Monday – A novel way to get a job

For those of you who don't know how as an ambulance we receive what we are supposed to do next, I'll give you a little, quick run-through. I'll take you through step by step; then you'll be amazed that an ambulance shows up at the front door of the address ever.

While sitting at home one day, you drop a coffee cup – you've actually aren't at your house, you've popped around to my house for coffee (knowing that I was in deed of a drinking friend) – and the mug hits the floor, and breaks. While helping me clean up, you slip up and end up on the floor, with some apparent reason to need to attend hospital. This is when you make an emergency call.

If you are in the USA you could try and call 911. In Britain you might try 999, or if you are somewhere that you don't know the number to ring, and you've got a mobile phone you could try 112. And here in Australia, you can ring 000. All of those numbers will get the same response. After an initial consultation with the operator, you'll be transferred to the ambulance call centre.

You'll be asked a few important questions like what is the address that you need the ambulance, and what is wrong. This is where the magic is done. Some jiggery pokery and electronic gismos show the person sending out the ambulance where the most appropriate vehicle is, and sends it to pick you up.

If at the time, the ambulance is on an ambulance station, then – in Sussex and here in Western Australia – the dispatcher sends a signal on the radio which rudely disturbs the peace, and off we go to see what help we can give. (Don't ask me how I was able to be having coffee with you and the waiting at the ambulance station for the next call – it's only an example.)

Anyway – here at Mandurah ambulance station there is a problem with the radio and the radio repair man is off sick and can't fix the problem until next week, so we get the call to the job on a telephone. That's the way that it's supposed to work anyway.

Last night while relaxing late in the night, the other ambulance crew got a job, and trundled off. They came back a little while later, and got tucked up back in their beds. I stayed snoozing in the chair. About 5 in the morning there was a very loud banging on the door. Thinking that someone was in trouble and didn't remember any of the numbers used to contact help any normal way.

It wasn't someone looking for help, it was the police. As it turns out, the phone was never put back properly, and when ambulance control was trying to ring, the phone was giving a busy signal. Someone in ambulance control called police control, and they sent one of their police cars around to rouse us. It's the first time I've ever been called to a job by word of mouth. Boy did I feel about 2 inches tall.