Its my last shift before Christmas and its Very Very cold outside….  Its so cold outside that the polar bears are getting into the back of my ambulance to warm up!

We are called to a Motorcyclist who has had an accident due to the ice on the road. When we get there we are greeted by a large group of people, the Police, a Responder, lots of various people from the neighbouring factory, and a motorcyclist led on the floor under a massive pile of coats….

I step out of the ambulance to make my way through the abandoned vehicles, and nearly end up straight on my backside due to the ice on the road.

The responder tells me that whilst the motorbike was only traveling at 15mph and no other vehicles were involved the rider can’t move his left arm or leg.  He has already assessed the patient and hasn’t found any cause to believe that he had a spinal injury, but none the less, he still needed to be assessed at hospital.

Next we needed some “outside of the box” thinking….

…how were we going to get this large chap off of the most slippery surface that I have ever stood on, furthermore, we needed to put a bed on it that has wheels on each corner!!

I came up with the mad idea of opening the tale lift on the back of the ambulance, then reverse the ambulance slowly up to the patient, put the ambulance trolley onto the tale lift, lower it down so that it doesn’t need to be put onto the ice.  Then get a scoop stretcher to lift the patient up and put him onto the cot.  We had the tale lift and each other to hold onto to stop us all falling over – what an idea! And it worked….

….almost – whilst we were lifting, my foot slipped out from underneath me, a loud rip was heard, and a sudden cold feeling whooshed over my bottom and nether regions – my trousers had split in the seat!

A little embarasing and also chilli at first, but gave me a talking point for the rest of the day…..