When I was young, I wanted to be a policeman. I had a toy police car, complete with a flashing blue light on it and I pedalled around the garden and neighbour’s houses. I got a toy policeman’s uniform for one birthday, which I was overjoyed with. I was so convinced that I wanted to […]
Yesterday, from a tweet by insomniacmedic, I was linked to a blog post by Buckman. He talks at length about the foolishness of some patients who refuse the care they so desperately need and the knock-on costs of the associated palliative care as they die. It’s a post and a subject that stirs deep emotions […]
Buckman is hosting this month’s edition of The Handover and asked people to write about people who influenced their career. I have to admit, I’m not short of those. The two Richards, both of whom are accomplished and professional Paramedics in their own rights, each with a very different style. Andrew, Sharon and a whole […]
I can’t remember my first Mountain Rescue job. I remember a search for a missing person while I was still training, but it’s lost in a blur of memories of trying to work out how to search for a missing person. I remember my first casualty, having chased her over the mountain all night, giving […]
Ok, so it’s not that impressive, but it was a busy shift today. 4 calls, one mountain rescue callout. The shift started off quiet with no calls from Ambulance control until Saturday morning, meaning that I could get a decent night’s sleep. Of course, a lie in was out of the question as the phone rang […]
Sean and I were quite happily sat at home yesterday when the pager went off for an area call. As Sean called out the grid reference, I tried working out where it was…until Sean called out the location. “Abertridwr.” “I…what?!” I grabbed my pager and laptop and threw the grid reference into StreetMap – sure […]
I’ve been rather apathetic about my blogging recently, sorry about that. I had a pretty busy week last week, including a search for a misper in Mountain Ash on Thursday which left me exhausted for Friday. Friday night was on shift with the first responders right through until Saturday night and what a busy shift […]
I’m dragged out of my warm, comfortable dream by the phone. I grab it and answer as chirpily as I can, blinking the sleep from my eyes. The lava lamp I leave on when I’m on shift is casting a gentle red glow over everything. It’s a red call – “Nan down“. An old lady’s […]
[Originally written but not posted yesterday] Wow. On Saturday I was prepared. Not wanting to get caught out again, I got all my kit ready, ironed my uniform and got everything ready for my ambulance shift which started back up at 08hrs. I started pottering around the house and everything was going to plan until […]
It’s been a very, very strange day. It started badly at midnight as I was babysitting the replacement of a switch in our London datacenter and it was running over. I didn’t get to sleep until 0300. I did at least have the presence of mind to turn off the alarm clock before I finally […]