That Knock on the Door - Epilogue

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

I'm half daydreaming as we come around the roundabout. I'm gazing distractedly out of the window. Its been a long day and the sun is still trying to make an impact on the grey drizzle of the day. We're on our way to what should be the last call of the day. A GP has asked for an ambulance to take a patient into hospital for investigation into their ulcerated legs. The GP had sent instructions that we would need a stretcher as the patient couldn't walk.

If its one easy way to get our back up is to tell us how to do our job. They may well not be able to walk but they may be able to transfer, to sit in a chair. They may be bed bound on the third floor of a house with the stairs from hell to get someone down, are you going to come and help us manhandle the patient into the vehicle Doctor? No? Well, let us decide how to our job then yeah?

My mood was foul, the patients through the day have been less than deserving of an 'emergency' ambulance and yet we'd gone skidding around wet roads on blue lights because some people don't know the definition of emergency. Having said all this, take away these jobs and you wouldn't need half as many ambulances and we'd be out of a job!

Even if their conditions didn't warrant an emergency response the majority were pleasant enough and some good banter had occurred throughout the day.

We round the corner and I absent-mindedly look up at the bridge spanning the road.

There are flowers and a flag tied to the rails.

Not as many as there were a year ago but still a good amount.

Was it really a year ago? I wonder to myself and mentally flip through a calender in my head to recall that time of year.

Yes it was a year ago.

What a difference a year makes. I think about the jobs I've been to in the meantime.

I can't recall any that were as draining on my mental and physical resources as that one was.

I've been to some that were tragic and graphic for different reasons but none where I was so involved with the scene and resus attempt as this one.

We drive past in a second and the reminder is gone again.

Its easy to cruise in this job sometimes, become complacent with the 'nothing' jobs like we had attended most the day.

As much as I've tried to approach every job with a fresh set of eyes and an open mind there are times you find yourself starting to become the clinician with an attitude that you didn't want to be.

A reminder of when you are being the technician you hoped you'd be can help to snap you back to the reality and perspective of where you are going and how you act.

I hope the tributes continue each year. With the way the service operates at times I think I'm going to need this attitude check every so often.