Now if you, like me and other Melbournians, are living in erm… Melbourne, then you’ll know it’s hot outside. Flamin’ hot.

The state government has taken some steps towards warning people to “look after each other”, but I really think that a few simple things will save us all and give the paramedics out there a rest.

• Drink water – like they say – 2 litres per day.
• No slip, slop, slappin – just stay out of the sun.
• If you have to go out, go to air-conditioned shopping centres.

Logical and simple.

Ambos get sent to too many old timers who’ve dehydrated themselves. Instead of risking your life in this heat and copping a huge great needle in your arm with some salty water running up it – just pop your feet up and watch the tennis.

‘Nuff said.

Here’s the thing. Doctors and Div 1 nurses can call ESTA, 000, Triple Zero, and say they want an ambulance. Just say when.

The question they get asked by the call taker is “how long can the patient medically wait for the arrival or the ambulance” and here lies the rub. Some Doctors take the proverbial p*ss.

What’s got me so irate stems from a job a couple of days ago. Big guy, did some extracurricular work for a charity and damages himself. Sciatica time. We pop him up to the local private hospital. Job done.

Next day we get a call back to the same address. The patient has released himself the night before and now, at peak hour time he can’t get back up off the bed.

His Dr had seen him earlier in the day and said to wait it out to see if the back improves. Nup. So what does the Dr do. He calls for the ambulance and says that the patient must be seen in the next 20 minutes. 20 minutes!

This bloke has been lying there all day. Now all of a sudden the Dr thinks it’s a medical emergency? Because the Dr has said it’s a medical emergency (20 minute time frame) an emergency ambulance has to be dispatched.

Let me put it in perspective, the following jobs would be regarded as a “Code 2″ just like our sciatica man:

• 98 year old grandma has fallen and broken her hip.
• A 12 year old who has dislocated their knee during a football match.
• A person who has burns to their entire arm.

So overall the Dr screws the system. For all I know there was a cardiac arrest just around the corner that we were unable to attend due to us having already arrived to see this fella. Don’t get me wrong, he was in pain, he needed to go to hospital, but what’s so wrong with waiting a little longer and going with a non-emergency ambulance.

Show some commonsense people. Ambulance is a privilege (even if you have to pay for it) and not a right.

Some jobs just continue to surprise. Last night was certainly no different.

The first job of the night began as a car rollover at a major intersection and ended up being a remarkable piece of luck.

Husband and wife were heading over to their son’s home for tea when the husband feels himself passing out. As he blacks out his foot hits the accelerator. The car launches from the lights and the wife grabs the steering wheel from the passenger seat.

She manages to dodge and weave her way across the intersection. The car heads down a small embankment, onto the wrong side of the road, up the gutter and down the footpath. She remembers looking for something hard to hit but not too hard. She picks out a large signpost and her car strikes it hard. The car is stopped.

For her troubles she breaks her right arm, a small price to pay for being able to hang on to the steering wheel. Her husband has some discomfort from the seat belt.

A lucky escape indeed.