Ambulance

Tonight the London Ambulance Service brace themselves for a demanding weekend shift. As Londoners head out to play, the Ambulance Service often has to pick up the pieces. They need prepare for a torrent of cases, all with their own unique challenges. In Brixton Advanced Paramedic Rich helps a man who’s out of control and lashing out in a nightclub after taking a drug overdose. In East London, a man who’s travelled all the way in from Essex to eat at his favourite kebab house, has been viciously assaulted. In the control centre, it’s fun and games from nine months ago that’s causing the phone to ring – five babies are being delivered on the phone tonight. By Saturday night, the streets of London bring a huge challenge for the service – as the pubs begin to close, the violence is escalating. The ambulance dispatchers are forced to make tough calls about who gets an ambulance quickest and who will have wait – when a stabbing comes in they have to divert a crew from a 6-year-old who’s fallen from a bunk bed. It’s not an easy decision for any of them. A couple of hours later, the same crew attend their second stabbing of the night, and the seventh across London this evening. When at the end of the weekend a call for a miscarriage comes in, it’s the type of emergency that the ambulance staff are trained for, but all the preparation in the world can’t always shield them from the emotional toll sharing a personal tragedy can have.