More Blood, More Sweat, and Another Cup of Tea by Tom Reynolds. Page: 3
y would like to get to him sooner rather than later.
Our ambulance was fourth on scene. When I arrived I spoke to a stationmate to see what he wanted us to do, who he wanted us to look after. Normally he is the station clown, now he's all serious and professional, no fake beards or silly glasses.
Everyone gets checked over, all the ambulance crews are calm, it's serious but it doesn't look like anyone is about to die; more a case of being careful moving the patients 'just in case'.
The roof comes off the car and with the help of another crew and some firefighters we get our patient out safely and strapped to a board. He is freezing cold. He is not wearing warm clothing so the delay in getting him out and the terrible weather have us concerned for his body temperature.
We are in a new ambulance so the heater works. Turning it up to full we are soon sweating as we assess the patient and prepare for transport.
I get on the radio to pre-alert the hospital. For some reason the radio isn't working properly and our Control can't hear me, so I use my phone instead. Thankfully it works.
I travel a mile over speed-bumps to get to the hospital; there is no other route and every bump makes me aware of my patient in the back being jostled around. It's not the first time that I curse the council.
After all our patients are safe at the hospital we stand outside and laugh and joke. We reconstruct the accident, we talk about the more injured ones and we mock the driving skills of one of the officers.
We occasionally help people.
It's a good job sometimes.
MORE BLOOD, MORE SWEAT and ANOTHER CUP of TEA
Introduction
I'm not special. All I am is one of the faceless people who work for an ambulance service. If you are lucky you'll never meet me in a professional capacity. Most of the time you won't even think about us; perhaps only occasionally sparing a thought for our work when an ambulance whizzes past you on the street, lights flashi