You need a road name.

Brenda rant 29/8/11

Efficiency ; discuss- imagine you find some poor soul wandering through unfamiliar rural lanes not a million miles from a village, a small town and then a fairly well known city we’ll call Coventry.  You remember your first aid learnt in the volunteer sector so that’s a bonus for the tax payer, and assess his condition pretty accurately, not going to be violent, walking wounded; but not walking far enough for help not to be necessary. Help appears, ahh, the volunteer society again, it happens despite governmental policy gurus. Poor soul is delivered quite near to his place of safety, he just can’t remember exactly where he lives, whether or not he’s got to work tomorrow or even when his birthday is. He can, however, remember how to use his mobile phone to show us the picture of the scan of his baby-to-be. Ahh, sweet!

It’s time for the public sector to take over – thanks guys, you were great; all of you. The paramedic in his car, the three policemen in their two cars and the ambulance crew of two who came when the paramedic was able to concur with the cut on the head and concussion diagnosis – had it been worse than we’d thought he’d have needed - - - -  oh, an ambulance anyway. I presume the Police turned up to make sure that no crime had been committed; no crime was reported or even suspected. I bet someone somewhere was reporting their suspicions and being told that no Police could be made available until a crime actually happens as they are very busy. The police left once they had ascertained that no crime had even been thought about.

Now the daft thing is this – after dialling 999 all that rapid response, high tech professional and expensive help depended on one thing. It was close run; we needed a road name so that computer aided help could be dispatched. We knew which town we were in, we knew which pub and retail outlet car park we were in, we even knew which supermarket chain had it’s sole representative in that town just across the road, but until Graham ran around the area whilst on the 999 call, we had no idea of the street name. You see, if there hadn’t been a spare kindly passerby to do a quick local geographical survey they would not have been able to send a paramedic and two police cars to the aid of a poor bloke, covered in blood with no idea of what planet he was on, let alone where his mates had gone or even which way was up.

So if you plan to need an ambulance just be sure you know where you are on the map or get help from someone local who knows where they are. This has special relevance to us ‘canal users’. “We just passed the water treatment works outside the village with the fabulous church spire, after lock 3 but before you reach bridge 48”just ain’t gonna help in this efficient age.

Rant over

Brenda

www.jannock.org.uk