Full Moon

I always thought it was a myth when my colleagues told me that the strangest calls seem to happen when there’s a full moon in the sky. I was on a 12-hour night shift recently, and it was all going OK until about 1.30am when Dave – a regular caller – phoned us, saying he’d passed out 3 times in as many hours. I went through my questions as usual, but he kept saying he couldn’t understand me, like I was speaking a foreign language. As I was trying to ask the rest of my questions, he told me the doorbell was ringing (at that time in the morning??) and insisted on answering it. It was clear he wasn’t going to give up, so I let him go and answer it. He came back to the phone a few seconds later, saying the taxi driver was there. “So you’re getting a taxi to the hospital?” I asked. “Shall I cancel the ambulance?”
“No,” Dave sounded exasperated, “The taxi is here so I can get food! You speak to him, I haven’t got time for your stupid questions!” so he passed me to a very confused sounding Italian man, who got very impatient when I asked to be put back on to Dave and slammed the phone down. Agitated, I phoned back and the taxi driver picked up. “Does Dave still need an ambulance? Is he going to make his own way?”
“You’re making me late for work, go away and leave us alone!” was the reply I got. Dave grabbed the phone from the taxi driver, so I asked him. “No,” came the grumpy reply “I just want some food, so go away!” We got a further 4 calls from Dave that night – the saga only ended when I got one of his calls at 4.45am and passed it straight to my DDM (duty dispatch manager) who managed to persuade him that maybe it would be a good idea to go to bed.

At 2.30am I got a call from a woman who said he partner was hitting himself over the head with a deodorant can. She sounded exasperated, and explained that he had a history of mental health problems for the past 3 weeks. No matter how many times she asked him, he simply refused to give her the deodorant can. I wonder what happened to make him go crazy like that?

My final call of the night came via NHS Direct, for a female with a headache and confusion. The twist was, she was Arabic and neither she nor her husband – the caller – spoke English. NHS Direct had got a translator from Language Line, so we knew what we were dealing with but this made the call much longer and drawn out than usual. I had to ask my question which was translated, then the answer was also translated, a bit like you see on TV sometimes. It was very interesting though, and fitting that it should be the first Language Line call I get, exactly six months into the job!