This book is about my experiences in the London Ambulance Service. I joined the Patient Transport Service in July 1989 and left after 20 years of service, in 2009. I then moved to Devon and worked in the South Western Ambulance Service, in their control room for three years, before retiring. This book is something I felt I had to do as it was always in the back of my mind. Not for fame or fortune, (fat chance) it's just a story of my experiences that I felt had to be told.My book is about some of the calls that I attended, and include: the elderly, murder, hangings, mental illness, fires and other situations, as well as my time with the Patient Transport Service.
I hope you enjoy this small insight into a very satisfying and rewarding job - an immensely important job in our society as are the other emergency services.
I moved away from my busy Lavender Hill station in 2002. Therefore, all the emergency calls I attended, all take place during the period I worked there, and at my first station, and other stations where I worked overtime. All the calls take place in London.
My book is not indicative of the majority of staff within this service. As with every organisation, there will always be bad apples - and those bad apples can infect the good ones. My book has and each chapter is preceded with a Tanka[1] and/or other poem, a sketch or an illustration.
I am very different to other people in that I am an I.N.F.J. and also have something called Synaesthesia. Some of my stories are told with the benefit of hindsight, and what was discovered, and heard at coroner's court, and my being an I.N.F.J.. My senses are so acute that I can absorb their energy, (good and bad) hear their thoughts, and feel their feelings, its awful most of the time, as most people are very unhappy, and have many problems. It's almost comparable to the reading of people's minds, but not quite. Consequently, I go to quiet places to shop, and at the quietest times. I also tend to be alone most of the time, sit in a park, or a beach, so that I can recharge myself.
I also have synaesthesia, which has several forms. Its basic definition is the production of a sense impression, relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense, or part of the body.I will add a snippet of a poem, that can best describe what I have always been like. It's called "Life changes".
Life changes
I have always been susceptible to odd things,
Strange phenomena,
Since I was little I knew what was to be said
look at someone and know them, know their life,
I remember, I predicted over 12 plane crashes,
Between the ages of 23 - 40 "it" disappeared,
At some point in the ambulance service "it" reappeared,
I knew things I shouldn't know,
I could "feel" people's pain,
Their grief, their sorrow,
I knew when they hurt, and gave them comfort,
And they knew, I knew.