“33 year old female, electrocution”
Some things are just meant to be. Sometimes you are just destined to be in a certain place at a certain time. Today was one of those days. The sun was shining on the righteous, the righteous being moi!
We were sat outside Subway, which happened to be next door to Greggs... and opposite a milkshake shop... we were feasting like kings! Then, out of the blue to ruin the moment, we got a job. Typical! It was 7 miles away which for the time of day was a long old stretch! The address was an industrial area so it took a while to find the entrance to the correct unit. We parked up, grabbed our stuff and headed in. It seemed like we were walking for an age; turn after turn, corridor after corridor, stair case after stair case, it was ridiculous! Eventually we arrived at the first aid room.
Lying on the bed was our patient. As we entered she sat up and smiled:
“So sorry you had to come, I told them I didn’t need an ambulance but they said I had to get checked out.”
She seemed fine; her hair wasn’t up on end, no smell of burning and no smoke rising from her head. She worked on the packing line of the factory and one of the machines had given her an electric shock. She wasn’t knocked to the floor, it was just a zap. She said she didn’t want to go to hospital and just wanted to get back to work. We explained we would have to do an ECG etc and get her to sign our paperwork if everything was OK. As the ambulance was a good half marathon away, we suggested we do all that on the ambulance to save bringing all the kit up to the first aid room. She agreed! *happy dance*
The ECG was normal, as were all her obs and she was still declining the offer of hospital so she signed our paperwork and left. As we let her out the back door her manager, the factory manager, was standing there with a large cardboard box.
Right, now I shall digress slightly. Gifts. The official line is we are not allowed to accept gifts from patients. Obviously there is common sense involved and often refusing a small token of appreciation can be insulting, especially to some cultures. I have a personal rule and that is not to accept money. I’ve been offered £5, £10, £20, £50 and £100 in the past and each time I have respectfully declined despite my own financial need for it! If something then went wrong and it turns out I had been given cash I would be the shit hitting the fan. I also turn down alcohol. A bottle of whiskey in the cab of an ambulance wouldn’t look so good if we crashed. Then there is food; this, I tend to allow! If someone wants to give us a box of chocolates or a cake despite always saying ‘no, don’t be silly’ I invariably say ‘oh go on then, if you insist’! So, rules explained, that brings us back to the large cardboard box...
All I knew is that we were in some kind of factory. I didn’t know what they were producing nor had it really crossed my mind.
“Here is a mix of things for you and your colleagues to share”
As he said it he lifted up the flap of the box.
Gü
Yes Gü!!
It was a whole box of frickin’ Gü!
Not just one product, a vast selection of the most scrumptious Gü desserts you were ever likely to see. My tongue rolled out of my mouth, across the floor, up his leg and into the box. There were ‘hot chocolate melting middles’, ‘After dark morello cherry bakewell puds’, ‘chocolate tiramisus’, ‘key lime pies’, ‘chocolate and vanilla cheesecakes’, ‘chocolate mousses’, ‘After dark black forest gateaux’ and ‘white chocolate mousses’. And that was just the first few layers! There was one of each of their products in there!
“No, don’t be silly, we can’t take that”
“It’s our pleasure, nice to give something back to our emergency services”
...”Oh go on then, if you insist”
I literally couldn’t grab the box quick enough! I know the old adage of ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ but I did not have enough willpower to show such responsibility... or restraint. This was my payment for years of crap. All the late finishes, no rest breaks, the sickness policy, the punches, the kicks, the spitting, being vommed on, pissed on, and shat on, by all and sundry! All that was temporarily forgiven and forgotten while I was staring at my very own box of diabetes!
I ate to excess for the rest of the shift. My crewmate and I went home with bags full of cake feeling extremely sick. We also left a couple of cakes in the mess room for everyone else to share.
Don’t judge me. Today was my day. Tomorrow someone will piss on me. C’est la vie!
PS: I take back everything I have ever said about obesity. I am currently 3 mouthfuls away from this...
...and I don't care! Nom nom nom!