The world of emergency ambulance response is sometimes an unforgiving environment and periodically in our careers we have all been faced with very challenging and harrowing situations. There is no one easy answer as how best to deal with such situations and there are many papers and text books offering best advice. What works for one does not work for all.

What is certain is that talking things through with colleagues often helps the situation; and the ambulance team has a great skill in lifting peoples spirits when they are deflated; often with a nice sense of mess-room humour. Experienced professionals have a hidden talent to calm things down, put things into perspective and help wipe the mental slate clean for that next call.

Liverpool people are famed for their sense of humour and are very quick witted by nature. This website page offers some of those lighter moments that have become infamous over the years and are judged okay to share. As you can imagine there are many that are legendary but unfortunately have to stay within the walls of our messrooms.
We all have our moments with call signs and radio procedure. In the 1980’s there was a call sign at Old Swan Station called Delta 22. Pity the poor ambulance technician when he meant to say “Delta Two Two Twenty Two to base” but inadvertently proudly called up “Delta Two Two Toooty Two”.
Tongue twister
We took an old gent to Walton hospital one night with chest pains. A young Doctor started to ask him what the problem was and as we were leaving I noticed the poor young Doctor anxiously referencing his medical book. I offered help and the Doctor replied the patient had told him he was suffering with a “Dicky Ticker” and I dont know what that is….
Steve Clarke
We received a call from a GP to take a patient with pneumonia to the Royal. When we arrived at the address I asked the patient’s husband if the Doctor had advised him what was wrong. The innocence of the reply has always caused me to chuckle when the gent said “ oh yes son my old lady has got harmonica of the lungs”.
Steve Clarke
In 1990 when I was on PTS, I was taking an elderly lady home to High Street in Woolton. When we arrived at Woolton Village, there was a large police presence and a crowd of people, but we were unaware of the reason for this. I was unable to park in the High Street, so I parked by the Coach and Horses pub and proceeded to assist the patient to her home address. When we turned the corner, I looked up and saw a huge elephant in the gardens. I said to my patient ‘do you know that you have an elephant in your garden?’, you can imagine her reaction. I managed to safely deliver the patient to her home address and when I was leaving her house, I saw a police superintendent running down the middle of the road, with the elephant chasing after him, it was a hysterical sight. The elephant was brought in as a publicity stunt to start the foundation dig for the new Marie Curie centre, (which was replacing the old Sunnybank home) and escaped and decided to have a good walk round Woolton including St Julies school before being captured
Jeff keig