Smoke gets in your eyes...

Ambulances have the unfortunate habit of breaking. I say breaking rather than breaking down because it paints a truer picture of the build quality of our wonderful fleet of vehicles. Take last night for instance.

There we are, pootling along to (yet) another 'pick up off the floor' job, sirens blaring, lights flashing - feeling quite content with the state of things in our world. Inadvertantly, I've just driven past the junction for the road I need to turn down. No problems I think, I'm in my shiny, noisy, flashing, bright yellow ambulance - I'll just do a 180 degree turn at the deserted crossroads up ahead. On went the steering, full lock.

Just as I'm coming round to face the direction I'm intending to travel, a strange smell enters our vehicle - the smell of something very hot and oily. Cue the smoke rising from underneath the bonnet. Followed by spitting hot liquid erupting from the grille. Oops.

We're still responding to the emergency call, just round the next corner. The problem is that the ambulance no longer wants to play, the steering has become so heavy that I think I'm suddenly driving through syrup, right up to the wheel arches.

We turn into the street and are met outside the address by a concerned relative of the person we're going to help. As we pull up the ambulance becomes engulfed in acrid grey, smelly smoke. Don't say I never know how to do an impressive 'arrival on scene'! Like a David Copperfield stage act the smoke slowly clears to reveal a sorry looking vehicle - covered in oily power steering fluid from the bonnet to the windscreen.

Casting aside our pitiful vehicle and donning our best paramedic personas, we enter the house to help the patient we've been called to back into her bed (We get a lot of jobs like this).

A quick call is then made to Control to inform them that thankfully the patient will not need to be taken to hospital - now, could we please order a recovery truck to tow us away, and 'No', the RAC won't be able to mend our vehicle at the roadside. Understand, Control?

One hour later, and an RAC van appears round the corner! One look under the bonnet and the man from the RAC calls for a recovery truck. We diagnose patients every day - why doesn't Control let us diagnose a very sick ambulance?

Two hours later on again and a low-loader appears round the corner. 'Now we're cookin!' thinks I. Wrong. Our ambulances weigh 4.5 tonnes and are 21 feet long, give or take a toe nail. As the vehicle is being loaded up the ramp of the low loader the rear end grounds itself into the road. Firmly. The angle of the loading platform is too steep for the length of our vehicle. Any more movement backwards or forwards will cause damage to the rear panels of the ambulance. We (me, my colleague and a swearing mechanic) hold a chinese parliament.

We agree on a collective, 'Sod it, we might as well carry on and to hell with the damage to the ambulance'. The vehicle scrapes itself free of the road, leaving a nice gash in the tarmac surface.

Twenty minutes further down the road and we are safely back at base, ready to swap for another vehicle. Three hours and twenty minutes have been taken up, responding to one call.

And the moral of this story is?

'Don't call an ambulance unless you really need us -

you could be delaying us attending a proper emergency!'