s medical records. “Oh, two months.”

“So she’s been like this for two months?!” said Steve incrediously.

“Yes,” said the nurse. “No, I mean… we called the doctor this morning and he said she had a chest infection. He prescribed antibiotics. But she hasn’t got them yet.”

“Why not?” asked Steve. It seemed like the antibiotics were rather urgently needed…

“Because they’re not here,” said the nurse, as if this was any kind of explanation.

Steve and the ambulance crew decided they were wasting their breath, and carted her off to the ambulance.

3) Sick Child
After driving three times around a labyrinthine estate with no names on any of the houses, we were eventually ushered through the window of a ground floor flat towards a one year old boy having a possible sickle cell crisis. Working in a control room, I am not used to such acrobatics, and nearly ripped my trousers in the process.

One look at the child told me he was definitely not having a sickle cell crisis and in fact had what could be described as “a bit of a cold”. Steve poked and prodded the offending child with various instruments to confirm this. At this point, the three-strong training crew from Steve’s station all burst through the window and looked totally non plussed by the scene before them.

“He looked a lot worse earlier,” said the child’s mother apologetically.

So there we were, five green clad ambulance staff, two ambulances and a ton of equipment standing around a child with a runny nose. I despair.

4) Unconscious
It was just getting to 11pm, so I strongly suspected our next call would be alcohol related.

“2 BOXY HOUSE, BIG ROAD, SE30. UNCONSCIOUS MALE, ? BEEN DRINKING”

This came as little surprise. On arrival at Boxy House, we found the door open and a frail old lady cowering behind it.

“He’s in there” she said, motioning towards the lounge.

The patient was lying on the floor beside an old fashioned armchair. He was flat on his back and deathly pale. His eyes and mouth were open, but he wasn’t moving. I saw Steve’s eyebrows go up - he was thinking the same thing as me. Had my rather macabre wish for a suspended been granted.

No. As we got closer, we could see the patient was breathing. He was middle aged, and naked except for a greying vest and a lemon coloured blanket which someone had strategically placed over his genitalia to preserve his modesty.

The old lady - the patient’s mother - told us that the patient was called Jeremy.

“Jeremy, Jeremy, can you hear me?” asked Steve. “Open your eyes, Jeremy.”

No response. Steve poked Jeremy, and he stirred slightly and groaned. Steve set about doing his observations. Jeremy didn’t put up a fight, he lay there flaccidly allowing Steve to poke, prod and attach various instruments to various parts of his anatomy. The observations were all normal, but he still didn’t look like your standard drunk to us. Though his mother said that he drank regularly, there was only one empty wine bottle in the house, he didn’t smell of alcohol and there was no abusiveness or vomit (thank god).

“Can you raise your hands?” asked Steve, checking for any sign of paralysis which might indicate a stroke. To our surprise, Jeremy raised both arms in the air as if trying to envelop Steve in a hug. There was certainly nothing wrong with his movement, but yet he retained this glazed expression and inability to speak.

Having established that the problem was nothing immediately life threatening, the crew picked up Jeremy and bundled him into a carry chair. Unfortunately this dislodged the lemon yellow blanket and I got to see rather more than I bargained for. The cause of Jeremy’s collapse remains a mystery.

5) Road Traffic Accident

“Ooh, an RTA!” exclaimed Steve as the MDT rang. “Flipping heck! In E20?! They’re having a laugh!”

The call was four and a half miles away, the other side of the Thames, and we had eight minutes to get there. I made sure my seatbelt was done up and braced myself for a white knuckle ride.

Seven and a half minutes later, we pulled out outside the Queen Victoria pub in Albert Square. The ambulance was already there, parked next to an awkwardly angled car and a pool of blood. Steve and I jumped on board.

“This is James,” the ambulance crew told us. “Hit by a car at 30 miles a hour, bullseyed the windscreen. He’s got quite a bad head injury.”

James was laid out on the trolley bed with his neck in a brace. He didn’t seem very impressed with the inside of the ambulance. He kept telling the crew to “get off” and “go away” and other less printable phrases of similar meaning. It was difficult to tell if his belligerence was due to the alcohol he had obviously been consuming or his head injury. Steve cut his trousers off to see if he had any other injuries (he didn’t seem very pleased about that, either) but his body was unharmed except for a graze on one elbow - it seemed that his head had taken all the force.

We didn’t hang around long and soon headed off to A+E on blue lights. Steve and I followed behind in the FRU.

At Walford General A+E, they took James through to the resus room. He was getting increasingly agigated and thrashing around on the bed, trying to make his escape.

“It’s a bit of an overreaction, isn’t it?” he bellowed. “I’m not even hurt! Get these blocks off my head!” He sat up and for the first time I saw the extent of his head injury. Most of the skin was missing from the back of his head, there was a huge flap of hairy flesh hanging off and a river of blood dripping on to the bed. The ambulance crew helped keep James still whilst the hospital staff bandaged his head and got a line into his arm. James seemed to calm down a little after that, so we bade the hospital farewell and got back on the road.

6) Fight

This call had come through from the police. Police calls tend to be rather sparse in information; this one just said “Two males with head injuries”. Seeing police cars on the road, we pulled up to see two men in their twenties smoking cigarettes and talking to the police. Both were covered with bruises. One was looking morose and not speaking. He had a huge gash on one eyebrow. The other was talking animatedly, a bit like Vicky Pollard in Little Britain, to a frustrated looking policeman.

“And then I said, Phil, look, there’s a guy over there, picking on a girl. Isn’t that right, Phil? It’s not on to pick on girls if you’re a guy, is it? So we went over, by that car over there, they were, and I said, listen mate, leave her alone. It’s not on, is it? And he said, like, f*** off, it’s none of your business. So I went up to him, and I said, and he said, and then he punched me, so I grabbed him by the neck, and I hit him proper hard, and then suddenly three of his mates appeared from nowhere, and they grabbed sticks and bottles, right, and there was at least five of them, and then this Asian guy in a green t-shirt, he grabs Phil, and knocks him to the ground, and - Phil, mate, I’m sorry to tell you this - but you were flat out man, and he was kicking you and kicking you and then he bashed you over the head with the bit of wood and I thought you were a goner, mate. I thought they’d kill us! Ten of them, there were! But you know, man” - here he paused to pat Phil on the back - “I don’t regret what we did, because I know we acted with honour and our consciences are clear. Isn’t that right, Phil?”

Phil said nothing and rolled his eyes. Finally being able to get a word in edgeways, Steve started to examine Phil and Jim.

“Nasty gash you’ve got here…” he began.

“Oh yes,” piped up Jim. “I think he’ll need stitching. Will this need stitching? I think I’ve dislocated my shoulder too!”

At this point, he waved the “dislocated” shoulder around for emphasis, proving that he had done nothing of the sort.

“Phil,” asked Steve. “Have you had any vomiting, dizziness, double vision…”

“It’s okay!” said Jim. “He doesn’t have any brain damage!”

Steve and I started to give up at this point, as Jim was evidently determined to take on the jobs of the police and ambulance services. We watched as he commanded the police to interview every man who walked down the street (Jim: “There he is! The Asian guy in the green shirt!” Police: “Er, that’s a black guy in a red shirt. Are you sure?”)

I got the impression that a) this was neither the first nor the last time this sort of thing had happened b) Jim was actually quite pleased that he had been beaten up and was enjoying the attention and drama c) Phil was going to get very very sick of recanting this story in the near future.

After what seemed like an eternity, the ambulance turned up and took Phil and Jim off to hospital for stitching.

For the rest of the night, nothing happened and I got some well earned sleep on the sofa of the ambulance station.

Nee Naw has been drowning in spam these last few days, and despite having numerous filters in place, I’m still wasting inordinate amounts of time deleting comments. Therefore, I have changed settings so that you will find your comments are held in a moderation queue unless you have a previously approved comment. Sorry for any inconvenience, blah blah blah.

And BOG OFF to spammers!!

Edit. Got two of the plug-ins suggested, and they seem to be working a treat. Please let me know if you have any problems posting real comments! Thanks everyone.

As I’ve mentioned here before, the standard phrase us call takers have to use when someone enquires how long the ambulance will take is “As soon as possible.” This phrase is churned out for legal reasons and, of course, means nothing at all. If it’s possible, the ambulance might turn up in two minutes, but it might not be possible to send one for another two hours.

So, today we all received a letter entitled “Questions and Answers about the new Agenda For Change payscales”. One of the questions was: “When will I receive my backpay?”

The answer given was “You will receive your backpay as soon as possible after acceptance and assimilation”.

Sounds oddly familiar…

Late on Friday night, reports started to come in of a person set on fire in the toilets of the Leek and Winkle pub in Hackney. At first the call takers considered that it might be a hoax or a false alarm, since (thank god) this kind of thing isn’t exactly commonplace, but this theory was quickly disproved by the fact that we took about ten calls on it, all giving the same details. Very odd, we thought. If you were going to murder someone in such a horrid and dramatic way, surely you would drag them to a field in the middle of nowhere before dowsing them in petrol and igniting them? Surely doing it in a public toilet is the easiest way to get caught?

When a call like this comes in, as well as sending an ambulance, the first thing the dispatch desk does is to get on to the police and fire brigade. Most of the time they will already know because a member of the public will have called them (personally, if I saw a man on fire, my first thought would be “fire engine!” and not “ambulance!”) but we call them anyway, to be sure they are aware and so we can co-ordinate our response with theirs.

The fire brigade were on their way, but they didn’t have any more information than us. The police, however, were able to shed a little light on the matter. The following message appeared on screens via the electronic link:

“One of our patrol cars passed a stag party o/s the Leek and Winkle 30 mins ago. One male was dressed as a mummy, wrapped in toilet paper. Believe this may be related.”

As the crew on scene later reported, the police were right. The stag’s friends had thought it was hilarious to dress him as a mummy and send him stumbling around outside the pub with toilet paper over his eyes. One friend thought it would be even funnier to hold a cigarette lighter to the end of the toilet paper. He had no idea how flammable the toilet paper was. Unable to stop the flames, the friends had bundled him into the toilet and tried to put them out with water. By now the man was a seething mass of flames and had caught the attention of the other pub goers, which was when we were called.

By the time our ambulance and HEMS team reached the patient, the fire was out, but he had 40% burns and was blue lighted into hospital in a critical condition.

I think it’s safe to say that the wedding is off.

“Hello, ambulances!” said a friendly voice. “It’s Commontown Police here; we’ve got one for your attendance.”

“Jolly good,” I said. It’s always nice to talk to other services, like the police, fire brigade, buses and tube. They’re always so much friendlier than the general public. “Where are we off to?”

“West Common Road, near the church. We’ve just had a report from a man walking his dog who’s seen a man lying in the bushes — deceased, he thinks. He’s too scared to approach. We’re on way… are you?”

“WEST COMMON ROAD, SE29″ I typed. “MALE LYING IN BUSHES, POSSIBLY DECEASED.” By the time I’d flicked through the triage questions, an ambulance and a FRU were on way, and I told the police so.

The FRU in question just happened to belong to one Mr Steve Gibbs. Spotting this, I was tempted to write “MORNING STEVE!!!” in the special instructions, but I don’t think it would have gone down too well with my boss. Instead, I made a small but significant alteration to the diagnosis:

MALE LYING IN BUSHES, POSSIBLY DECEASED

now read:

MALE LYING IN BUSHES, POSSIBLY DEAD

Steve knows that I’m the only person in Nee Naw Control who ever dares say the word “dead”…

Sure enough, half an hour later, my phone buzzed with the following message:

“Are you working today? Just took a call about a corpse in some bushes. Sounded like your style…”

I’ll let Steve finish the story…

Just a little clarification on the last post…

The last post was not meant as an endorsement of Agenda For Change or as a poke in the eye for the EMTs who did badly out of it. On the whole, Agenda For Change has been a bad thing. Years ago, when it was first brought up, we were told that 90% of NHS workers would get a payrise out of it. This has plainly not been the case. Our road crews in particular were lead to believe they were going to be better off to the tune of several grand per year, but in the end some had small pay increases while others ended up having their pay frozen.

Things aren’t even perfect for us EMDs. We’ve been put on Band 3, which is the same as receptionists and administrators and below secretaries. (No offence to any receptionists, administrators and secretaries out there, I know the work you do is valuable, but I’ve worked in similar roles in the past and they don’t even come close in terms of responsibility, stress and conditions). The only reason we’ve seen a pay increase is because we get a 25% bonus for unsociable hours — nothing to do with the work we do or the lives that are in our hands. EMDs who only work day shifts will be having their pay frozen. And, confusingly, it only seems to be London EMDs who got a rise — EMDs elsewhere have ended up on an even lower banding. How can this be when we all do the same job?

However. I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I am approximately £1.5k a year better off due to AFC, and it’s money I badly need. Feeling guilty about my payrise or turning it down on principle is not going to make a blind bit of difference to the predicaments of those who got screwed over, and quite frankly, it’s about time something nice happened to EMDs. We spend our whole lives rotting away in a dingy underground control room, hated by the public, hated by crews, hated by hospitals, no decent breaks, jumping through hoops just to get a day’s annual leave, and it is really about time something went in our favour for once. We may have a few extra quid in our pockets, but I’m sure none of the road crews would like to come into the control room and take our places.

(If any of them do, please let me know… I’ll gladly take your job!)

Anyway, I shouldn’t get too excited about any of this until the money starts appearing in my bank account. No doubt things will find a way to go wrong at the last minute!