"RTC, Car in Lake, Fire and HART on way, injuries unknown"
I moan. Yes, I know, you can all hide the shock on your faces but I do. I moan more than I realised! I was moaning to my crewmate about how I never get the good jobs and its just the same drivel every day! The funny thing about this job is you do so much in a week, it can appear a lifetime ago that you did something worth while. In actual fact it's more than likely you did something worth while less than a week ago, you've just forgotten! I suppose it doesn't help that I can't remembers a job from 7 hours ago, let alone 7 days. You're enthusiasm for this job is only ever as good as your last patient!
He stopped me in my tracks and said:
"In the last month you've had 4 cardiac arrest, a shooting, a stabbing and at least 3 serious RTCs! What are you moaning about?!"
Good point. I'll shut up! Seriously though, the day was dragging and the last patient had been rude and obnoxious so my enthusiasm was particularly low!
Car in Lake?! Yes please!! Like Sonic the Hedgehog in Red Boots we sped off to the lake in question. I say lake in the loosest sense. Pond would be a better description! Actually fish pond to be precise! It would also be worth noting that the title to this blog is also a bit dramatic! The car had sunk to the bottom but had barely covered the wheels with water and it would be a case of wading more than swimming but still, the headline in my head was "Paramedic swims across shark infested lake to save drowning granny from sinking car".
Our patient was sitting in the car looking rather bashful! She wasn't injured or trapped, just scared. My crewmate looked at me with a grin and said "off you go!". Clearly chivalry is dead! I heard the sirens in the distance, no doubt from the fire brigade, police and HART team and I wasn't going to have them massage their inflated egos (police excluded) by diving into the rescue, so in I waded! All 3 steps worth! The back of the car was only 2 feet from the edge of the bank!
I checked her over, was happy there were no injuries and told her to wait until we could get her back to land.
"Nonsense, I just need someones hand to hold onto, my feet are already wet! I'm certainly not having someone carry me, how embarrassing."
She was so defiant and I certainly wasn't going to cross her, so at her request, I took her hand and stepped her onto the bank, just as the fire brigade came rushing over!
"It's OK guys, you just leave all the rescuing to us little ladies, you take it easy!"
They laughed but you see it had killed them not to be able to wade into the water! I hope the Daily Mail tell the public how we did indeed risk shark infested ponds to save people! Can't have health and safety getting in the way of good care now can we?! We sat in the ambulance for a few minutes checking her over and doing paperwork when there was a knock on the door from the Hazardous Area Response Team (HART). They had turned up late to the party as per usual despite me cancelling them once we had our patient on board. No doubt they hung around the fire brigade for a little while cursing about how irresponsible we had been! If you want to play in hazardous areas, get to the hazardous areas before anyone else!
Not the actual car or pond before some of you have kittens!
We took her to hospital for a check up and a cuppa! That's all she really wanted! In fact, she was quite put aback by the lack of biscuits in A & E! See, cut backs are not only causing ambulance delays, there are very real biscuit shortages too! It's an outrage!
"So, you gonna moan about never doing anything interesting or you gonna have a few hours off?"
"Touché!"