Wednesday – I never asked for it

Why does it always seem to be me that everything happens to? I've just spent a couple of weeks relaxing with Jane, Daisy, and Analiese, and everyone else in Alpe d'Huez. I couldn't say it was restful, as skiing and playing with the kids is the most restful thing that can be done, but I did enjoy every moment (almost).

It was frightening standing at the top of some of the ski runs, but overall it was fun. I did enjoy the mornings skiing (although I didn't attempt any black runs – to scary). The afternoons were little nuggets of memories that I never will forget. Spending time with my family was great. Teaching Daisy to ski (sliding actually, but she loved it); sledding with Daisy, Mum, and everyone else was great. Daisy had a lot of fun, and was exhausted in the evening. Even taking care of all the kids on my day to babysit was a lot of fun, and great to spend quality time with Mum. We did enjoy walking down the ski slope together from the Gondola Station, back to the resort. (It was a special path that was set aside for walkers – not to step, but still good exercise.)

The evenings were quite liquid, and the food at the chalet was fantastic. There weren't any complaints on that front, and I surprised myself (along with everyone else) while playing a game that needed a lot of flexibility.

Analiese's christening was a great time for everyone, and it was fabulous to meet everyone again, albeit briefly. We did have some good laughs, nice food (can I say that, as I made most of it - I guess so as if Jane had made it most people would be complaining of belly ache about now - he he he he).

The flight back was long, and I did manage to sleep most of the way (a row of 4 seats to myself again really helped – even though the seat was about 3 inches to small for me).

Tuesday evening here everything went out the window. There is some tension at the house between one of the house tenants, and the landlady. As I have said previously, she is a little eccentric and one of the other guys here has really upset her. I'm not going in to it, but all I will say is that the landlady has now decided to sell the house, and put us all on notice. It isn't what I wanted to come back to. I think that I'll have to bang everyone's heads together.

It was a relief to get to work, and the air-conditioning. The radio was saying the weather was 38 again, and that was at 5 in the afternoon. I am still working out in the desert, and the night was filled with the usual amount of work.

Yes, 3 jobs in the night, although one didn't really go to well. It is heartbreaking when somebody younger than you passes away, and that's what happened. I can't go into it, but I will say that it was hard to sleep after a normally healthy 24 year old man passed away in front of me on the short drive into hospital of about 2 minutes (despite my best efforts – and although the skills we have here are a little limited, I don't think that he would have survived even if I picked him up in Brighton).

So since arriving back from the UK I have had to be Henri Kissinger – trying to avert WWIII – and Josh (from Casualty) – my success rate is about as good as his. Things can only get better.

Two weeks in One Day

I really cannot say much about the last two weeks. It has involved a lot of time sat in a chair that was made for people about three inches smaller than me, all around. Really I shouldn't complain, but hey, it's me. Yes, I did make the long pilgrimage back to England for a week (10 days actually, not counting the flying – but who is counting).

Just a quick rundown, and then someone famously said a picture is worth a thousand words. (If by my calculations that is correct then I'm going to need 7 pictures to replace 14 days of writing, as each day I write about 500 words).

Wednesday 13th – Packing
Thursday 14th – Flying
Friday 15th – Unpacking/Packing
Saturday 16th – Flying
Sunday 17th – Skiing
Monday 18th – Skiing
Tuesday 19th – Baby Sitting
Wednesday 20th – Skiing
Thursday 21st – Skiing
Friday 22nd – Skiing
Saturday 23rd – Flying
Sunday 24th – Christening Analiese
Monday 25th – Flying
Tuesday 26th – Sleeping And that is the fortnight gone in a flash.

Tueday - I'm still not used to the Heat

I did try to rest during the day before another night shift, but it was stinking hot. An Australian had told me that the really blistering temperatures had finished, and we would only have high twenties and low thirties now. He is never going to be a reliable weatherman.

Today it was 39 again, and even with a fan in my room, it is quite hard to rest. There wasn't even the afternoon cooling sea breeze (it's known here as the Fremantle Doctor because Fremantle "Freo" is the harbour and when the wind blows from the west it blows through Freo first.

There was a breeze but it was blowing in directly from the east and right off the desert. No relief at all.

I am writing this at about 4 in the morning at work, and the outside temperature is still in the high 20's. I hope that it doesn't warm up to much during the day tomorrow.

Oh, I am at work. I'm working with a Canadian Paramedic tonight, and she has only been here working for about a year, so it is a little like the blind leading the blind. The actually treating the sick people isn't a problem, as people get sick the same way all over the world, it's the location of the hospitals, and the finer points that we are bumbling around at.

She's lived here with her husband for about 3 years, but Emily still was saying that she isn't completely comfortable with the heat here yet. I guess that when you are used to living in Canada, where is is very cold a lot of the time, coming to a place were it is very hot a lot of the time will take a while to get used to.

Monday - It's good working here

It was a night shift that I was doing today. I have found out that my proper crewmate has hurt his foot somehow, and won't be in for a while, so I'm being matched up with a lot of different people.

That's not a bad thing, as I get to see a lot of different methods and styles of working. Today was no different. I have been attending (treating the patients) for the last two days, as the Team Leader was assessing me (part of my probation). Tonight I drove the ambulance all night.

It can be a little bit draining driving the whole shift (especially if you are covering some miles) but that is the way things are done here.

Work was generally easy - nothing as dramatic as yesterday - although we did get ramped at one of the hospital for about 2 hours, and we got back to the Ambulance Station about 1 in the morning, and didn't go out again for the rest of the shift. (You guessed it ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ's were had by all).

Oh and incase you were wondering there was a little swim before I went to work, and in the morning after work, just to refresh me.

Sunday - Is it Police Brutality???

Today at work, I experienced something that I don't think will be long before it is common place in Sussex before long. I have had some experience at watching the Sussex police deal with violent/uncompliant people, and have been on the wrong end of a Captor (Pepper) Spray accidently (it wasn't aimed at me) while working in Brighton before.

Today I had first hand experience of the Aussie police way of dealing with violent/uncompliant people. It seemed a little harsh, but that might just be me. I'll spare you all the details, but needless to say, I was shocked (but not as shocked as the person who made the emergency call).

We had a call, and we informed that in person we needed to treat may be potientially violent, and we should wait for the "84's" (They like there codes over here). The 84's are ambo speak for the police. (It is because a lot of people use scanners, and we don't want them to know what we are talking about over the radio). Dutifully we waited for the police, and when they arrived, we went to the house.

Some of the occupants came out, and told us what was going on, and that their son really wouldn't be impressed by the fact that the police were there also. My partner and I said we would pop into the house, and have a quick look/chat with the patient, but we would come straight out again if we weren't happy.

We saw the patient through a door, across a room, and he in no uncertain terms told us that we weren't needed, and to leave. So we did, and invited the police to have a little chat with him. As they entered the room, he picked up some scissors, and brandished them towards the coppers (who were still a long way away from him). All I heard was some shouting, and then one of the policeman Tazered the young fellow.

A Tazer is an immobilizing device carried by the police over here, that shoots out two electric barbs out of a gun. They embed themselves into the skin, trailing a little wire, which about 50,000 volts can be sent down, giving the person an almighty shock.

I hear that some police services in the UK are trialing them. They did the trick, and seemed a lot more effective than the pepper spray, because they are instant making the person drop to the floor quivering. I don't think that I would ever disagree with a policeman over here, after seeing than. Also the police here are routinely armed with 9mm Glock pistols, and Pepper Spray. It is all very convincing to do as you are told to do.

This young guy then accompanied us to hospital, to have a little more treatment carried out, than he thought he probably would need when he woke up this morning.

The rest of the day was a bit of an anti-climax, as you can imagine.

Saturday - Work is here again

What more can I say? Work again. Off I trundled, and being a weekend it was really quick to get there. It's hard to describe how many less cars there are on the road here when it is a weekend. There isn't a real 24 hour, 7 day a week culture like in the UK, and if it isn't Monday to Friday, the roads are really quite quiet.

My regular crewmate - as I am sure you remember - was off on the last block of 4 shifts I did, and on arrival at work, sure enough he was still off. I hope it isn't something I said. Waiting for me was a team leader from another shift, in "kicking the till" (we would call it working Overtime). Overtime is quite lucrative as it is all paid at double time - $50 (about 25 pounds an hour).

Anyway, we trundled through the day with nothing to serious, as most of the jobs were hospital to hospital transfers. There are hospitals in a lot of the outer lying regions, but they are both busy, and small, and when they fill up two things happen.

1.) They go on "bypass" (In England we called it divert) and are not able to take any patients, and so in a ambulance we are diverted to the next nearest hospital, or even more frustration, the hospital "ramps" ambulances. This is when they leave the patient in the ambulance, parked on the ramp (I know, it sounds like an airport) until there is space in the Accident and Emergency (ED over here) department, when you can unload.

2.) The other thing that they like to do is transfer people to the bigger inner city hospitals. This is an easy job, as most patients are quite stable, and only need a little tender loving care, and some chit chat on the journey.

6 pm came around quite quickly, and I spent the evening at home laughing at the Australian Cricket Team losing. The local people aren't very impressed at losing cricket teams, but I guess that as an English person, I am used to it.

Friday - Another Nice Day

You must all think that I am a little slack, not updating my blog site every day. Well, partly that is correct, and it is because I have to really think hard to find something remotely exciting/interesting (yes I know that even that is open to debate).

Today was no exception. So quickly it went something like this...Early morning call from Mark, who needs me to move my car, so he can go to work. I didn’t think he was going to work today, which is why I was parked in the drive. That isn’t how you would like to wake up on your last day off.

Then (after doing washing, and house tidying) I went to Kalamunda (South Perth about 45 minutes away) because someone had asked if I would give them a lift to look at a car. Kathryn has been here for about 2 months (paramedic on my training course) and decided to finally give her hire car back, so off we went to look at a car.

This place turned out to be very much out in the middle of nowhere. It took about another hour driving from Kalamunda, and when we got there, Kathryn decided that the car wasn’t what she wanted (wrong colour or something).

As I am a good fellow, I volunteered to help Kathryn look around at other garages which we did, but at the end of a long day guess what...”wrong colour, too big, too small, wrong type of interior.” So she didn’t get a car, although she knows what type of car she wants. I think that ladies are a lot pickier about car colour than fellas. I just saw my car and thought...”economical...it runs well...I can afford it”. Maybe that is why most of my cars have been quite unique ones that most other people won’t buy.

After dropping off Kathryn back at her place, I went to dinner with Jamie and Julie again. Julie has been having some curry making tips from an Indian lady, and boy can she knock up an excellent curry and followed that up with a large cheesecake. (So much for my weight loss regime, I thought.) I ate too much, and stayed up far too late, for saying I had work in the morning.

As you can see, I didn’t really have time to put pen to paper, (finger to keyboard doesn’t sound as right) and let people know what I am up to. Even though it seemed quite mundane sort of day, it was quite busy.

Thursday - I was right after all!!

We all like to be proved right in the end. Last night I could hardly keep my eyes open while trying to watch TV. It was stiflingly hot and not any breathe of wind. Yesterday (according to the news was up to 35 degrees) was supposed to rain, but it hadn't.

According to the news the day before it had rained 0.2 mm at the local weather reporting station. How does someone measure 0.2 mm? I don't think that much water would help cool anything down.

This morning I woke about 7 in the morning, feeling quite chilly. I looked out the window, and it was raining. Not just little non committal rain, but probably rain like it has been falling in the UK. It was very refreshing, and made the whole day extremely pleasant.

I didn't really do very much today. I watched a couple DVDs and then thought about going out to the beach for a walk, and swim. I didn't want to overdo myself on my day off, so I just thought about it, and didn't actually do it.

The rain didn't stop until about 5 pm, and it is such a fantastic feeling, that the rain has cleared the air, and washed all the dust out of the sky. Looking at the news, I see that the weekend weather is going to be back to what we expect over here.

It was such a pleasant day, and it was very restful. I'm looking forward to work on Saturday, but tomorrow, I'm going out to dinner, and also I am looking forward to next week. I don't think I'll make any predictions, because I don't like rubbing it in that I am usually right about things. (At least this week I am.)

Wednesday – as an Englishman I know Weather

As an Englishman I do know about weather. It isn't much that I am good at, but predicting what is going to happen with the weather is something that I excel at. Don't get me wrong, I'm not Michael Fish and I don't really know about isobars, and why cumulonimbus clouds are full of rain, but I just get a feeling about what the day's weather has got in store for me.

This morning – yes another day off – dawned with clear blue skies, and a light wind blowing in through my window. (I've finally managed to get the security bars off it, and now I can open it.) I did take a while to get motivated to do anything though. It is a day off after all (No not every day is a day off – contrary to what you think).

For the fun of it (it wasn't really as fun as it sounds) I drove down to the International Terminal at the airport. I wanted to see how long it would take for me to get there (it's not as far as I remembered, when I first arrived), and how much the long term parking is going to cost if I leave the car there next week. (It works out at $100, for those who are interested). I've spoke to a couple of taxi drivers, and they think it will be all round about the same if I get a taxi to the airport and back. Maybe that's a decent option.

Every time anyone thinks about offering to take me, as soon as they hear about the times that I need to be at the airport, and be picked up, I think that they decide it is best if I get a cab. What is wrong with people, just because I need to be at the airport at 5 am and then liked up again at 3 am when I return? I wouldn't take anyone else either at that time, so I don't really blame them (unless you were visiting me and couldn't get there any other way).

Anyway why did I mention the weather you ask? Well today was another hot, humid day that reminded me of being in Jakarta again. Even the locals are starting to complain about the humidity. With a sniff of the air, and a look at the clouds, I decided it won't be long before we are all feeling a lot happier about the situation. I did mention it to Mike (he isn't the Hoff – that is Hagem) who told me that it isn't the case. "We'll see" I said, "After all, if there is one thing an Englishman knows about it is weather. We can talk for days about the weather."

After a swim (still flat calm), and a small beach BBQ (with Deon and Madelyn – who were finished work for the day) I met Mike at home. "Still no rain," he said.

"Don't worry, it will be along," I said. We sat outside and talked about a lot of rubbish till late into the night. Still it hadn't rained. I guess that I don't know weather as well as I thought. Still, the humidity is so high, it won't be long before it does. It's only a matter of time.

Tuesday – More Days Off

I've finished another night of work. That is the end of this run of shifts. I don't know if I've said, but they are 2 days 2 nights, and then 4 off. The days are from 8 am until 6 pm (10 hours) and the nights are obviously from 6 pm until 8 am (14 hours). You'll be able to tell from that the Ambulance Service over here doesn't expect you to be very busy at night.

After work last night (I did actually do some), I stopped on the way home for a quick brekkie and some coffee, before heading to bed for a couple hours. I had slept for probably 5 hours at work (with one job to do in the middle of that), and so I didn't really need much rest. Anyway it was a day off.

When Jane, Daisy, Analiese, and Mum come out, we have borrowed a holiday home off someone, and I did have to pop around and give the owners a deposit. It was a stroke of luck that we found the place, as they are coming over Easter, and there aren't many places left. Since I had spoke to the lady initially, and now, she has had about 3 enquiries about the place.

If you are someone like me, it doesn't matter that the only places to live can look like prison cells, with bars on the windows, and single beds, but obviously the two little princesses have to stay in a manner which they are accustomed to. I'm sure that if I had asked, Sally would of let us use the last room in this house if we really were stuck.

After spending a lot of my hard earned money – you guessed it, I thought that a swim was in order. It's been getting more and more humid every day – and so it is feeling hotter, and hotter. At the moment it is feeling positively tropical.

The sea was flat calm with only very occasional small waves. Still enough to have a little body surf in though, but nothing like the other day – when they were about 4-5 foot high, and coming in about every 1-2 seconds. Also off in the distance was a great big dirty rain cloud. That will be a relief when it arrives.

Surely enough, like day follows night, the heavens opened, but it wasn't as cooling, refreshing as I would have expected. It only rained for about 3-4 minutes (3-4 minutes longer than it has done since I got here).

The local weather report reckons that the overcast/rain is going to last 3-4 days, before we get back to bright sunshine and 40 degrees again. Great – that's my days off taken care off.

Monday - I'm not burning out to quickly

I know what you are thinking. Did David actually do any work on Sunday night? No - I didn't answer one call that evening. I got to bed at about midnight, and woke up at 0730, had a coffee, and then went home when my relief arrived at 0800.

Before that time I wasn't allowed to go home, because, although I was spare, Ambulance Control needed me available if someone went home sick and I was needed to go to cover them for the last couple of hours of the shift.

The other guys on the other ambulance weren't worked to the bone, and they got 5 to 6 hours sleep as well, but with one interuption. I did offer to go out with them, but was asked to wait on the ambulance station by ambulance control for the reason that I stated earlier.

When I got home, I had originally planned on going to bed for the day, but with all the sleep last night, I wasn't really tired. Luckily some American sporting event was being screened live in the morning, so I watched that. I'm not sure what it was all about but some team called Pat was playing some team called Giant. It all seemed very exciting. (Have you heard of the Superbowl).

I did go to the beach straight from work for a swim, and then later that afternoon I went to the beach again. I am going to look like a prune if I am not careful.

There was another night shift looming, and this time there was someone available to work with. I've just arrived back on base at 0100 in the morning, and will be crawling into bed soon. That is great getting paid to snooze.

Sunday - A day of Rest

Because I was going to be at work all night, it was good that I had found a church nearby that had its morning service earlier than the other one, so I got there for 9:30. I had the rest of the day planned as such. Get a sandwich/early lunch after church, and then rest for the afternoon, before going to work for 6 pm.

What do they say about great plans being made. (I don't really know, but somehow a plan is never really stuck to). As soon as I got home, Dave (a friend from Hove Ambulance Station who is working here) asked if I wanted to pop over.

I went to his house, and we went out for a walk along the seafront in Fremantle, where he lives. It was baking hot, and in about 15 minutes I felt like I was literally melting. We did stop in a local cafe for some drinks, before carrying on. I was well and truly in need of a shower by the time I got back home.

A quick shower, and sandwich (no time for a rest - I hope it was quite tonight) I had to head off to work. When I got to the depot, I found out that my crewmate wasn't very well, and hadn't come into work tonight. I called in to Ambulance Control a couple times to tell them, and see if there was a plan for me. "Just sit tight and we'll think of something" I was told.

I am still sitting tight at 4 1/2 hours into my shift, with no plans yet. I think I'll pop off to bed soon. What a stroke of luck that there isn't anyone to work with. They don't have Response Cars her, and you are not obliged to go out on your own, so I'll just hang on until I get a call from Control to tell me what to do. I've reminded them twice and still nothing. We'll see.

Saturday - I can recommend the Bundaberg

Saturday dawned with the promise of another great day. The sun was up and shining, and as it was the weekend, the Hoff had decided to start work later, which meant that I would be able to get the shower/bathroom first. (We only have one shower room between the three of us, but it usually doesn't cause any trouble). I did forgo my morning coffee, first thing, to dive in and out the shower, quickly.

I had a lot more time than I thought, as I had ironed and left all my work shirts at the Ambulance Station (Called depots over here - still learning Aussie) for the rest of the shifts this week. Guess what - time for another drink, and watch a little early morning telly.
It was not much different - talking heads discussing the sub prime mortgage market (I think that everyone is trying to talk themselves into a whole lot of money trouble).

I had to get to the depot for 8 a.m. On arrival, we got informed that the night crews had drank all of the milk, and we would need some if we wanted a drink. We delayed until about 11 in the morning before trundling down to the petrol station for some milk. (Similar to yesterday, we weren't turfed out early again).

Typically, as soon as we headed off we got a call, and so our day began. We did a few calls, but we did get a lot of time off also. The last call of the day was out almost off the local map. (That is a long way from anywhere. It wasn't the end of the world, but if you looked carefully, you could see it from there.)

Once finished, I thought "Saturday Night, no work until tomorrow evening, might as well see if any local wildlife are out and about!" Sure enough, it didn't take long to find a very common species of local wildlife that is pretty much anywhere in the world on a weekend. Being a shy, timid person, I thought I would sit in the corner, and just mind my own business.

I bought myself a small drink, and sat down to watch the cricket on the television that was in the pool table/sports bar part of the local pub. While I was there, a local Aussie (loud mouthed and brash) came up and started extolling the virtues of all the local Australia Cricket Players, and trying to elicit my opinions on the matter.

I did politely inform him about my linage and heritage, and then he became interested in how I was supporting myself here in Perth. I told him I was a Paramedic, and suddenly I became his newest bestest friend. (I have a habit of attracting this type of person).

During the evening, a few more young ladies arrived into the sports bar area, offering everyone the chance to buy samples of the local rum and winning a prize. My new best friend (I don't know his name) on finding out that I had never tried it before told the young ladies and they let me have a couple free samples of Rum, (I told them that I wasn't sure about it after the first taste, and could I try another one to see if I liked it - yes they fell for it) and gave me a T-shirt (bright yellow), a hat (not really my cup of tea) and a flag (anyone want a Bundaberg flag?). (The local rum is called Bundaburg), and took a photo. I've done my best to copy it onto the computer.
I didn't have the heart to tell them that while in the Carribbean I was partial to a little drop of rum.

Fortunately my new best friend's girlfriend showed up and took him home. I was quite tired, and trundled off as well. All in all the evening was my whole weekend, what with work, and such. Not bad I guess.

Friday – It’s Not Brighton any more it it???

Work again. Not too bad I thought.

As I arrived at work, the night crew was waiting because they had a job and was hoping that the day ambulance crew would in out. We trundled off. Once we finished that call, straight around to another one.

Off we got sent from the hospital to an area of town miles from our base to patrol. After being there for a while, we did a couple other calls, which didn't warrant hospital but we still took them in.

It was almost 2 in the afternoon before we got something to eat, and that got ruined because of lack of ambulances and a load more calls than ambulance control had planned for. The day carried on in this manner, until the end of the shift...BEEP BEEP BEEP my alarm rudely woke me from my nightmare.

Of course I wasn't going to Brighton Ambulance Station, but to the edge of the desert again. In the course of the day, I managed to wash and wax my car, check and reply to loads of emails, iron my shirts for the rest of the week, observe some local wildlife, and eat my lunch.

That was all before going out on the ambulance at about noon for the first call of the day. The guys here were horrified when I explained about Standby and 24 hour Ambulance Response Posts.

We did a couple calls and thought we had timed the day right, to get back to the station for an on time finish, when we got a call through in a very nice part of town – Ocean Reef (I had been looking in Ocean Reef for somewhere to live.) Excellent I thought, I'll be able to have a little nosey in someone's house and I'll see what at least one of the houses is like.

Sadly the call (once we got there) transpired to be a call that I would have expected to deal with in a murky flea infested hovel in Brighton – it was someone who had almost stopped breathing, because they had taken too much Heroin. Now although Heroin is a problem in most of the big cities in the UK, there isn't much of a problem here in Western Australia, so I have been told.

Needless to say, we treated the person who had taken the overdose (we carry the antidote to Heroin in our kits) and took him in to hospital. All in all it could have been any city anywhere in the world. The type of job really wasn't much different in the end.

And similar to being in Brighton, we did finish late. Oh well, tomorrow holds promise of another brilliant day. This is why I came here...not to whinge and moan, but to enjoy work, and live a good life. I reminded myself of that as I let the waves pound over me in the Indian Ocean on the way home.