Lurking
Lurking is my new “thing”. I am now an official rapid response car driver/pilot. The advise given to me by my crewmate on our last shift together was “try and keep it shiny side up” – I always do as my crewmate says, although the car does have a nice 0-60 it’s important to remember it’s a zafira and not supposed to go too fast! The whole point of this is for me to get there in 8 minutes or less then begin treatment of the patient… or as is more likely, have a nice chat with them about their sore toe which has caused the “difficulty in breathing”. Even on the car I am a magnet for the “had backache for 6 years but needs ambulance for it at 4am on a Sunday morning” and that suits me just fine.
The thing about working as a solo responder is just that, you’re on your own. When you have a properly, seriously, genuinely an emergency there’s just you. When the patient or other person on scene kicks off – there’s just you. People are often surprised to see a female out on her own in the middle of the night. The thing is I’m very good at reading body language and picking up the general atmosphere of a place, I’ve been doing it for years, and now I find it a very handy trouble avoidance tool. Add into the equation the fact that I’m quite laid back and generally friendly and it makes for a some nice experiences.
So far on the car I have had 17 offers of marriage – albeit from drunk old men and 2 offers of adoption. I have had to decline all of these so far! When I started on the car I hated it (more on this later) now I’ve been doing it for about 4 months I’ve got into the groove and have started to relax a little.
I’m back to work tonight after a sudden panic on whether my trousers would still fit after 4 weeks resting my foot (generally just laying about on the sofa) then realising that all my uniform was stuffed at the bottom of the washing pile. Poor washing machine, it’s had a busy day. Pleased to say that it all still fits, it’s all clean and it looks like we’re going to have a wet and windy night tonight – that’ll make work fun…
Laura's blog 
Hi Laura all the best on your first night back weather is going to be very bad high winds and driving rain not the best for red calls !!! we had one of those Zafira very fast more so when you push the sport button, speedo goes up petrol gage goes down but great fun !!! it was an automatic and at the end of shift driving my own car a manual I remember siting at a junction revving the car and wondering why it was not moving forgot I had to use the left leg again Doha !!!
Take care out and about and enjoy the job, stay safe.
Doc
Can I make it 18 offers of marriage
First blog I read after wakeup from sleep today!
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Are you tension? panic?
When I pilot one of the Zafiras it always reminds me of why did we go for these as RRVs? The ‘A’ posts are a blind spot danger for a start. We are getting new RRVs soon…that’ll be within the next 5 years then!…and it be interesting to see if they are any better than what we have at the mo!
What Merys said. Post sommat 🙂
hey laura just found this blog awesome may i say. just started one myself (http://manchesteregg2010.wordpress.com/) to while away the hours on the car us lot up in manchester have skoda’s rather than zafiras nice little motors unless you have a spot of snow when a little incline of lets say 1% your stuffed hope to read more soon
wow you wanna marry a girl thats about 10 years old