Ambulances Stacking

Well! Talk about dragging its feet, my day shift got off to a hectic start and really didn't get any better, although I was working with my part time crew mate Scott who has been away on leave and what with one thing or another I haven't worked with at all this year until now. We were extremely busy even though right now I can't bring to mind any job of interest, that led on into my night shifts, as this week is my relief week I don't follow the usual two days two nights pattern I'm used to and this time round I got one day and three nights (gulp) I am not good at nights at the best of times but three is a killer. Fortunately I had swapped one of them earlier in the month with another of my crew mates and have already done the shift so she is doing the third shift for me (phew). The two nights were no better than the day and to be honest probably worse, we did manage to get the whole half an hour meal break but that was about it. We took a patient in to one hospital and fortunately just had a Minor case, if we had been taking our patient into majors we would have been stacking. There were three resus's going on at one point, one of which was a 29 year old! As we came out there were 9 ambulances stacking! As we booked clear we immediately got another job (not surprising as all the ambulances in the area were waiting at the hospital!) this patient also needed hospital treatment but at a hospital 15 miles away, when we got there it was pretty much empty, very strange. our last job of the night (early hours) was to pick up a patient from a vehicle which had broken down 26 miles away and take him and the police escort a further 12 miles to a predetermined hospital then travel back from that hospital to our base station, so that would have been a 72 mile round trip, with a stop to transfer the patient onto our stretcher and get a hand over from the crew, then give the receiving hospital a handover and transfer the patient onto a bed. This was not a blue light drive which meant normal road speeds, and we received the job at 0430am, and were due to finish at 0700. Well we did the first leg of the journey to the broken down ambulance then found out that the crew and the police had devised a plan of action (as they had been waiting for so long due to the amount of emergency calls we have been getting) So we were no longer required, what a stroke of luck! Eventually we got back to base and the day crew arrived and I was able to finish my shift, for two weeks of annual leave, but I'm not kidding myself, even though it will be leave and for the most part exciting I know the first week is going to be hectic!