Bedtime Story #1

This is a little tale about some ambulance people I know working in the inner suburbs.

Late one afternoon, two ambulances are dispatched to a single car motor vehicle accident in a suburban street. One of the ambulances is going on a Signal 1 (lights and sirens) response, the other is driving towards the scene at a more leisurely pace (Signal 2), waiting for the first car to arrive on the scene, assess the patients and decide whether the second car is required. If it is, the second car is usually just a few minutes away and can come in and assess and treat if there is more than one patient.

A short time earlier, Sharon and Trevor (not their real names) went shopping at the local supermarket. After paying for their shopping with a credit card and thereby leaving no doubt as to at least one of their identities, they head for the exit, deciding on the way out the door to grab a flat screen TV and some other smaller appliance that were on handy display by the exit. So Shazza and Trev leg it for the car with a couple of spotty-faced, $8.00 an hour employees in hot pursuit. They make it to the car and with screeching wheels, they make a clean getaway out of the carpark without running down a single nanna. Trev is driving and he makes it all the way down the street to the first corner which he handles beautifully... until the car mounts the curb and runs headlong and dead centre into a power pole.

The first ambulance arrives on scene at around the same time as two out of breath and wide eyed employees arrive from the supermarket. Trev is on the phone and despite his obvious lower leg injuries that prevent him from running away, he is busy trying to arrange the quick sale of his recently acquired electrical goods to an acquaintance. The ambulance crew have to ask him several times to put the phone away and speak to them about his injuries. First things first.

The second Ambulance arrives a few minutes later, as do several police cars. Sharon is sitting in the passenger seat, her obvious pinpoint pupils suggest she may have a narcotic in her system and the crew is wary that this may mask her perception of any injuries. Both Shazza and Trev swear (oh yes officer) that they were wearing their seatbelts, however the Trev's leg injuries and the obvious mark on the dashboard from Shazza's makeup and lipstick tell another version of events. Trev is loaded into one Ambulance and Shazza is loaded into another. The police climb up into the Ambulance and place both of the master criminals under arrest - warning them that if they try to run away while in ambulance care, they will also be charged with "escaping".

The convoy of ambulance and police vehicles head off to the nearest hospital, where Shazza and Trev will be treated for their injuries before being taken back to the police station for "processing". Shazza tells one of the police officers at hospital that she was "thinking of becoming a copper once". "oh Really." he says. They are all in for a long night.