Nee Naw

A call came in late this morning from a posh hotel in Central London.

“It’s one of our guests,” explained the receptionist. “He was shaving and dropped something on to a glass shelf. It broke and the shards hit him on his arm… it’s absolutely pouring with blood, we just can’t get it under control…”

A fairly routine call so far. I moved on to take the rest of the details.

“How old is he?” I asked.

“Well, actually, erm, I wouldn’t like to say…” said the receptionist. “You see, it’s…”

He whispered the name of a very famous male actor, whom I shall henceforth refer to as Actor X.

I tried to think how old the actor in question was, but my knowledge of the celebrity world is entirely gleaned from copies of Heat and Closer left lying around the control room, so had to enter a wild guess. Glancing across the room, I saw that my colleagues on the Central Desk were a bit snowed under, and had sent the call to an ambulance before I’d had time to enter the patient’s name on the ticket. As soon as I’ve finished the call, I ran up to them and pointed it out.

“Actor X? The Actor X?” asked the Sector Controller.

“Yes,” I said proudly.

It was all pandemonium from then on, with all the female staff crowding around the Central Desk, demanding to know how poor Actor X was doing. I was informed that I had underestimated his age by ten years, which I hope brightened his day. The press office was notified and we waited with baited breath. I chuckled to think of the crew receiving this job, thinking “oh, a boring old cut arm” and then seeing the patient’s name.

You’ll be glad to know that the cuts were nasty but not serious and he was stitched up by the local hospital and discharged.

This is the second call I’ve taken about a celebrity: a year or two ago I arranged a blue light transfer all the way across London for East 17 singer Brian Harvey after he was (somewhat bizarrely) run over by the car he was driving. I also took a call for one Harry Potter the other day, but I’m assured it wasn’t the real one.

I was wandering through Hackney at 5.30am on my way to catch a nightbus into work for a 7am start on Sunday morning, wearing my green London Ambulance Service uniform trousers and a plain top. As I strolled past the 24 hour off licence, a young, unkempt looking man jumped out at me. Bearing in mind that Hackney is not the most salubrious of areas, a man jumping out at you at 5.30am is generally a sign of imminent danger. I decided there and then that I would hand over my wallet and prayed that he didn’t have a knife.

The man looked down at my trousers.

“Are you an ambulance?” he asked.

I could have made some wise crack about not having a blue flashing light on my head, but decided it was neither the time nor the place.

“Yes,” I answered, “in a manner of speaking…”

“I got this wart on my hand!” he said, brandishing the offending article about two inches from my nose. “What should I do about it?”

I inched away from the wart. “Erm…” I said. “You should, erm, go to the chemist and get some wart remover?”

“Did you hear that?” the man said to his friend, as if I’d just told him the meaning of life. “He said I can get wart remover from the chemist. Cheers, mate! I’ll do that!”

I said goodbye and went on my way.

Yesterday, Nee Naw Control took over 5000 calls. That’s 2000 more than an average day; as many as an average New Year’s Eve. Two things were to blame: 30° temperatures in London, and England’s first world cup football match (1-0 to us! Yay!) Both these things had people in the pubs in droves, merrily falling over, fighting and passing out well into the early hours. The delays for ambulances were not funny: after a while every call was someone ringing back to complain that the ambulance had not arrived yet. I did derive some pleasure from telling the maternataxis/toothaches/crying babies etc things like “Sorry, we’re extremely busy, and we have to give priority to genuine life threatening emergencies. You could be waiting some time, if not forever” but I hate, loathe and despise telling genuine callers that they are not getting an ambulance right now because they are all out dealing with silly football fans who can’t handle their beer. The people that were really suffering were the Assist Onlys - that is, old people who have fallen over, can’t get up, and need an ambulance to lift them and check them over. They aren’t a priority, because they aren’t seriously injured, but I just hate to think of old people languishing on the floor, alone, scared and helpless.

One irate relative, whose gran had been on the floor for two hours, lost his temper and started shouting at me. “I’m gonna be honest with you,” he said, “I think you should **** all those football ****wits and tell them, it’s your own fault you got into this mess, you can wait, people like my gran should come first. What kind of system places some idiot who’s drunk too many beers and fallen in a gutter and banged his head over a 90 year old lady who has been on the floor for two hours?”

I don’t normally tolerate being shouted at, but I had to concede this one had a point.

Fingers crossed I am not call taking again tonight as I am starting to lose my voice.