Directions

Last night was a 2230-0630 shift, which went annoyingly slowly. The majority of the calls were fairly 'routine', such as chest pain, falls etc. but I did get quite an interesting one - an assault.



It took several minutes to ascertain that a 37 year old female had been beaten up by her partner and left in her car by the side of the road. Unfortunately, she was in a very minor B-road in a small village somewhere in the county. I had no idea where she was, and she could not see any specific landmarks, so it took about 10 minutes to get a good enough location to send the ambulance crew. If the incident had taken place in the day, or before 1am, we could have dispatched the helicopter to locate the patient, but unfortunately the incident occured at 3.30am so the 'copter was tucked up in its hanger - fat lot of good it was in there! Eventually I managed to work out that she was in a dark blue Peugeot estate, and I instructed her to switch on the hazard lights so her car was visible to the crew.



The patient was very distressed, her partner had punched her in the face and she had a possible head injury so I stayed on the line with her until the crew got to her.



My friends stayed the night in my room last night, I had to turf them out of my bed when I got back at 7.30am! I felt guilty for about the 3 seconds I was conscious after my head hit the pillow. When I woke up at 1pm, I was greeted with the news that I dont snore in my sleep, but I actually sleep-talk!! Apparently, I was saying "I'll get that to you as soon as possible, sir." I can only imagine that I was dreaming about work, and 'that' was in fact an ambulance. I was so embarrassed!