Dead Road Seven
July 19, 2007 by inspectorgadget
We shout at each other over the noise of the fire truck’s generator. It stops suddenly while we are shouting. This makes us laugh but it’s not really funny.
This picture is not from a magazine or a google search. I took it a few months ago. But it may as well have been yesterday.
I give the paramedics the usual flannel about running out of gloves. They grin and hand over some of the blue ambulance pairs that we so cherish. Our police ones are cheap and nasty. These are the dogs. And they fit.
The Sergeant tells me what I already know and I am listening intently.
But not to him.
I have already realised that my work here is done. I have an ear on the radio chatter. The radio chatter that the crews at this scene cannot hear because they are too absorbed with what they are frantically doing.
These broadcasts tell of a child abduction on Ruraltown’s largest housing estate. I must go now. I start to tell the Sergeant that I have to go. I am telling him what he already knows because he was listening too.
Do I think I am the only one with a pair of ears?
The paramedic supervisor has three pips on her shoulders. What does this mean? I wonder. She is saying, “pop round later for some tea, say at about midnight?” I say I’d love to. She is just being polite. She knows neither of us will make it.
I know her. She quit smoking in March and she could do with the company.
Everyone is so tired.
In London at least three pips means Duty Station Officer.
They are the head-bods in each ambulance complex. Above them is one Area Operation Manager who is more logistics based.
Maybe that helps?
Another hectic night in the life of a police inspector. It sounds like you bearly have time to absorb what is happening before you have to switch your thoughts to another job. It sounds very demanding and very stressful. Do we give officers enough credit? I think not.
I think we will all be hearing the ‘voices’ in our ears long after we retire
I don’t know about you but any time I turn up to an RTC and there’s already a fire tender and/or ambulances there my stomach just sinks.
Clouseau I sometimes wake up suddenly thinking I’ve just heard the radio. I have a moment of horrified panic before I realise where I am and get back to sleep so I expect you’re right.
But what about the sheep Gadget? You’re taking your eye off the ball!! Who was it said, ‘they don’t understand that they don’t understand’?
Touched the nerve, as always, well done. Nearly 600k now. Radio switched off, still hear the voices though!
Gadget & Belfast Peeler
I know exactly what you mean, my last one is still current, it was made worse in that the injured party was a young child. They are still fighting for their life now. You know it’s a bad one when Ambulance, Fire and a Dr. get there before you!
By the time all the relevant Depts: got to the scene and done their bit, I still had the paperwork to do and see the family, I’m still tired from it now.
Keep going Gadget.
EHU Front Line
Boss, your latest entry takes me back to a double fatal i attended in March. 4-5 fire engines, 5 ambulances and a whole heap of Police. Even the bobbies from the local airport turned out to help.
Trouble was that my crew mate and i were the first there, before any of othe above attended. The moment I realised, and advised the controller, that two people were dead was one of the lonliest moments of my career. Despite this, you move onto the next injured person to see if you can help.
I’ve looked, but i can’t seem to find these incidents on my performance figures….
‘Multitasking’ ’stress’ ‘pressure’ terms that are over used and missued all the time.
But not in refference to this, here they don’t do justice to the situation.
Dead Road Seven, Great Song from a Great Band, “The Kills”, highly appropriate for a post about fatal RTC’s.
Boss,
Never posted before, but yet another cracking article that captures the scene perfectly.
Thanks for verbalising what we are all thinking, and for putting it out there, to become common knowledge.
Its descriptions like this that show the police officers lot and fights our cause, far more effectively than the fed ever seem to.
IG, there are better gloves in the blood kits. The doc only uses one pair so I snaffle the other. They fit like……well, like a glove and they’re a lovely purple colour. They clash a bit but they are much better than the cheap variety we get issued with and the powder which inevitably gets all over your kecks. Nasty.
from a non-police person who reads all this, a definite well done and thanks to all you police who have to deal with the rubbish stuff in life that people like me can ignore
Myself and my other half are both response officers and have frequently woken each other up hanging onto an imaginary foe asking for assistance over an imaginary radio. Coming in off a nasty shift and spending hours staring at the sleeping kids (who I hardly ever get to play with) with a tear in my eye thanking God I still have mine (is that selfish?) is all to regular. Watching Her hold the youngest and be reluctant to let go ‘cos she has just spent fourteen hours guarding an infants corpse ‘cos the Job wouldn’t pay for the suits to come out is painful. Aside from that, the battle to both stay response officers is monumental. (“We can’t release you from the scene there is nobody else to replace you” – “What about any one of the one hundred and fifty office wally’s five hundred metres from here?” – “They don’t count!!!!”).
Terry, thanks for your comments if is just a pity that the Home Office and ACPO don’t have your attitude towards us.
The LAS have some seriously gucci grey gloves that are brilliant, no hand sweat, they don’t make you stink afterwards and even if you have been sweating you can put them on quickly. A paramedic chucked a couple of boxes at me a few months ago when I asked if he had any spares after a smash, they are now hidden in my locker to refill my pouch every now and then - complete and utter gold dust.
Simple things like that which make the seconds that much easier to cope with in a job that no one who has ever had to drag someone out of a car or hold someone on the deck can ever appreciate. And the only stat they will give a toss about is they cost twice the ones they issue us.
As usual guv, cracking post, thank you.
I co-ordinate every busy shift again all night too. Re-live every bloody second. I wake up more tired than when I went to bed sometimes.
But I didn’t come here to moan - just to say pop in for some fancy gloves any time you’re passing! I make a point of restocking our police room with them on a regular basis.
Couldn’t put it better myself. The feeling in the pit of your stomach when you arrive, see the enormity of what’s going on, the work being done by the other services and the cops at scene. As has been said, you come home to the kids and wonder if it’s normal to stand and look at them sleeping for so long and just thank God that they, and you, are there.
Never did figure out how that worked. Always thought before I joined the job that police would be there first because of patrolling. Can probably count on one hand the number of first responses in ten years. That said, I also never thought you could run out of officers for calls before I joined. I knows its simplistic, but I thought if one station ran out the call would be passed along to another and they’d travel. I’m certain the public thing the same. Its inconceivable to them that the police could all be busy at the same time.
One job that I still dream about (and I’m so proud to have been part of) was very small in the great scheme of things. Early on in a night duty we came off the motorway from one part of our ground to another, as we came off the slip onto a roundabout we could see a coach parked on the roundabout with the ambulance service in attendance.
We parked up to do a bit of scene protection and hopped out. An old boy on the coach was having a heart attack the amb crew were doing their thing. They stabilised him and he was concious but still on the coach. They couldnt get their chair on so got a spinal board out and got him onto it. Then we had the debacle of trying to get him out the emergency exit at the back. Fortunately me and my mate are big lads, 6′3 each and so after stopping all traffic on the RA stood outside and hands above our heads helped the board out, watching the situation a couple of members of the public hopped out of their cars and run over to assist as we started to run out of arms, and the amb crew were still inside passing him out.
With their help we got him to the ground and onto the stretcher. As my mate helped clear the traffic I knelt next to the stretcher and the old chap put his hand up and grasped mine. He was looking right into my eyes, he was tearful, shaking and so so scared. His wife, equally shaken was beside us. I loosened my grip thinking he would take hold of his wifes hand. He was having none of it.
I told him over and over again he would be fine, he was in good hands, the hospital was very close by. His grip got tighter and tighter. We shared a joke as we loaded him into the ambulance, the crew by this point seemed quite relaxed. He still wasnt for letting go, even as they prepared to set off. Eventually I managed to get him to release his grip and transfer it to his wife. I told him I would look in on him later, that we would call his relatives for them and off they went.
I never did get to the hospital the way the rest of shift turned out. I did phone from home the next day to get an update, they wouldnt say much, even when I explained what the situation was. Just that he was in a ward and stable.
I still occassionally dream those events, feel his grip and see those eyes. Don’t know if I actually made a difference or not, but it was all about helping people, reassuring them and being there when needed and thats what I joined for.
Cracking post IG
Belfast, I must be different. I am always glad if I see an ambulance there before me. It may be selfish, but it means I can get to doing the job I know how to and not be trying to reassure somebody when I don’t have a clue, whilst letting everything around me go pearshaped. If the paramedic is there I know I can do something to make a difference rather than being way out of my depth. I will never forget the only fatal I was first on scene at and the feeling of absolute dread when I turned up knowing I had a body on the road, an injured crying driver who had just killed someone, several hysterical witnesses and a duel carridgeway with cars still passing gawping at the scene before them. The word CHALET never once crossed my mind. To this day I can’t remember what order I did things, but everything seemed to go ok. After reviewing the log, our traffic unit was less than 2 mins behind me and the ambulance came at the same time but I wouldn’t have been able to begin to guess how long it had been.
I’ve done it, and don’t relish the idea of doing it again but who knows what tomorrow holds. Thats the thing with responce. You never know.
BTW, I’ve said before, but my force seems to be pretty good with all kit related matters. We even supply 2 types of glove. Latex, and blue plastic similar to paramedics so you can be sure to get a pair your comfy with and not be allergic to.
(Ok, I may have been response for years, but it doesn’t mean i can spell it!)
[...] Dead Road Seven We shout at each other over the noise of the fire truck’s generator. It stops suddenly while we are shouting. […] [...]
I am still haunted by those blue blue eyes of an elderly lady who had a stroke at the wheel of her car and collided with another. I was young in the job,she looked straight at me, so scared, unable to speak due to the stroke and reaching out as best she could for someone to hold her hand. I will never forget her nor probably one of the biggest misjudgements of my career, I walked away, hurrying onto the next emergency queuing to go out leaving another unit to deal with the accident. The lady died later that day. How I wish I had held her hand just for the shortest while, how I regret racing to the next call a fight between neighbours who then ‘didn’t want to know’.
You sound like you had a rough night, sir. I hope it got better.