HE'S GOT THE LOOK!

During Ambulance Technician training you learn lots of stuff in a short period. It messes with your head at the time and you forget most of it. It's not until your on the road that it all starts to fall into place and the signs and symptoms can be related to what you see. Soon you can walk into a room and tell when someone is really sick, even if they don't have all the signs and symptoms that are in the text books. You also learn to spot someone who's swinging the lead pretty quickly.

Long before any of this sinks in however you learn what an alcoholic usually looks and smells like. The smell thing is good because it gives you a warning, on entering a house, what you will probably be dealing with before you find the "patient". Usually it is crap generated by loneliness or a rotting mind, sometimes our friends just like phoning because their drinking buddies find it amusing.

I have to admit that I have little patience with this now. I accept that it is an illness etc. but I long to hear a new story. It always takes the line of "my dad/sister/best friends brother/dog died and I started drinking ... blah, blah, blah. Only so much sympathy to go around and that's generally reserved for the bereaved and/or elderly.

Sometimes they are nice alcoholics, sometimes they spit and swear, sometimes they puke on the floor or hit you. I have not met many of the first type. They all bore me though and, other than the rare occasion when they are ill, A&E is no place for them to be.

The usual routine is that you get the call, turn up, spend half an hour waiting for them to decide if they actually want to go to hospital (sometimes when they hear that we have the audacity not to wait on them and provide a lift home they swear at us and we can leave), get them there, book them in - then watch as they stagger of down the road 5 minutes later. Heading home while you mop the phlegm up of the truck floor. If they're not seen immediately the nurses and doctors can go "do" themselves.

What a waste of time and money.

Despite all this I treat them with the same respect as anyone else I encounter, which is quite a lot, BUT --- I'll be buggered if they get to hear any of my jokes!!

Small victories.