A Night Out

Why is MrsRRD nudging me? Surely it can't be time to get up already? No, it's my 'phone. I'm so sleepy that even the dulcet tones of the drum solo from "In The Air Tonight" have failed to penetrate my dreams. No wonder: I had already had one call tonight, and only been asleep for a couple of hours. Fortunately, MrsRRD is awake enough to remind me that my jump suit and boots are in a pile on the floor of the bedroom, or I would have had a bit of a shock when I got down to my car and found them absent.

A few minutes later, SatNav programmed, I shake my head repeatedly to get rid of the last vestiges of sleep, and start my journey.

The car is on 4 wheels. That's always a good start. I see the airbags have deployed. That's not bad. The windscreen has a spiderweb pattern of cracks on the driver's side, the centre of which is pushed out alarmingly. You and I both know what made that mark - yes, Constant Reader, the classic sign of a bullseye, made when the driver's head impacts at speed with the windscreen. Not so good. Not good at all.

I survey the scene for patients. There's a woman, looking ok, with a piece of gauze on her chin. She's walking around, so she can wait. There's a young chap, looking very much the worse for wear, but from an alcohol point of view, rather than injury - at least that what it seems at the moment. He is jawing away in his phone, and the police seem very interested in him.

Ok, to the car. There is a young man being extricated on a spine board through the passenger door. He has a deep gash on his head, and looks as though he has a broken femur. I presume that this is the driver, who is being brought out this way because it was easier, but, when I question the ambulance crew, it turns out this is the passenger. The driver is the rather drunk chap, who is wandering around in the company of the boys in blue! Hmmm.

I check the passenger out - he is in a lot of pain, and will need stitches galore to repair the scalping he has had, but will be ok.

Wait a minute! This is the passenger! Not the driver. But it was the driver's side that had the bullseye in the windscreen. I rush over to the car to check the position of steering wheel, just in case I have got this wrong. Nope, wheel on right, with pedals underneath. So, man who has bullseyed the windscreen is - somewhere.

I have a chat with one of the officers. Apparently, the police have taken him away into custody. (Crazily, my mind repeats a sleep deprived litany, "Rhubarb and custardy, rhubarb and custardy!"). I try to get my mind round this one. Has anyone medical seen this chap? Nope. Well, you'll just have to bring him back, then. Boys in blue not too pleased about this turn of events, but agree that they were probably a little hasty in dragging him off to the cells.

I hang around scene as he is returned. It doesn't take me long to examine him and find he is completely uninjured, save for a probable fractured toe. I relay this information to the waiting police.

"What??" he exclaims. "I've broken my toe?????!!!! Will they have to operate??".

It took all my restraint not to drag him over to his friend, lying in the ambulance, a laceration you could keep a bottle of WKD in, and show him what he had done.

I go home, and eventually fall into a troubled sleep, with dreams of car crashes and damaged teenagers.