Gallows Humour

Now that I've got the rant out the way, back to the real business of ambulance work. For some reason (ahem), I seem to have a bit of a reputation as a "Jonah". Those of you outside of the world of the ambulance service, it just means that I attract trouble. Not necessarily in the form of violence or such like, but just "real" jobs. Very sick people. Now, having said that, I don't seem to get many trauma related calls, but usually a lot of medically ill people. My second day back at work, 10 minutes into the shift, we were given a call to a male fallen from a bridge. Normally that tends to mean dead. We arrived on scene (which was literally 50 metres from the nearest ambulance station - but there was no-one there), looked over the bridge, saw the 12-15metre drop onto tarmac and assumed that our first thought was correct. The patient was dead. Except that on an immediate second look we saw that the two (yes, two) first responders were actually working. And not doing CPR. That means the patient was alive. So I ran (doesn't often happen) down the flight of about 50 stairs while my crew mate found a route round into this car park to get the ambulance as near as possible. The patient was obviously badly injured, unconscious, but very much alive. All that had to be done was done, patient intubated, fluids, defib pads attached in case, packaged, in the back of the back of the ambulance, applied lots of diesel and blued to hospital. In the meantime we requested HEMS (the helicopter that's supposed to be for just such calls) but as usual when I ask for it, it was unavailable. A policewoman came with us in the back to the hospital and kept repeating "I could never do your job". Ditto. Couldn't do hers either. She just couldn't understand how we could deal with our job day in, day out. Far from there being a sombre mood on route to hospital, it was almost jovial. Gallows humour. That sense of "if you don't laugh, you cry, and you can't keep crying in this job". Finally a job I could get my teeth into. A job where I could use some of the skills that I was trained for. For the general public I guess it would be better if I never had to use these skills, but for me it's just a good day at the office.
It was one of those days. Lots of running around for genuinely ill patients. Jonah. My crew mate threatened not to come back again. He did.