Blood, Sweat Tea | Page 6

include (but are not limited to...)
Working outside in the fresh air, I don't know how office workers put
up with air conditioning.
For much of the time you are your own boss - do not underestimate
this.
Driving on the wrong side of the road with blue lights and sirens going;
it's not about the speed it's about the power.
Being able to poke around people houses and feel superior even though
you haven't done the washing up in your own house for 2days.
No matter how annoying the patient is, knowing that within 20minutes
it'll be the hospitals problem.
Meeting lots of lovely nurses, and knowing that I get paid more than
them.
On the rare occasion, being able to help people who are scared or in
pain.

Every time I have a bad day, or feel fed up at work I think back to this
list, and soon start to feel better - although I no longer get paid more
than the nurses I meet.
Death and What Follows
There are some people, who despite being lovely people, you dread
working with; one such person is Nobby (not his real name). He is what
is known in the trade as a 'trauma magnet'. He's one of those people
who will get the cardiac arrests, car crashes, shootings and stabbings;
by contrast I am a 'shit magnet', meaning I only seem to pick up people
who don't need an ambulance. Other than having to do some real work
for a change I really enjoy working with him.
I was working with him a little time ago and we got called to a
suspended (basically this is someone whose heart isn't beating and they
have stopped breathing). It's one of those jobs that require us to work
hard trying to save the punter's life. We got to the address and found
relatives performing CPR on their granny. You might have seen it on
TV as a 'Cardiac Arrest'.
(Let me correct a few ideas you might have about resuscitation. First, it
rarely works, 'Casualty' and 'ER' have led people to believe that you
often save people; I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of
people who have survived an arrest and most of them arrested while I
was watching them in hospital. Second, it isn't pretty, when someone
arrests there is often vomit, faeces, urine and blood covering them and
the area around them. Finally, people never suspend where you can
reach them, if there is an awkward hole, or they can find someway to
collapse under a wardrobe they will do so.)
This poor woman was covered in body fluids and was properly dead;
there was no way we were going to save her. One of our protocols says
that we can recognize someone as beyond hope and not even
commence a resuscitation attempt. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it this
time as the relatives had been doing CPR (which is the right thing to do)
and so we had to make an attempt.

Nobby and I got to work and tried to resuscitate the patient for
30minutes. Our protocol goes on to say that if we are unsuccessful after
attempting a resuscitation for 'a specified time' we can end it and
recognise death, which is what we did.
However, during our resuscitation attempt it seemed that the entire
extended family had arrived and there were well over 20 people in this
little terrace house with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. It's always
hard to tell someone that their mother had died, but it has to be done,
and if you can manage it well you can answer some of their questions
and hopefully provide some healing for them.
The GP (general practitioner) was informed, as were the police (a
formality in sudden deaths). The family had called a priest and he was
there before the police arrived, while the GP was going to 'phone the
family'; what he expected to be able to do over the phone confused me.
We tided up and went on to another job.
Two weeks later, Nobby was called to a chest pain. He turns up and
finds himself in the middle of a wake, surrounded by twenty
familiar-looking people.
Can you guess who the wake was for? Its a funny old world...
I worked with Nobby again for the first time in 2years. He still
remembered the job, and what happened after it. I told 'Nobby' that he'd
be included in this book but he wasn't happy with his pseudonym and
told me that he would prefer to be referred to as 'George Clooney'. I
refused.
I Do Like Some Drivers...
Although I often moan about the idiocy of other peoples' driving when
faced with a big white van