Inept Pike Fishing

Not Nice Jobs Part 1

2005-12-05T02:47:00.000-08:00

Speak to any ambulance crew about what they think is the best thing about the job and a lot of them will say that it's the unpredictabilty of the day ahead. Granted, a lot of our work is routine/unnecessary/mundane or just downright stupid, but you just never know...

One and a half hours into my shift yesterday; we've just cleared at hospital from a job and are free to stop off at the local supermarket for munchies (it goes with the territory when you're on the road for up to 12 hours). I'm just about to pay for my daily intake of carbohydrate/protein and fat cleverly disguised as a Kingsize MarsBar, and the radio bleeps into life. I leave my colleague to pay for the goods while I return to the vehicle to get the details of the job and to book us as 'mobile' to the scene.

I look at the details that have been passed to me from Control: a Purple call to an address where a woman has just found her husband hanging by rope from the loft door. One minute has passed since I was busily foraging in the supermarket, wondering which little choocy delights I was going to invest my hard earned money in and now we are gunning through the streets, lights flashing and horns blaring to somewhere where some people are definately NOT having a good day.

We arrive at scene quickly, even though the Sat Nav has tried to direct us to a street around the corner. We are met at the door by two uniformed policemen, the address is being treated as a possible crime scene until proven otherwise.

I ask a detective where the (ex) patient is, he points up some narrow stairs.

There is something about trauma that takes a bit of getting used to. It's the fact the you see the human body in positions and locations, with injuries that are totally alien to most people's perceptions of injury. An adult male swinging from a length of blue rope tied around his neck, suspended from the floor is a good example.

It's time to put my best Ambulance Technician head on, and time to leave my human head back in the ambulance for re-tuning later.

Being careful not to disturb any possible evidence I attach the limb leads from the ECG to the wrists and ankles of the patient. His limbs are cold, cyanosed and stiff. He's been hanging for some time. The trace on the ECG shows no electrical activity within the heart at all, it's called asytole. I watch the screen for more than thirty seconds and see that there is no change, I print off a hard copy for the records. My colleague busily fills in the 'Recognition of Life Extinct' form, a bit of paperwork that is given to the police to inform them that we have diagnosed death in the home.

Not wanting to make any mistakes where someone's life is concerned I go through a mental checklist to satisfy myself that the patient has indeed expired.

I open his eyes to look at the pupils. Yes, they are fixed and dilated.

I try to move his arms. Yes, they are stiff with the onset of rigormortis.

I look at his ankles. Yes, they are swollen where the blood has pooled at the body's lowest point.

I am now happy that the patient is now officially a body. We hand our paperwork to the police and leave the scene. Carefully.

As we climb back onto the ambulance I glance down the street and catch a glimpse of a woman crying, being comforted by some people and a WPC. I try not to think about the bad day she is having and the bad days that are to follow.

I inform Control that the job is now in the capable hands of the police and that we are now clear. Control very thoughtfully stand us down for the next hour, and tell us to return to base for a cup of tea. We inform them that we are both fine and are more than willing to continue the shift already - we've only been working for two and abit hours.

Ten minutes later, I am sat in front of the telly in the Mess Room, Kingsize MarsBar in hand. The telly is on and tuned into a children's cartoon channel. Sat in the room are a dozen ambulancemen, all eyes transfixed to the screen. Cartoon therapy for us all.

Amongst the living I also start to feel alive again.

A SOB story...

2005-11-29T03:07:00.000-08:00

It's 02:30am on Saturday morning. The radio bleeps to tell me and my colleague that we have a job, a priority one emergency.

Looking at the datascreen in the ambulance we are told by control that we are to attend to a male in his fifties who is having trouble breathing, whose speech has become slurred and who is conscious. The software that diagnoses the patient's condition from information given by the caller has classed this job as a CVA - a stroke to you and me. The job has been coded as an amber, meaning that we have 19 minutes to get to the patient to be within the government set time limit. We get to the patient in 11 minutes.

Walking into the lounge of the patient's property we are met by a highly emotional woman who is fretting over her husband who is sat hunched forward on his armchair, gasping for air.

A quick history is gained from the wife. Her husband has a long history of Emphysema and has been getting increasingly short of breath for the last hour. A pulse oximiter is attached to the man's left index finger and shows 80% sats and a pulse of 134. Both are way out of kilter, a normal adults sats are 95% with a pulse of 60-80. I put an oxygen mask on immediately whilst my colleague prepares a nebuliser mask with salbutamol. The rapid pulse and demeamour of the patient rules out a CVA but rules in SOB (shortnesss of breath) brought on by Emphysema.

A minute later and the masks are changed. The patient is now inhaling Salbutamol, a wonderful bronco-dilator which hopefuly will open up the patient's lung tissues to allow better perfusion of oxygen.

Minutes pass and the patient's oxygen sats are not improving. The pulse oximeter still reads 80% and pulse in excess of 130bpm. Not good news. I place the sensor on a different finger just in case the kit is playing up. It isn't.

The job now becomes a 'load and go'. The patient needs immediate help to prevent his condition deteriorating. With the help of a chair the patient is quickly placed on the stretcher in the vehicle. The patient is now no longer struggling to breath and yet his sats are just as bad as before. This is really bad news.

Just before a patient goes into respiratory arrest their breathing and struggling will subside. It's the body's way of resigning itself to arrest.

My colleague quickly prepares a BVM (bag valve mask) and connects it to the vehicle's oxygen supply. As the patient pants for breath, I quickly force air into his lungs by squeezing the bag, in time to each of his inspirations. It's not a pleasent experience to have this done to you but it is the only way to get any meaningful air down into the lungs. I succeed with 10 inflations before the patient gasps at me to stop, it is making him feel sick. His sats have come up to 90% though.

A quick trip to hospital through the deserted streets and we arrive at hospital within 6 minutes. The staff know we are coming and have prepared a team in ER to deal with the patient.

We hand over the patient to the staff, giving them a detailed description of all our observations, and leave him in the more-than-capable hands of two nurses, a doctor and the on-call consultant.

And so ends a SOB story but one with a happy ending. At least for tonight...

A Purple Patch

2005-10-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

You'll probably appreciate that not all calls to the ambulance service are treated with the same level of priority. Surprise, surprise, you may well have to wait that little bit longer for an ambulance to arrive if your problem is not immediately life threatening. But we will get to you just as soon as we can. Honest.

The very nice people in Control (sat in their relaxing armchairs being kept at a pleasent room temperature by air conditioning), prioritise calls in to descending order from Purple to Red to Amber to Green. The Purple and Red jobs are the most time critical.

Now, I'm not going to go into how how Control arrive at the required response time (and matching colour) for each job , they have very expensive computer software to do that. One thing I and all my colleagues find though is that the Despatcher's question, "Does the patient have any central chest pain?" is often answered incorrectly by the caller - resulting in numerous Red jobs to folk with mild indigestion in their tummies. A quick hint to all my readers - Central Chest Pain is self explanatory. If you are ever asked by one of our Despatchers if you/the patient has any central chest pain, try to think if there is any pain coming from the middle of the chest, just where the two sides of ribs meet in the middle. Anything else is NOT central chest pain!

Back to the colour coding. Purple calls are the REALLY serious calls. The data screen in our ambulances usually gives a brief description of the job as something like, 'Respiratory/Cardiac Arrest/Death' for example. And we all know that death can be fatal.

In our job we can go through many shifts without any Purple jobs - just loads of Red, Amber and occasional Green ones. Yesterday, we had two Purple jobs back to back.

Arriving at the first job we were greeted by a patient who was looking remarkably alive. The fact that he was busy chatting to his daughter was the giveaway. Somehow the job had been passed to us as one involving respiratory compromise. Point taken that the chap was short of breath and breathing with the aid of oxygen but he was not about to meet his maker. A quick check of his lungs with my stethoscope confirmed that there was no wheezing, rasping or gurgling coming from any of the five lung lobes. He was taken to hospital for further investigations.

The next job was to a drug overdose with Heroin. Now, here's another quick tutorial. Heroin deaths are usually caused by respiratory arrest. The drug affects the nerves that control important bodily functions such as breathing. We were met at the door by a rather hysterical woman who quickly showed me into the lounge whilst my colleague got the necessary drugs from the drawer in the ambulance. Again, I was greeted by a patient who was looking remarkably alive, if not living on the same planet as the rest of us.

The lounge looked like a typical room where the owner had lost the desire/will to maintain what most people would consider reasonable habitation. Clutter and detritus littered the floor and every surface. Even the wall was being used as a giant memo board and had scribbled jottings all over the wallpaper.

The patient was just coming to after a bad fix. Apparently her friend, whose house we were in had been giving her mouth-to-mouth before our arrival. The patient's friend was not happy that she had almost died a few minutes earlier in her lounge. As the patient slowly regained consciousness we could begin to engage in conversation. She did not wish to go to hospital to receive any further treatment. On the way out of the property my colleague accidentally stood on an ashtry overflowing with ash. The owner apologised and said that she'd clean it up after we'd gone. I took one look at the rest of the carpet (what I could actually see of it) and thought that she was being a bit optimistic.

Two purple calls and two live patients at the end of it - not a bad result really, considering that the last purple job I'd done involved a dead child.

The day came to a not altogether unexpected climax when our vehicle broke down at the hospital after clearing from a job. The starter motor had gone. An hour's wait for the recovery vehicle went, followed by a tow around the carpark to jumpstart the ambulance. After a journey back to base praying that the engine didn't stall, we informed Control that there were no spare vehicles in the garage. Forty Five minutes to go until the end of the shift...

Another shift had ended with another broken ambulance. And nobody had died.

Smoke gets in your eyes...

2005-09-08T10:32:00.000-07:00

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!'

Unequal and Unreactive...

2005-09-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

... When your eyes have a torch shone in them and this is the eye pupil reaction, start to worry.

One man who we went to today had the same pupils. He's now on a life support machine in ITU.

During the previous night he'd allegedly been mugged/beaten up in an alley close to his home. At the time his friends called for one of our ambulances to attend. They arrived and duly bandaged his head and inspected his body for other wounds, contusions and lacerations. Now, it's important to state at this juncture that the man was slightly the worse for wear, in terms of sobriety. He refused the crews advice to attend A&E for his wounds and possibly unseen injuries.

Now, as I've stated in previous posts we are not allowed to take patients to hospital against their will. Technically it's called kidnap. The patient was adamant he was not going to hospital.

Fast forward 12 hours and the same man is now lying unconscious on the floor of his friend's living room carpet. Several hours previously he had started to behave erratically, was twitching involuntarily and was being generally 'not himself'.

By the time we arrived he was twiching once every minute or so, he was breathing stertously (snore-like) and was not looking in generally good shape. Our observations of him told us that all was not well.

His pulse was racing at 130 and his blood pressure was falling - signs of possible blood loss somewhere. The clincher was his eyes.

They say that a person's eyes are the window to the soul. It's true in many ways. I've seen people who are just about to do something drastic ie. arrest, faint, collapse or fit, and the eyes always tell you the necessary information seconds before the event.

Our patient's eyes were unequal and unreactive. Even normally unconscious patients have pupil reaction to light and are equally reactive to it. Anything else is a 'big red flag' that all is not well with the neurological balance in the brain.

Coupled with the initial observations and physical appearence of our patient we both decided it was time to get him to hospital. Quick. We have a term for the level of quickness for these jobs, it's called GLF - 'Go Like F**k'.

One minor obstacle lay between our patient and the ambulance - the lounge which he was lying on was located on the fourth floor. And no, there weren't any lifts. Fortunately our patient was not heavy. He was soon in the vehicle.

I sent a quick radio pre-alert to the hospital to tell them a brief history and nature of injuries sustained by the patient, followed by an ETA (estimated Time of Arrival). I told them 8 minutes. I did the journey in 6.

We called in to the Emergency Room later on during the shift, to find out how our patient was. His condition had deteriorated and he was being transferred to a specialist neurology unit at another hospital. A machine was breathing for him.

99 times out of a 100, when we attend a patient who has been mugged/assaulted all that results is a few lumps, bumps and a split head, nothing worse. This was the 100th job. The one where the patient doesn't wake up the next day with a fuzzy head and the UBIs (Unexplained Beer Injuries).

And there's probably someone out there who could now be facing a manslaughter charge...

Fatboy Slim

2005-09-04T11:32:00.000-07:00

Another trip to Roddlesworth Reservoir on Friday was rewarded with a solitary Pike of 5lb, caught on a Fox Fatboy lure. The pattern was Storm. The lure now has the battle scars from an encounter with Esox Lucius down its side.

Fatboy lures are like the old S Type lures - but on steroids. Like the S Type, they are reluctant to dive too far and are prone to surfacing if you reel in too slowly. They have a pleasant wobbling action, though.

Friday also gave me the chance to try out some excellent traces that I'd bought on EBay. They are made of Titanium wire and are pretty indestructable, even I couldn't kink them during the session.

The weather was warm again with sun shining striaght into my face off the surface of a mirror flat water, not ideal conditions it must be said. Coupled with the millions of Midges and Gnats that seemed to be strangely attracted to my scalp - the fishing was not the best.

Although I fish for Pike year round, there is a feeling at this time of year that one is starting to approach the pike season proper. When the weather starts to cool and the mornings start later, it is the time when many seasoned pikers consider their first forays to the water's edge since the Spring. October 1st is the traditionalists' start date for the Pike fishing season. 26 days to go.

Soon, the lures will be packed away and out will come the deadbait rods and reels. Time to let the pike come to my bait, rather than me chasing them around the reservoir with a lure. Time to sit still, shivering and huddled over two rods, wishing that the weather was warm again..

Just supposing...

2005-09-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

We really need some rain to fill our country's reservoirs, though not anything on the scale that the poor folk in Louisiana have recently endured - let's face it, our generation is buggering up the world's climate with global warming.

Is it a case of 'What goes around, comes around?' - George Bush has blocked legislation for mandatory pollution limits on industry in his own country. He also impeded investment in the upgrading of Louisiana's Levees. Who's crying now?

Sorry to go off on a tangent on this posting but when the world's only superpower can't help its own people in its own backyard, then something is going seriously wrong.

Makes you wonder what would happen if the same thing happened in London or Norwich though, doesn't it? Would the masses loot, rape and pillage within a few days as they have in New Orleans? Or would we form orderly queues, something for which we are world famous (Have you ever seen an orderly queue in Germany/Netherlands/Spain - no, I haven't, either!)

The next few weeks and months will be very interesting, to see how the American people handle another disaster on their own doorstep - this time from Mother Nature.

In the meantime, no jokes about Mississippi Mud Pie, please...!!

A pain in the back and side!

2005-09-02T18:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a few days now since I did the heavy lift job with the maggot ridden diabetic collapsee, and my lower back on the left side hasn't been the same since.

When trainees start this job they spend the first few weeks in training school learning all the correct lifting & handling procedures. This is done to prevent staff from damaging their backs but it also is undertaken to minimise the high number of sick days taken by staff suffering from spinal ailments.

The lift undertaken the other day was with my colleague, a Clinical Practice Tutor - someone who knows a thing or two about the challenges of lifting the equivalent of an 18stone lump of jelly. We couldn't have done the lift any more safely. And yet, my back is buggered.

The pain isn't too bad when I'm up and about, moving (Doh, that means I can still work). It's after I've been lying still for four hours that the pain starts. Every night this week I've had little more than four hours sleep. Not good for someone who needs his beauty sleep.

I've tried various pills and lotions including pain relief cream and slow acting Ibuprofen, all to little effect.

As they say, 'Back pain is an occupational hazard, in a hazardous occupation'. Try telling me that 4.00am in the morning...

Undertakers

2005-08-29T09:45:00.000-07:00

There are some jobs that, as soon as you read the details on the datascreen you think, 'This is going to probably be a serious one.'

Yesterday afternoon we got a call to inform us that a motorcyclist had collided with the central reservation on the motorway.

One thing we are taught in training school and when we first start the job in the real world is NEVER to radio diagnose. For those of you not in the emergency services, we receive basic details on a screen in the vehicle which is updated while on route to the patient.

However, the words 'Motorcylist' and 'Central Reservation', when put together in the same sentence do have serious connotations.

We arrived on scene within 5 minutes.

Rather than being confronted with the sight of mangled wreckage and mangled biker we could see six motorcyclists on the hard shoulder engaging in a conversation with the local motorway police.

One biker was holding his wrist, it didn't looked like his hand was about to drop off. When I asked how fast he had been travelling at the time of the crash he said, 'No more than 50mph.' Being within earshot of the policeman, what he was saying and what he was meaning to say were two separate things, I thought.

Within the safe confines of the ambulance and away from the ears of the policeman I asked the same question again. 'It was into three figures!' was the reply this time.

Now, the reason why us ambulance folk ask questions about such things as impact speed is very important. It's called kinematics - the study of physical factors affecting injuries involving velocity.

To be involved in an accident when you are a motorcyclist travelling in excess of 100mph usually means that the police and ambulance crew will have to scrape up various parts of body tissue along a quarter mile stretch of road. Our patient seemed to be remarkably intact, all things considered.

A thorough examination revealed probable fractures to two metacarpals (wrist bones) and a pain in the centre of the back. The man needed to be taken to hospital for a more thorough check-up. He refused to go.

In our job, if a patient says that they don't want to go to hospital we have to respect their wishes, even though we will strongly recommend that they follow our advice. Our biker friend was having none of it. Being built bigger and stronger than me, I wasn't going to argue the point.

But I knew a man who would.

We described our predicament to the motorway policeman. He was even bigger than the biker. Size doesn't always count but it did at this precise moment on the hard shoulder of a very busy motorway.

"Just f**k off to hospital, or I'll book you!" he bellowed above the noise of the traffic. The big, burly biker did as he was told, much to the amusement of my colleague and myself. It's funny how the traffic police never speak to the public like this when they are being filmed for documentaries, I mused!

Fifteen minutes later, the nurses had the big burly biker eating out of their hands (metaphorically speaking) and we departed for the next job...

That crunchy feeling...

2005-08-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I go to attend to a patient at their home and the senses are assaulted before I've even entered the property. Yesterday was just such a day.

We were called to help an elderly male who had collapsed just inside the front door to his flat, and who was preventing anybody from entering because he was lying just inside the doorway. The patient was a known diabetic.

I'm not thin - but I'm not too fat either, so I managed to squeeze my frame in and around the available gap in the doorway and entered.

It's strange how your eyes give you an amazing amount of visual information in a few seconds. The floor of the property and every surface was covered in dust, detritus, mould and rotting food. The occupant was obviously unable to care for himself.

Then the smell hit me.

Now, I'm not one of those people who baulks at the aroma of things most people find offensive. It's an occupational hazard that quite often I'll find my olfactory senses challenged on a regular occurence, whether it's urine, vomit, faeces or gangene. However, the smell that greeted me yesterday was a new one to my nose.

Looking down to the floor where the patient was lying I could see the pattern of the carpet moving. People pay good money to have such hallucinatory experiences, I believe. Looking closer I could now see that the movement was being caused by the wriggling of maggots. Lots of them. Piles of dark red pupal casings were scattered everywhere.

That explains the abundance of flies in the property, thought I.

The patient had been lying on the floor for over 24 hours, according to one of his neighbours who was being a bit too helpful to be useful (bystanders are often a bit too helpful to be useful in this job!) His weight and general poor health were preventing him from being able to get back on his feet. His collapse was probably non diabetic related.

A second crew was needed to assist with the lift onto our vehicle. This plan of action had been arrived at after the fifth attempt to lift him into a carry chair had failed, amidst much sweating and muttered swearing from my colleague and myself.

At hospital the patient was found to have rather nasty sores to his private parts (both the front bits and the rear bit), but there were no other obvious injuries. We left him in the capable hands of the nursing staff.

The smell that had greeted me on arrival had permeated my uniform and remained for the rest of the shift. All ten hours of it...

Overtired...

2005-08-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

As you read this entry, I am just starting to recover from a pathetic cold which has well and truly bunged my head up for the last 72 hours.

It came on during Wednesday afternoon. By Thursday night it had got to the stage where it kept me awake all night. That's not too bad, you may think. Wrong. I was working last night and by this morning had not had any proper sleep for 48 hours. I was planning on getting a good 6 hours of ZZZZzzzzzs this morning/afternoon, before starting another night shift tonight.

My neighbours thought differently.

For the last three hours they have drilled/sanded/hammered the connecting wall between our properties incessantly. Don't get me wrong, I fully appreciate that it's the weekend, a time when most people decide to do a bit of DIYing. It's just that by the time I finish my shift, tomorrow morning at 08.00hrs, I won't have had any proper sleep for 3 days.

If you dial 999 tonight and ask for an ambulance, please don't take it too personally if I come across as a bit niggly and overtired. I'll be feeling human again by Monday - just in time for the next run of night shifts starting on Tuesday.

Red Bull and Contac (non drowsy), here I come...

Tales from the Hunter-Gatherer: Part1

2005-08-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

Now, who was it who doubted this blogger's hunter-gathering skills?

I took the brave step this morning of returning to the reservoir where I was intending to fish when my car blew up. The weather was dull but mild and warm - a bit like a pint of Watneys Red Barrel, really.

There was a light breeze creating ripples on the surface of the water which was coloured light brown - with the wind in my face the conditions were perfect.

I thought I'd give my recently purchased lures a try out to see which ones work and which ones don't. The failures are destined to be re-listed on EBay in the future.

To the untrained eye, jerkbaiting (fishing with large lures which, by twiching of the rod imparts fishlike actions) looks rather phrenetic and almost violent. Whilst the maggot drowners (coarse fisherman) lie back and wait for the fish to find their baits, the jerkbaiter covers vast areas of water searching for the pike with each successive cast.

Within a couple of casts I'd had several 'follows' from pike - swirls of water emerged around the lure on the surface. Then, I was in! (pikers speak for - "Gosh, I seem to have a fish attached to my lure!"). After a brief battle, watched by two other anglers and a couple of walkers, the fish was in the net. Not a giant in Pike terms - 6lbs - but it was a start. Two casts later and another pike - 5lbs - was in the net. The word 'smug' had just taken on a whole new meaning.

The smaller one is pictured above. I'm very careful with pike - not because I'm scared of their mouthful of barbed inward facing teeth - but because they are very sensitive creatures. I rarely pick them up out of the water or hold them.

The pike were both caught on a Believer, a lure I recently bought on EBay for £2.70 - a bargain! It's chipped paintwork is testament to the damage inflicted in the pursuit.

The great thing about a successful fishing trip is that you immediately forget about all the 'blanking' sessions that you've endured - many hours without so much as a sniff of a bite. Now, I have been bitten by the pike bug and can't wait to return to the water's edge again.

But between now and the next piking trip is work. Ah well, it makes the money that pays for the next consignment of lures...

Back on the road again!

2005-08-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

I've just collected the car from the garage. I'm sure I caught the mechanics trying to stifle their sniggers out the corner of my eyes as I handed over a rather large wodge of cash to the boss.

Apparently the water pump had broken. This had led to the engine overheating when it did. Good news for me thought I, because my wife had suspected me of not keeping a regular check on the engine fluid levels. Proof that I am the innocent party and had no part in the engine's demise!

I have one more shift to work tomorrow night then I'm off for four days. Time enough to plan a spot of pike fishing! I must admit that the thought of a return trip to the reservoir I was intending to fish last weekend is filling me with fear and trepidation. Not at the thought of getting up at 'Oh-My-God-O'Clock!', but at the dread of the car doing a repeat performance of a dying swan on the M65 again!

I'll have to show my face again in the newsagents where I bought the job lot of Turkish Spring Water (at £1.31 per two litre bottle) too - it is the only place that sells day tickets for the reservoir I intend to fish.

I've bought some more lures from EBay this week, each one looks a proven fish catcher. But then again, if they were such successful lures why would the seller wish to part company with them on EBay?! Time will only tell as to how successful they are.

If I catch a pike with any of them, that particular lure will be revered and have its own special place in my lure bucket (the bucket with all the holes, rendering it useless as a bucket).

If I lose it to a snag which, given my track record is highly likely, then I'll have parted company with yet another £8.00+ of painted balsa and metalwork.

If I fail to catch any pike with the lure in question (odds on with this option!), I'll re-sell it back onto EBay.

And no, I won't describe it as a 'proven fish catcher'! - If nothing else, I am honest...

Always look on the bright side of life...

2005-08-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

I phoned the garage at 8.45am yesterday morning from work to find out the prognosis, and more importantly the likely cost, for the repair of the car.

The news wasn't good. Apparently, the cylinder head does need skimming, the cylinder head gasket has blown and there is a broken belt. All this sounded total gobbledegook to me as the mechanic listed the ailments which had befallen the motor. The upshot of this auto technobabble was that the bill would be £400. Plus VAT. Let's call it £470 all in.

Now, let me try and put you in the picture as to the household income. As a trainee ambulance technician my salary is not fantastic. The job is, but the salary isn't. And no, I don't do my work purely for the love of helping the sick and injured. My wife works as a prison officer. She loves her job. Again, her salary isn't fantastic. And no, she doesn't do her job purely for the joy of locking prisoners up and trying to put them on the road to the straight and narrow.

£470 is a lot of money to us.

Returning to the telephone call with the mechanic, I reluctantly agreed to the repair costs and put the phone down. Now, was a moment for me to feel sorry for myself and my financial situation. I phoned my wife and offloaded my sorrow and bitterness on her.

We're due to go on holiday to Spain next month for a week. For the last few weeks we've been 'umming' and 'ahhing' about whether to go ahead with the holiday or not - we're trying to save up for a deposit on a house.

Feeling particularly sorry for myself, I said that she should go on holiday without me. My reasoning was that this would save money on boarding fees for the dogs and also save money on car park fees at the airport - don't ever say I'm not prepared to make sacrifices for the common good! We agreed to discuss things later on after I'd finished my shift.

Within two minutes of putting the phone down, the radios beeped into life, to tell us that there was a job waiting for us to attend. The radio display showed the job as an 'urgent', as opposed to an 'emergency'. The difference between the two is that response times for emergencies are measured in minutes, response times for urgent calls are measured in hours.

The ambulance data screen showed us that we were to attend to an adult male with breathing difficulties who was to be transferred to the local Medical Assessment Unit for treatment. The patient's GP had visited earlier that morning and requested the transfer. My colleague and I set off at a leisurely pace towards the 'urgent' call, just around the corner from the station.

We 'arrived on scene' within five minutes. We were met at the door by a kindly elderly lady who showed us into her lounge. The ladies son was the person who we were to take to hospital.

The ladies son (a man in his early 60s) was sat in front of us, wheezing and gasping for air through an oxygen mask. The doctors letter told us everything we needed to know.

Diagnosis: emphysema, COPD and terminal Ca Bronchus.

Forget about the medical jargon, the important bit is that the man had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and was not expected to live much longer.

On a human level, we were about to take a woman's son to hospital. To die.

In an ideal world no parent should ever outlive their offspring. But war, disease and famine corrupts this. In a little corner of Lancashire yesterday, disease was once again corrupting the natural order of things.

The man was an absolute gentleman and I shared a wonderful conversation with him about his interest in aircraft while on route to hospital. As we pulled in to the ambulance bay at the hospital, he burst into tears. He was scared of what was to lie ahead. I put a hand on his knee and told him that the ward he was going onto was staffed by lovely, kind nurses who would care for him.

My colleague and I handed him over to the nurses who immediately made him comfortable in the seated area.

I said my goodbyes to the man and his mother. He shook me vigourously by the hands and thanked me for the care and help that we had provided for the brief period we had been in his life.

Leaving the ward with a lump in my throat, we returned to the ambulance to await our next job.

The thought of having to scrape together £470 for a repair bill didn't seem important anymore.

And to add insult to injury...

2005-08-06T15:58:00.000-07:00

I've left my wallet in the glovebox of my broken down car, which is now safely locked away in the garage of the local mechanics, waiting for work to begin on Monday morning.

Until then, I'm walletless - which means I'm also cashless and cardless.

I can cope with the madness that is part of my occupation's daily grind, it's the madness when I'm let loose on my days off that is more difficult to cope with..!

Check your engine fluid levels NOW!!

2005-08-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

If you think you're having a bad day, read on.

The conditions for a spot of pike fishing looked ideal this morning. The wind had dropped, the barometric pressure was rising and the the dawn had the look of a warm and sunny day ahead.

Rather than fishing the local canal, I thought I'd try a reservoir which is about nine miles away from where I live. To get to it involves a short drive along the M6, then the M65. No problems with that, thought I.

Now, as you are reading this please be aware of one thing - I don't have any interest in motor mechanics. I bought a Haynes Manual for my car last year during a brief bout of common sense, only to resell it last month on EBay. It had remained unopened and must be the only Haynes Manual in existance that hasn't got oil smears all over the cover.

Oh how life has a habit of giving you a good kicking when you are least expecting it...

Just coming off the M65 the oil and water lights lit up on the dashboard. The engine died. Luckily, this was at 6.45am in the morning and there was no traffic to impede my nerve wracking progress to the nearest layby.

East Lancashire is a wonderfully remote and rural area. The nearest village to my layby is four miles away. It's one of those laybys where you are encouraged to stop, have a picnic and take in the wonderful scenery. Now, let's go back two sentences. The four miles to the nearest village bit.

After I had calmed my temper and stopped calling the car by every profanity in the Oxford English Dictionary, my mental lucidity returned and I thought about what to do next. The engine would take a good hour and a half to cool. Enough time to walk the four miles to the nearest village, purchase some water to refill the car, and walk the same four miles back again.

Please don't feel sorry for me and the sorry predicament of my situation just yet. The walk took me past the very same reservoir I had originally set out to fish. Now feel sorry for me.

Upon reaching the shop I told the kindly newsagent about my misfortune. She had a look of total disbelief on her face as I regaled her with my tale of auto woe.

I'm sure she was trying to be helpful when she told me that her husband had left only two minutes before in order to deliver the weekend newspapers to some remote farmhouses close to where my car was parked, and that he would have given me a lift back to my car if he was around. Biting my tongue so hard that my mouth filled with blood, I thanked her for the kind thought and said that the exercise was probably doing me the world of good anyway.

Back I trudged to the car, this time encumbered with the weight of six litres of turkish spring water at £1.31 per two litre bottle. Oh, and a Mars Bar to treat myself when I had got back.

I am quite self conscious by nature. I always think about what other people are thinking about me when they see me. With my head stuck under the bonnet of an ageing, bashed red Peugeot, I was feeling particularly self conscious this morning.

Water in and fingers crossed I turned the ignition key. The engine started first time.

Not risking the return journey home along the motorway, I gingerly drove the quiet route, not daring to rev more than necessary. The car made it home but cut out just as I pulled it onto the kerb outside my home.

I have since taken the car down to my local garage and have been informed that the cylinder head may need skimming because it may have warped with the heat. I'll find out on Monday afternoon.

I never got as far as pike fishing today. Ah well, I've saved £4.75 on the cost of a day ticket. I'm trying not to think how much the car is going to cost to repair.

I may have to sell some of my lures to finance the costs...

Please read this if you see my ambulance approaching...

2005-08-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

I've just done three 12 hour day shifts. Tonight and tomorrow night I'll be doing two further 12 hour shifts. It's not the hours that is the problem, its the attitudes of other roadusers when I'm driving to a job on an emergency...

For those of you who get a bit nervous (and there are quite a few of you!), when you see an ambulance approaching whilst you are driving, please take the following advice:

Give us some clue that you have actually seen us approaching your vehicle in your rear view mirrors - either brake and pull over carefully or use your indicator to show that you are giving way
We treat red traffic lights as a give way and can only proceed if the traffic is stationary - that means it would be nice if you could actually stop to let us through!
We hate the sight and sound our own vehicles make when on an emergency call - we don't put the noise and light show on for no reason. PLEASE do not feign ignorance of the fact that we have been trying to overtake and get past you for the last quarter of a mile.
Drivers who either try to speed in our wake behind us or who try to outtrun us by speeding up ahead of us are a bit annoying (aren't I polite?!)
We don't park in the middle of narrow streets deliberately - we're not trying to annoy other motorists - it's just that it would be nice to get access to our side doors and rear ramp (which requires 15ft clearence space) without bashing other parked vehicles.

Be nice to us friendly ambulance crews - who knows, you might need us oneday...

Pike 1: Angler 0

2005-07-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

It was a foregone conclusion really. The odds were always against me.

There I was on the canal bank, an angler with minimal experience in the art of hunter-gathering, trying to outwit a fish that has evolved over millions of years into a cunning and intelligent predator.

It could have been worse though. The first cast (with a redhead Super Shad Rap Rapala) landed plum in the middle of a patch of waterlillies. The plus side of this mis-cast was that the lure could be pulled free, thanks to the 50lb braided line in use. The minus side was that in pulling the lure free I also pulled in a large clump of plants, right through what had looked like a promising swim. When it comes to ruining promising swims I am without equal.

Lure selection is an art. Unfortunately I have never been that artistic. The water in the canal is permanently coloured a muddy brown. Taking this into account, along with the early morning gloom I thought about which colour lure might be most effective. Why, Goldfish orange of course! Out came the Goldfish Super Shad Rap.

Now, let's think about this logically for one moment, from Mrs Pike's point of view (afterall, you've got to think like a pike to catch a pike). Why would a goldfish find itself swimmming up and down the Lancaster Canal, giving the come-on to any interested waterlife? I can't think of an answer either, but that was what I was skillfully mimicking at 5.00am this morning!

Two things happen when the time is passing without any joy of having caught anything.

Firstly, you start to try EVERY lure in your armoury in the vain attempt to get the attention of any pike daft enough to set off in pursuit. Secondly, you silently curse anyone/anything in the vicinity for your lack of success. This morning it was the weather/Moorhens/humidity/dog poo and fellow anglers. Not necessarily in that order, though.

Talking of fellow anglers, allow me to get something off my chest - it is my blog after all!

When I'm fishing I want to left alone. I do not appreciate the local maggot drowners (course fishermen) turning up with their plethora of poles, banksticks, seatboxes and associated paraphenalia, and proceeding to set up up in my swim! Nor do I appreciate anglers wheeling the aforementioned kit along the towpath on the back of a noisy, squeeking wheelbarrow. There is fishing etiquette you know!

The morning had its positives though.

The smell of a field of grass at 4.30 in the morning is amazing. Two hours later it was gone. I wonder how many people never get to smell this scent, either because they don't have access to fields or because they don't get up early enough.

First light is a magical time of day. It's as if the day is holding its breath, waiting for the noise and hurly-burly we humans create later on.

Walking back from the canal I was struck by how many Wood Pigeons there are in the fields - good news for the family of Hawks that have recently flown their nest and are living in the fir plantation nearby.

There are also many Magpies - not such good news for the finches, tits and other small birds. "One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl and four for a boy..." How many for the 16 I saw this morning?

Getting back to the fishing for a minute, I did have one bite! I say a 'bite' because it was the only time I retrieved my line and felt something on the other end end of the line that wasn't a branch/waterlilly/carrier bag. For those of you that are interested, it came on a Roach pattern Shad Rap.

I'm away from the water's edge for a few days now, I'm back at work tomorrow working six 12hour shifts on the run. That's 72 hours of fun and frivolity in the space of six days.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job - but I'll tell you more about that later...

Another day, another blank probably....

2005-07-26T11:31:00.000-07:00

What possesses a sane (?), respectable man to set the alarm for 3.30am in the morning when he's not working? The thought of catching Mrs Pike, that's what!

In truth, I haven't actually been fishing for over two years now and tomorrow is my first expedition to the water's edge since then. I've only got back into 'the scene' since rooting around to sell some lures on EBay a few months ago. Looking through the collection of multi-coloured, glistening jerkbaits, spinners, surface, shallow divers and deep diving lures re-ignited my enthusiasm again.

Lure colours are designed to catch anglers not fish, I'm sure! The colour names alone make them all sound edible - sherbert lemon, chartreuse and rhubarb & custard!

I bought a black bucket two years ago and proceeded to drill holes all along the rim so that the lures can hang within. I also drilled some holes in the bottom so that water dripping off the lures would not accumulate in the bottom. I've washed my car approximately 46 times since but have never been able to use that bucket! "DOH", as Homer Simpson would say...

The magic of preparing for a fishing trip when you are a lure angler is selecting the lures you think will be successful on the day. With the recent mild weather, I think Mrs Pike will be high up in the water and I will therefore take a selection of surface and shallow diving lures. I couldn't take anything else really to the local canal because there are too many snags in the depths. Bike frames, carrier bags, old tyres and other 20th Century detritus lurk below.

My lures for tomorrow? Well, I've packed five different patterns of Rapala Super Shad Rap(Roach, Golden something or other, Redhead, Goldfish and Orange Belly), a Fox Runt, a Buchertail, Grandma (perch pattern), several S type lures and several spinners.

I'll let you know which ones I lose to the Bike frames, carrier bags, old tyres and other 20th Century detritus!

Who knows, I might even catch something. I'll let you know tomorrow....