The following are not normal jobs.
And you may need a strong stomach for a few of them …
1
All human life is here, as the News of the World used to say. On this shift, even more than usual.
Robert, Edward and Davina
It’s the sunny evening of a bright spring day, but not in the mind of the next patient. We get a 999 call to Robert, in his fifties, with a long history of mental illness.
Robert is a tall thin man, with sunken eyes. He’s hearing voices in his head, telling him to hurt himself, or someone else. He’s tried to hurt himself in the past – and succeeded. You can see the scars all over his body.
Because of the nature of the job, the police come along and we meet them at the address. It’s a pretty cottage, isolated down a track, with a lovely view over fields of corn and only the hum of the motorway to spoil things. But the garden tells you things are not right. There’s an old sleeping bag in the middle of the grass, lots of other rubbish, and empty bottles and cans everywhere. No one’s exactly been pruning the roses. Pity. Wouldn’t mind living here myself.
But I wouldn’t want what’s going with it today.
We go in with the police to find a male lying in bed, bottles all over the floor and the room filthy. Dirty clothes and faeces everywhere. The patient’s eyes stare into another world where you wouldn’t want to go. There’s an empty litre of off-brand gin by the bed – he’s drunk it this morning – and a large kitchen knife. The WPC steps forward and removes it.
—We won’t be needing that, will we?
She leaves us. I’m ‘attending’ this job, which means I deal with the patient. My crewmate stays outside with the police. I talk to him gently for a bit just so he can get used to me and not feel threatened.
I ask whether he’s happy to go to hospital.
—Yes.
—Super. Well let’s get some trousers on, shall we?
(Usually a good idea to keep it bright and breezy.)
—OK.
He gets up and crosses to the cupboard in the corner. Out of it – wordlessly – he pulls a bloody great machete, maybe three foot long, which he looks at and weighs in his hand as if he’s buying it in a shop. No sign of any trousers.
Shit.
—I don’t think we’ll be needing that, will we, mate!
I say it loudly, so the police hear and, since it’s all gone a bit pear-shaped, I back out of the room.
The coppers are outside in the corridor. I tell them what’s happened.
—All right. Get outside.
From the front door we can hear the ‘discussion’ that follows.
—Put it down, Robert!
Nothing.
—Put it down!
More nothing.
—Put it down or we fucking spray you! Now!
The police carry pepper sprays and the like, but it’s not good using them in a confined space like this.
My crewmate’s called Valerie. Ten years younger than me, a lot prettier, but twenty years older when it comes to things like common sense. She has that weird and annoying female gift, the ability to be right, about everything, all the time.
—We don’t want to get involved in this. That stuff’s horrible.
She drags me out.
Within a minute there are sounds of a scuffle and the handcuffed patient comes out with the two police either side of him. Under the anaesthetic of a litre of gin, Robert is unaffected, but the two coppers are suffering terribly, coughing and wheezing and spluttering, and the patient’s holding them both up as they cling on to him like children.
We grab the patient and bundle him into the ambulance with a seatbelt on him, where he sits admiring the scene, while we put oxygen masks on the police who are sitting on the bonnet of their car and trying to breathe again.
It takes a good twenty minutes for the spray to wear off.
Then we take all three down to A&E.
Later in the shift.
Somewhere in England, not sure where. Don’t really care, frankly. Busy shift – aren’t they all? – but this one’s a killer. Cold, foggy and damp. Nine in the evening. Exhausted and still three hours to go.
We’re driving through the middle of nowhere.
We see about the tenth fox of the night. And a badger. Val thinks she’s seen an owl, though she may be hallucinating. You can’t do night shifts on the road without becoming interested in wildlife.
We get a 999 call to a male, late twenties, with abdominal pain. The address is a council flat in a block, quite respectable, a frightened-looking elderly couple in the front room. No male, late twenties.
Edward’s their son. They tell us he’s left and gone down the pub – even though he’s barred and it’s closed. Odd. He’s an alcoholic and a frequent caller. Lots of ‘previous’ with us and the police. There’s a warrant out for his arrest – for shoplifting or something.
Wow! How bad can he be? We look at their frightened faces and hazard a guess. Then down outside the pub we find out.
He’s a wreck.
Filthy, stick-thin, with a grey pallor and sunken red eyes. Stinking of urine, vomit, sweat, you name it. Living rough and killing himself as fast as he can. Schizophrenic and alcoholic. He calls ambulances because whenever he gets sober enough to feel anything, his liver and pancreas – collapsing and inflamed through alcohol abuse – cause him agony. Then when he feels better, out of hospital he goes. It’s difficult to know what will break the cycle, except the obvious. I think of the terrified look on his mother’s gentle face.
At least he’s not violent. As we get him on the ambulance the police turn up.
—Is it him?
—Yes. Do you know him?
—Oh yes. Where’re you taking him? He normally goes to the local A&E.
—We’ll take him to our A&E. Give his usual one a rest.
—OK. We’ll come down and arrest him later.
In the ambulance he tells the policeman half-heartedly to fuck off then falls asleep – snoring and peeing himself – on the stretcher. The smell is bad. We set off. Halfway to hospital he wakes up and tries to focus.
—Who the fuck are you?
—Er, I’m the fucking ambulance man. You’re in an ambulance.
—Where are we?
—On the way to D—— A&E.
—Don’t want to fucking go there. I go to L——!
—Well we’re giving L—— a rest tonight, aren’t we?
—No!
He gets out his phone – with difficulty – and dials 999.
—I want an ambulance.