One out, one in.

The Ambulance Service, possibly the whole NHS, has a number of “superstitions” or beliefs – the word ‘cancer’ isn’t mentioned much, usually replaced by ‘ca’, the word ‘quiet’ is never used for fear of unleashing mayhem and madness. Then there’s the belief among many crews that, when a person dies, somewhere a new life is born. That one worried me most.

I had never been a fan of babies. In our training we were told they were aliens, that their bodies didn’t behave in the same way as adult bodies, and that they had ways of controlling your mind through loud, sustained noises. Also that the substances their bodies produce require hazchem protocols to be in place. That’s probably why I managed to avoid any being delivered in my ambulance during my career.

I had a few near misses – a long emergency drive in blizzard conditions, using every driving skill I’d been taught, terrified some other driver would do something silly that might cause us to crash, but I got us to the maternity hospital in time! Dropping an expectant mother off then hearing the new baby cry as we wheeled our trolly out of the ward.

One memorable birth involved a father who was known to be violent to emergency personnel. We were told to wait in the vacinity of the flat until the police arrived before entering. Little did we realise that we had parked in a spot visible to the flat. The first we knew was the father tapping on the passenger window of the ambulance. My partner lowered the window slightly, expecting something bad. “it’s out! The baby is out. What should I do?” he said excitedly. We established that the baby was breathing and the mother was well, then advised him to let the mum hold the baby and make sure baby was kept warm, and that we’d be there as soon as the police arrived.” ok” he said cheerily, and trotted back to see his new child. Once the police arrived we went in. All was indeed well, and we let the father cut the chord. So much for violent, there were happy tears in that man’s eyes, it was heartwarming.

I’m not really proud of the fact none were born in my ambulance, but I am slightly relieved. New life is an amazing thing, genuinely a miracle of nature, but babies are terrifying!

One out, one in. I’ll try to explain the first half next time….