Always room for kindness

WORKING for the ambulance service is deeply rewarding. I like working odd hours, with odd people. I love driving round town when everyone else is asleep and there’s no traffic. It’s good to have a job where people are actually pleased to see you. It’s good to be able to help.

One evening, I was called out on an emergency transfer: there was a patient at the local hospital, a man in his 80s, who needed urgent bypass surgery, and the only place that could do it was in the middle of London.

The patient, Frank, was affable and relaxed, somehow managing to treat all this fuss as a bit of a laugh.

But his wife and daughter were beside themselves.

It was plain to see why. I was about to load Frank into my ambulance, and it was possible that they would never see him alive again. They’d be following us in their car, but neither of them was used to driving in London. So I invited the mother to join Frank in the back of my ambulance.

They stared at me openmouthed. ‘The nurses said she couldn’t. They said there wouldn’t be room.’

‘Course there is. Hop on. Make yourself comfortable.’

The wife burst into tears. She had spent so long dreading this moment, thinking that this could be the last time she’d see her husband. Now she could stay with him, all the way to the operating theatre. She might lose him yet, but not on my watch. And that’s why I joined the service.

The daughter was all smiles and grateful thanks. ‘The nurses were sure there wouldn’t be room,’ she repeated.

Well, it ain’t their bleeding ambulance, is it?