Two Seats

A pair of expensive-looking trainers adorned the feet that stuck out from behind the bush. It was the only part of Jacek that was visible from the street. A concerned member of the public walking home late at night called the ambulance when he thought someone must be lying dead. It's a good thing he waited, because we'd never have spotted the shoes from the road.

"He's in there. Not sure if he's breathing or not, didn't want to get too close."

At five in the morning I had to ask what he was doing walking around the streets.

"I was on my way home from work. I do funny hours too."

"Oh really? What do you do?"

"I'm a nightclub bouncer."

I should have guessed really. Six feet four in every direction, close cropped hair, and a badly fitting suit - a perfect stereotype. The fact that someone who intimidates people for a living was a little nervous about approaching a pair of shoes, or at least whatever or whoever was attached to them, seemed a little ironic. I shook the patient's legs and one of the shoes fell off, making our bouncer friend visibly recoil.

A groggy mumble of "Go away!" from deep inside the bush only added to his discomfort.

"Do you still need me here, or am I alright to go home?"

"Yeah, sure. We're OK here. Thanks for your help."

He practically ran away from the scene.

After a few more attempts at waking up our patient, he finally relented and climbed out of the branches, hampered slightly by the thorns of a lone yellow rose. His face appeared last bearing a five o'clock shadow, but at the wrong five o'clock.

"Go away! I'm sleeping!"

There's gratitude for you.

"You can't sleep here. People will think you're dead and call ambulances!"

"Go away! I'm sleeping!"

"Where do you live?"

"I live here. Go away."

His clothes, other than the odd branch and a few green leaves, were clean, maybe even new. Not exactly the attire of a long-term homeless man. 

"Do you have any family in the area?" 

"No. They not live here." I guessed by his accent that he must have left his family in Eastern Europe somewhere. 

"And friends?" 

"My friend he is here." 

"Where's here?"

He turned round and looked back into the bushes.

"Here!" He points aggressively at the broken branches. "Don't you speak English good?" 

I looked at him, looked at my crewmate, shrugged my shoulders, and climbed half way into the bushes looking for a drunk friend. 

"Jacek, There's no-one in here!" 

"He is there! You not see him!"

I look again.

"There's definitely no-one here!" 

"He is there! Only I see him. You no see him!" 

I climb back out of the greenery, and look much the same as our patient with leaves and bits of broken branch all over me. 

"You mean to say I've gone looking for an invisible man?" 

My crewmate takes one look at me and tries to stifle a giggle. We help Jacek into the ambulance and as I'm about to take my seat, he suddenly shouts. 

"You not sit there! Friend - he is there!"

All of a sudden, the trolley seems a much better choice of seat. At the hospital, the waiting room is busy, and I take a minute to look around.

"What are you waiting for?" asks my crewmate.

"Just trying to find two seats together." 

At Home

And so, with no pomp or circumstance whatsoever, it came to an end. A mundane call just before six o'clock in the morning, a simple handover to the crew, and a slightly solemn and very lonely drive back to station. I don't know what I was expecting or hoping for.

Almost five years ago, I started it for the first time. It lasted 6 months, and I hated almost every minute of it. I stuck at it because it was challenging and different, but I still couldn't stand it. At the end of the allocated half-dozen moons, you couldn't see me for dust in my haste to get away. Maybe I was just too young and inexperienced, maybe I was just lacking in confidence. Whatever it was, I was pleased it was over.

Almost two years ago, through lack of choice and with fear and trepidation, I went back to it. Last week it came to a halt, again through no choice of my own. My time on the FRU, the single-manned (personed) Fast Response Unit, has ended. All the things I hated about it the first time round, I loved this time, and I will sorely miss. I guess I'd grown up a little in the interim, and eventually started to feel at home in the FRU.

The most appealing is the challenge of having to think on your own, often for extended periods of time, and sometimes with very ill patients.

Starting a resus on your own and having to carry it out with no back-up for quarter of an hour.

Managing the asthmatic patient who's deteriorating before your very eyes.

Relieving the pain in the elderly patient who's fallen and fractured their hip.

And being unable to transport any of them.

Delivering a baby and praying for it to take its first breath.

Supporting the dislocated shoulder of a brave kid and watching them get drunk on entonox.

Sticking a plaster, or a band-aid, depending on where you are, on an adult who's behaving like a spoilt child.

And telling him so.

Being the first at the scene of a suicide attempt, working hard to save a life, only to see the patient whisked off in the ambulance or the helicopter, and staying at the scene filling in paperwork.

Being the first at the scene of a fatal accident, and having to call it before anyone else even turns up.

Being the first at the scene of a cardiac arrest, a terminally ill cancer patient, and grieving with the family.

And being left alone with your thoughts and a cup of coffee.

Travelling with a crew and them hating you for pulling rank.

Travelling with a crew and them loving you for pulling rank.

Travelling with a crew and the patient thanking you all. Together.

And having to justify it all. To control, to the crew, to the patient, to yourself.

Now, it's back to a mix of real ambulances and a few FRU shifts, but it won't be my car.

It'll be nice to have someone to share with, someone who I can look at over my shoulder when I'm unsure, and hopefully vice versa, someone to sing along to the radio with between and on the way to calls.

They say, whoever they are, that a change is as good as a holiday. Truth is, I could really do with one right now. It's just that I'll miss being at home.

Who'd have thought it?

Diesel

Three-year-olds are a law entirely unto themselves. Having had two of them over the last 3 years, I'm only just recovering, just in time for them to be four- and five-year-olds. It's not much easier, but at least they can better articulate what it is that they're tantruming about.

So, with all my experience and battle-weariness, I know the following:

Three-year-olds should be active.

Three-year-olds should be vibrant.

Three-year-olds should be very, very good.

Although three-year-olds can be horrid.

Three-year-olds, however, should never, ever, be unconscious.

Or grey.

Or breathing shallow, useless breaths.

The nursery staff look at us with pleading eyes, their gaze shrieking more than their combined voices.

"He just collapsed. Just fell to the floor and stopped. Is he dead?"

I look at Jim, and he at me. There's no need for words between us, we read each other like books.

Oxygen goes on, and we help push it into Tyo's lungs.

Defib pads go on, but, thankfully we don't need to use them. Yet.

We carry Tyo down to the ambulance, Jim jumps into the pilot's seat.

A nursery nurse, tears streaming down her face, sits down in the back, flustered and frustrated at the fact she can't do anything to help.

I feel the same.

Just pumping oxygen in seems so mechanical, so basic, making me feel powerless and useless.

Usually I prefer to sit in the back with the patient, and let someone else do the driving. Seems to me to be the better job.

This time I think it's the other way round.

Jim's got the best job for now.

Whilst I'm force-feeding Tyo the oxygen,

Jim gets to force-feed the ambulance some diesel.