Melbourne’s raging bush fires, an inferno of unprecedented proportions. A death toll that as I write has just exceeded 200. This brings fear to me. My mind flashes to what happened to these poor folk. Their pain and suffering. Was it quick? God I hope so.

I’ve never had to attend to a burns patient before, but I’ve heard stories.

I’ve been to hangings. To stabbings. To beatings. But nothing compares to the fury of nature at her angriest.

I run through in my head what I would do if I was called out to help a bushfire survivor.

The dangers. Are they responding? Breathing? Talking…screaming. F*ck.

Just take their pain and suffering away, for Gods sake. Find a vein, shaking hands. The heat.

Scoop and go. Fast. They need fluids. Where are their burns, goddammit. Airway? Backup?

Thank god for the CFA. Thank god for the volunteers. Thank god for the locals. Thank god for the ambos that attended to the survivors.

Sleep well if you can. You deserve your rest.

In all honesty, the majority of the work done by Melbourne’s paramedics is mundane and un-exciting.

Stick a needle in here, wack a bandage on there. Chat to the nannas and the druggies. All in a days work.

Most of the “lights and sirens” driving is still only for the mundane jobs. A bit of reflux. My angina is playing up. In a nutshell, most of these patients have been sitting at home with the pain for a good few hours. The nans and grandads who get the chest pain generally wait until morning to call because “they didn’t want to inconvenience anyone”.

But then you do get the job. The 50 year old who clutches their chest and collapses. The little bub who blows up in a rash and struggles to breath because their little brother gave them a peanut. These are the jobs where the lights go on and the sirens get turned up and the speed is needed.

That’s when Bob in his falcadore has the subwoofer turned up and the ambulance is in his audio blindspot. The ambulance cruises up behind Bob, who has propped in the right lane and hasn’t checked his rear view mirror since he got his license.

Here’s a tip for all you folks out there:

• Check your rear view mirror every now and then.
• Turn down the subbies a tad.
• If you see an ambulance coming, try and merge to the left.
• Don’t merge like a psycho and slam your brakes on. If you cause an accident we will have to stop for you.
• Don’t get mad with the people around you.
• Don’t endanger yourselves.
• Use common sense.

If you do these things you are likely to get good karma and a wave with a blue glove from us.

Good luck out there.

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.

Hot days like today often equal nanna down days. Nannas get all hot and bothered and dehydrated and unbalanced and boom! Nanna down. Paramedic in an ambulance required.

Osteoporosis has taken its toll and those brittle bones are ripe for the brakin’.

Fractured NOFs (neck of femurs or the longest bone in the body) are really common and that’s what turned up today. We also had the classic dehydrated nanna in a barely rousable state. “We just thought she was havin’ a kip”.

That’s when you want some good veins to go vampire on. You just need to get that cannula into the patient to rehydrate them or take their pain away. But you don’t often get them. The older folks get, the more calcified the veins are and they become elusive. The structure of the skin on the arms has broken down causing the skin to just act like a loose fabric over the arm while underneath the veins dance around like worms when you try and pin them down.

So that’s what ruined my partners day. He was hot, sweaty and in the heat he’d worn his overalls. The barely audible cursing under his breath as he “blew” 3 cannulations in a row (not like him at all) would have been funny if it wasn’t for the poor oldies in pain and in delusional states.

You have days like these and you just have to get back on the horse. Patients need pain relief and fluid.

Come Winter he’ll be wishing for some of the Summer sun.

I expect that if I ever reach the ripe old age of 93 I’ll be a demented old fool. Drooling unhappily into my porridge-like steak and beans puree. I’ll be grumbling that back in my day, men like Kurt Cobain composed “real” music and the youth of today have no respect for the elderly, and will they please turn down that infernal racket.

Well, today I met a remarkable old duck. 93 years young and living alone. Her son was down for the holiday season and he was heading home tomorrow. She padded out the back door without her walking stick to fetch something from the garage and managed to plunge head first down a set of stairs leading from the back porch.

She landed with her arms outstretched and kissed the pavement with her forehead. Her son found her trying to untangle herself with her feet still on the top step and her head resting on the concrete path three steps below.

She’d given herself a golf ball size haematoma on the hairline dead centre on the forehead and her left wrist was at an awkward angle, an obvious fracture. She had skin tears on her elbows and several of her fingers were bloodied. When we arrived she’d righted herself and was sitting on the stairs. Shaken but only mildly stirred.

“Me arm hurts a bit and I feel a bit shaky”.

“No wonder”, I said, “Someone from my generation would be screaming and crying”.

I gave her the once over but she was remarkably unscathed for such a violent trip.

Cervical spine – check. Palpate spine – check. Head, teeth, shoulders, hips, legs and arms – check. It goes to show that good genes can take you a long way. She was even a smoker.

A super-nanna indeed.

A puff on the penthrane, an air splint and she was happy. I suppose that’s one way to have your son hang around a little longer.