KHAPCHA: (not a real name but it needs one because it will come up again i am very certain) This is a suburb/town on the outskirts of a major city that houses hundreds of thousands of low income families. The housing is a combination of brick and slapped together with what they could find houses where the properties merge into one another in a random order. Mainly corrugated iron, single storey dwellings linked by dodgy looking power cables emanating from random sources like street lights that would make a below average electrician shudder. The roads in this area had a design in mind but this is a plan that fell away when space became limited and every available inch became populated. For some reason the house numbers chosen were 5 digits long and this is a choice that fascinates me because even in the longest streets the chances of having 99999 houses on it is a bit of a stretch. I am convinced that the residents have a stroll up and down their street and choose a random number that may or may not be in use and splash it on an object reasonably close to their home. Road markings are a luxury and stop signs are ornaments because policing the traffic laws here would have to be a military task. Traffic cameras would go from mounted to someones personal property overnight and a speed enforcement officer would probably be reported missing in action. When responding to a call in this area you need to be vigilant for dogs and children during the day but at night the potholes and unmarked speed-bumps that jump out at you can end your journey and this is not an area that you want to be stranded in. Your ambulance is a pot of gold for spare parts to the inhabitants as we found out on one of our day visits here when all four of our wheel caps disappeared in under five minutes. Ambulances are called out for trap calls just so they can be robbed, you need to be vigilant all the time. This area is serviced mainly by the government ambulances and they have been doing so for quite a while. They have come to a bit of an understanding over time and it goes a little like this, we will be there in five minutes to five hours and if you are not standing on the curb when we arrive we will assume you have changed your mind. More of the inhabitants are starting to use the private ambulance services, or at least the ones that allow their staff to go into this zone of chance and the one area that fascinates me is their attitude. They still treat us with the same rules as the government ambulances, more often than not they are either waiting outside or are carried out by friends and family members as we arrive. The point i am actually getting at is i think a National Geographic study needs to be done on this area because 99% of our calls are between Midnight and 4am and they are for abdominal pains. Night Shift *phone rings* (1:30 am) Dispatch "I have a call for you" Medic "Khaptcha?" Dispatch "Yes" Medic "Abdominal pains?" Dispatch "Yes" Medic "*groan* What is the address?"
Posted on: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 06:42:09 +0000
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