Bad Weather

Heading through the terrible weather towards the scene at right angles to the accident, the level of carnage looks all the more brutal. We're the third ambulance to arrive, adding to the sea of flashing lights. Rain drops look like tiny blue specks of light, reflecting the LEDs from all the emergency vehicles. Police cordon off each end of the street as fire crews start to cut through the mangled remains of what used to be a private car. The two occupants of the first car have managed to escape their wrecked former mode of transport and walked away with nothing but scratched arms and, for the driver at least, a bruised ego.

The other driver wasn't so lucky. Trapped in his seat by the crumpled front of the car, his head pinned back by the first paramedic on scene, all Terry wanted to do was move. One quick glance and I realised that it wasn't going to be a simple question of taking the roof off and dragging him out. There would have to be pieces of metal bent against their natural direction, some cut away all together, before we could even begin to think about getting him out of the car. 

And all the while, the rain continues to fall. 

"You must be getting soaked out there!" said Terry, talking through a misty oxygen mask. 

"Drenched to my core, but I'll worry about that later." 

At least he was in fairly good spirits. 

"Have you got any pain anywhere?" 

"Just my legs, but that's probably because they're wearing part of the engine." 

"No pins and needles, no pain anywhere else?"

"Nope. Nothing at all." 

"That's good. Can you move your toes for me?" 

Terry tells me that he's following my instructions, but his toes don't seem to move. Maybe I just can't see properly, but in any case, there's not much I can do about it.

"OK, we'll check on you a bit more once we've got you out of there." 

It took almost two hours of the fire brigade cutting, stretching and bending metal to get Terry free. In the meantime, we did what we could; gave him fluids and pain relief to keep him stable and comfortable. He finally appeared, borne out of his car on a flat, rigid rescue board. One look at his legs was all it took to see that they were both broken below the knee. 

"Can I just see the car before you take me away?" 

"Well, not really. It's the other side of the ambulance and you're now joining the wet-suit brigade. Besides, I think you need to get to hospital." 

Terry looked disappointed. 

"I'll tell you what - let's get you inside and out of this tropical downpour, and I'll go and take a photo for you on my phone." 

"Sounds like a plan to me!" 

We moved the trolley inside, turn the heating onto the highest level and my crew mate checked him out from top to toe again. I ran outside into the pouring rain, took a photograph as promised, and ran back inside into the dry.

"So, you sure you want to see this?" 

"You bet. Might as well have nightmares about something I've seen, rather than something I've imagined." 

"Alright then, here you go." 

With his head strapped to the board and stuck between two head-blocks, only his eyes moved. 

"Well, it's taken me twenty years!"

"First accident in twenty years?" 

"No. Third actually." 

"So what's taken you twenty years?" 

"Well, I've always wanted a convertible. I just thought I'd pick better weather to put the roof down." 

Oil Spill

Monday morning. 

Early. 

As the world begins its weekly ritual, a few tired night workers are preparing for their midweek weekend. Empty milk floats head back to their depots, their early morning rounds completed, many a front doorstep adorned with their goods. Autumnal sunrise greets the early risers, the sun shedding plenty of light but not yet enough warmth to clear the dew from the grass and the roads. 

Mike is one of the masses, joining the rat-race and heading into work. In an effort to make his journey easier and quicker, he abandoned his car in favour of two wheels. For months, he'd enjoyed the fact that he could cut through London's standstill rush hour, leave home a little later, arrive back a little earlier, adding a few precious extra minutes with his family every day. 

The call on the screen brings back memories, ones that I'm not keen to relive. Motorcycle under a van, status of patient unknown. When the call comes in, I'd just finished dealing with an acute case of probable paediatric schoolitis, a common childhood ailment, regularly apparent on Monday mornings. There were twenty minutes left of the shift. The call was some five miles away, and would take me straight past the front door of the station, frustratingly close, yet so desperately far. My relief was probably already there drinking coffee and awaiting my return. A few minutes later, Mike and I meet for the first time. 

Unlike the call I'd feared, Mike's head was visible, and he was actually sitting up, helmet off, and talking quite happily. His right leg, however, is wedged between the two back wheels of the van. His bike is lying on its side in front of the van, smashed shards of shimmering glass mingling on the road and glistening in the sunlight. Just in front of that is a small pile of powder covering what we presume is some oil on the road. 

"I don't really remember what happened, I just lost it on the wet road I think. Next thing I know, there's a van on top of me!" 

A quick conversation with the van driver gives us a few more clues and leads us to believe that Mike's had his leg run over by both the front and the first of the back wheels, with the van coming to a halt before the third wheel added insult to injury. 

Unsure of the exact circumstances, Mike's neck is immobilised in a collar and he's laid flat. The fire brigade, having arrived a few minutes later, have secured the van and lifted it high enough for us to get to see Mike's leg. His leathers are intact with only a few scuff marks, but his foot is lying at an unnatural angle, giving away the secret hidden beneath the leathers. As we cut the trouser leg away, the damage is obvious. Several breaks, the worst at the ankle. 

As usual, several things happen at once. A cannula is placed in Mike's arm, giving easy access for some pain relief. A scoop stretcher is placed under him, ready to move as soon as he is secured. Some bandages and a splint are applied to his leg. All while someone else checks for any other injuries, and luckily, finds none.

In the ambulance, once Mike was settled and his pain controlled enough, there are a few moments for a quick conversation.  

"I think you might have slipped on some oil, or diesel. There's a patch already covered up with some gravel, just by where you came off your bike!" 

"You talking about the white grit-like stuff?" 

"Yeah, that's it. Someone must have put it there not long before, it still looked quite clean." 

"Ah. That's not grit or gravel." 

"How do you know that?"

"Well, I work for a pet shop." 

"And?" 

"Well, I was on my way to work with a big bag of cat litter hanging off the handlebar..." 

The 492

The 492 bus is standing on top of my patient.

It hasn't run over him.

He fell, and landed underneath it.

A feat of luck, judgement and special effects worthy of Hollywood made sure that the actual wheels missed him.

He's a little dazed and confused, and mostly scared. There are no obvious injuries other than a small lump on the front of his head.

We extricate him, and upset the fire-brigade in so doing. I think they felt we stole their thunder. He's moved to the ambulance and reassessed. As we do so, his phone rings, and "The Boss" appears on the screen.

"That's my wife", he says. "Can you answer it, and tell her I'm OK?"

I open the flip-style phone, say hello, and before I can get another word in, she goes into a gush of announcements.

"I'm gonna be late!" She yells.

"I'm on the 492 bus!" She hollers.

"A man's just gone under the bus and we're not allowed off!" She finally stops.

I whisper to our patient, asking his wife's name. "Lisa", he whispers back.

"Er, Lisa", I begin, "I'm from the ambulance service. We're with your husband at the moment. He's OK, but would like to speak to you in person. He can't talk on the phone right now, but if you get off the bus and walk to the ambulance next to you, you can see him for yourself".

The line goes dead, and an instant later, there's a knock on the ambulance door. I open the door for Lisa to jump in.

The babble starts again, a mix of shock, upset, confusion, and relief.

"You IDIOT!" She shouts at him. "You complete and utter MORON! I was phoning to tell you to go a different way home, the whole place is jammed. And then I find out that you're the one jamming it!"

She bursts into tears, looks at her husband, and as we slowly pull away from the scene, she gently kisses his lumpy forehead.

"I'm never getting the 492 again..."

Nosey Neighbours

"40 West St, East Area, Baby crying constantly for last hour".

It's a call that's come directly from the police.

That's an emergency? That's what I spent all that time training for? You need parenting classes, not an emergency ambulance! Nevertheless, it's off to the address to see what's probably a teething baby and convey it needlessly to hospital. One of the residents of number 40 is standing on the doorstep, and we head over towards them. It's about one in the morning, the street's quiet, and other than our voices, there are no other sounds. Not even a crying baby.

"You managed to calm the baby down then?"

"No, the baby's still crying. Follow me please."

We walk up a flight of stairs, and I still don't hear any crying. We're shown into a back room, and finally, a faint cry can be heard. Except that there's no baby in the room, and it's almost as though, judging by the direction of the noise, that the baby's been hidden in the cupboard.

"Where's the baby?"

"We think it's next door. There are no babies in this house, and it's been crying for nearly two hours now."

"If the baby's next door, why did you bring us here?" I can't help thinking that this is a case of nosey-neighbouritis.

"We've tried knocking on the door, ringing the doorbell, and nothing. No-one's answering. They're a really nice couple. He works some weird hours, think he's a copper or detective or something, and she's always home with the little one. Only seems to go out for shopping."

We go back out the house and try to look through the front door and windows. There's a light shining through from the back of the house, and some flickering that suggests the television is on too. Someone's definitely home. An adult. Just like the neighbours, we try the doorbell, we try banging on the door and the windows. When there's still no response, we ask the police to turn up. Just to tug a little harder on the heartstrings in the police control room, and hopefully ensure a more swift response, we tell them that there's possibly an infant in danger.

It works. Less than five minutes later there are two units on scene.

One of the officers goes back into number 40, into the back garden, and scales the fence to see if he can find anyone or anything. A few seconds later, there's a yell.

"She's here, on the ground. The doors are locked, someone get the enforcer!"

The enforcer is affectionately known as the big red door key. It's a single-operator battering ram, made of metal and painted red, weighing several kilos. It opens most front doors with just a few well-placed blows. Hence the key reference. It's not carried in all police vehicles, and sometimes has to be specially requested to scene.

Whilst we wait, and feeling a little more athletic than normal, I decide to scale the fence myself to have a look.

She's lying on the floor of the kitchen, face down and looking away from the door. The only movement is her slow, rhythmical breathing. The television is showing some shopping channel, trying to sell an item for thousands that is probably only worth its weight in paper. As I'm standing next to the police officer, his radio blares back that the enforcer is on its way, but it'll take 15 minutes or so to get there. At a rough estimate, and looking from a distance through the patio door, our patient was breathing no more than 6 times a minute, barely enough to sustain life for any length of time. Back over the fence and through the neighbours' front door, I call out to Kim.

"I need the oxygen bag and a blanket!" My crew mate looks at me confused.

"Have you found a way in?"

"Not yet, but we're about to!"

I take the items round the back of the house, and grab another pair of hands in the form of a tall police officer. The officers take one top corner each of the blanket, and place it over the double-glazed door.

"Wish me luck!" The first tentative strike at the glass meets with stubborn resistance.

The second is more successful. The shattered glass cascades downwards like a shower of hail, the blanket protecting the officers and me from getting covered. The patient is far enough from the door not to be at any risk.

One step into the house and the smell gives away its secret. One officer goes to the front door and opens it. He yells to everyone not to touch any light switches.

I go to the unconscious patient and using a bag and mask, help to pump oxygen into her starved lungs.

The second officer goes straight to the gas hob and turns off the ring that had blown out.

Kim runs upstairs and grabs a baby, no more than six months old.

A torrent of instructions are yelled in all directions, from needing more oxygen and opening all the windows, to getting the carry chair, alerting the fire-brigade, the need to get us all out and both mother and baby to hospital in a hurry. No other crew is available, so we're taking them both. with a 2 metre tall policeman playing nursemaid to the baby, she looks like a miniature doll in his arms.

At hospital, when they're no longer our patients, it's a little easier to reflect. To ask all the what ifs.

What if we'd have been a little longer?

What if the baby hadn't cried so loudly?

What, despite my initial cynicism, if the neighbours hadn't been so nosey?

Luckily, we never found out.

Suit of Armour

Armies, thousands of years ago, would wear them as they invaded another land.

King Arthur's knights donned them before battle.

Modern-day soldiers protect themselves in modern-day versions.

And we, as Emergency Services workers, have our very own models too.

There's no other way to explain why we do what we do, whilst knowing that what we do is sometimes a little bit crazy.

*****

It's the sort of news that makes people in the UK mutter about becoming too much like America. Random shootings, killing sprees, mass murder and then suicide. The horrendous events in Cumbria, in the north of England, sent shock waves not only through the usually quiet villages and towns where the killings took place, but all the way through the land.

It's happened here before. Dunblane, in Scotland, was the site of one such atrocity in 1996, where the victims were young school children and their teacher. Hungerford, in 1987, was the other infamous occasion where firearms, legally held, were used for such appalling, random, senseless killings. But look at the dates. One is more than 10 years ago, the other more than 20.

Crime is an everyday occurrence, wherever you are. There is violence on the streets, robberies, muggings, murders.

These sorts of crimes, the mass murders, however, are rare, which makes them, if that's at all possible, all that more traumatic for those involved.

The dust hasn't yet even started to settle on this story. The families of those killed and injured are still asking questions to which there are, at least for now, and possibly for ever, no answers. The grieving has started, the injured are being cared for, friends and relatives supporting each other, helping each other through a process that will take many many months, even years. From afar, I feel for them, I'm shocked with them, I try to hold them in my thoughts and prayers.

*

And then, there are the others. The unseen. Those involved who will not be given a second thought. They won't be part of the grieving process or the recovery. They won't make the news talking about their experiences and feelings. Because they are the professionals. They're one step removed, and they can cope. Those members of the Emergency Services, police, ambulance crews, air-ambulance staff, fire-brigade. The front line. Front-line, yet hidden from view. Exposed to sights that should never be seen. Shouldn't be seen ever, yet we are exposed to them on a regular, if not daily basis.

*

I believe that when we get ready for work, one of the things we do, is put on what all those armies and Knights of Yore used to do.

We don our Suit of Armour.

We put on our uniform, and become someone else.

The mindset is different.

The thought processes are different.

The coping mechanisms are different.

The Suit protects us from what Chris over at Life Under the Lights called "Splashed Sadness". Briefly (and not as eloquently as Chris - you MUST go read his post), Splashed Sadness refers to the exposure we all have to emotions on a regular basis, and how we each cope with them. How a family standing in front of us will be grieving the loss of a loved one, and how we'll be sympathetic, empathetic, sometimes look on the call as a "good job", and then without pause for thought, discuss what we're going to have for lunch.

In truth, however, every Suit of Armour has a chink. And each of us is vulnerable to it. We'll cope on scene, because we have to. We'll not even give it a second thought sometimes. But every so often, there'll be the call that gets through that chink.

It may not be an immediate breach of the defences.

It may not be a total loss of the coping mechanism.

It may not even cause any sort of diversion from the normal flow of our thought processes.

Sometimes you just need a break, someone to talk to over a cup of coffee.

It might just be your co-workers on base, it could be your nearest and dearest, sometimes, even if rarely, it may well need to be a professional. We need to know when each of those times is.

*

We don our Suit, and face a world of sadness. A world of illness, of grief, of trauma.

We don our Suit, and become rescuers, therapists, saviours, even heroes to some.

We don our Suit, yet underneath we are the same as everyone else.

At the end of our shift, when we go home, we take off the Armour and are no different from anyone else.

We are partners, husbands, wives, parents, children.

We are human.

With a very special Suit of Armour.