"63 year old female, cardiac arrest"
There's that all to familiar ominous feeling when we get dispatched to a cardiac arrest. There is a heightened tension in the cab and my senses are much more focused on the drive. I can feel my eyes fixed on the road ahead, assessing the movement of everything ahead of me. What our advanced driving course taught me most was awareness and hazard perception. After 5 years of practice it's all second nature but still requires concentration. At any one time on a blue light drive we are planning our movements based on everything in the distance and just in front of us. It's changing constantly.
I was racing through the high street, watching for pedestrians on both sides of the road, scanning the parked cars for potential movement, monitoring all 3 sets of traffic lights and looking for gaps in the traffic for me to weave through. A car 100 meters ahead on the other side of the road flashed to let me through. They were just before a traffic island which had a pedestrian standing on it. I pulled out onto the wrong side of the road, my lights and sirens were on and headed towards the gap the car had created for me.
As I approached the island, I could see a man waving at me. I started to slow down in case he was flagging us down. As I got closer I could see the expression on his face. I could also see it wasn't a wave. He was doing a 'wanker' hand gesture, whilst mouthing expletives at us. His eyes full of of hate and anger. As we were drawing level with him he raised his middle finger and spat at the ambulance. We continued on our way.......bemused.
Please, someone explain why people like this exist! How can anyone have such hatred for the ambulance service?! You could see the hate in his eyes. Is it a uniform thing?! I genuinely don't get it!
I'd loved to have stopped and asked for an explanation or to hear what he was saying but a lady was dead and we needed to fix that! We arrived, fixed it, she survived and wrote a thank you letter. I wonder if he would have behaved the same if he'd walked past us doing CPR! Hmmm......
Thoughts on a post card please. I'm looking for answers and solutions! Sensible or not!