In the world of cinema, ambulance rides are often depicted as either tense, action packed affairs or sombre reflective moments driven by profound character interactions. However, my experience was quite different.

For me, the reality of getting into that ambulance was far removed from the adrenaline-fueled scenes on screen. It wasn’t a heroic sprint or a tearful farewell, but a nightmare. I was enfeebled due to not eating (zero appetite) for days, no meds (I just plain forgot), which meant high sugars (I’d also taken a bucket of Covid in the face) and that short walk from front door to the ambulance steps was an epic ordeal.

True life doesn’t follow a script. Sometimes, the most heroic acts are the quiet one that require immense strength despite the absence of dramatic music or tearful farewells.

Every step became a fierce struggle between physical floundering and mental willpower. My legs, incapable of movement, rebelled against the game. The dozen steps to the waiting ambulance are since known as The Long Agonising Billion Step Climb. I gasped for breath, my voice a hoarse squeak, and my body yearned to collapse. Yet, the paramedics flanked me, their encouragement a lifeline. “Come on Dave, another step. You can do it. Not far now. You’re almost there.”

It sure as shit didn’t feel like I was almost there, but Holy Moley, those paramedic dudes all deserve medals. On some distant level I was dimly aware I was dressed in boxer shorts and a t-shirt I’m certain I hadn’t changed for a few days. I must have looked like a dirty zombie hobo dragged from the gutter.

The Blues

There were two tiny steps into the ambulance, which was like finally reaching the hardest summit in history only to find an evil trickster had shackled my feet to the ground. I was astounded when my leg wouldn’t raise high enough to gain the first step. And astonished when I was helped up onto the next one because if not, I would have toppled backwards. Covid and Gravity are best pals.

Forced movie camera angles aside, ambulance interiors are kinda cramped. And bright. And noisy. And full of stuff. Despite being clamped into place on the bed/stretcher/gurney I gripped the siderails in fear of being flung across the compartment. There were no windows, but it wasn’t hard to imagine the medical wagon weaving through traffic and lurching around sharp bends.

I’m sure by this point I had honked a number of times. I’ll let a big hairy spider crawl up my arm before I relent and yak. I’d rather sit in a dark silent room for hours, concentrating on my breathing and reducing panic levels than barfing up the chunder. When the HandsOn Paramedic said: “They’ll give you some anti-sickness meds”, it was like angels reciting beautiful poetry.

Racing Driver Paramedic called over his shoulder “Should I put the blues on?” I thought oh cool, so they do speak like they’re in the movies. HandsOn Paramedic replied “DKA of 20? Yes!” I had no clue what that meant at the time, or if she’d said 20 or 20something. From her tone I figured that was bad. I’ve since learned that yeah, that’s pretty much the opposite to “jolly-good, everything’s tickety-boo chaps, what-ho”. Life threatening stuff I was told later, something to do with acidy ketones getting rowdy in the blood and the body consuming itself. If I hadn’t been rushed to the hospital, I’d likely have gone into a diabetic coma within 24 hours.

Thirst & Chunder

Rushed off the ambulance and into bright lights, people talking, stuff beeping. There was always something beeping. I’d need to get used to that. The Paramedics bid me farewell and new people said hello. I was wheeled into what I considered either an indoor green house, or a people fish tank, a people tank if you will. It was dark. Except for the lights. And beeps. Another thing I noted with a remote sense of sideways satisfaction was the glass sliding door to my people tank. Just like on House, I thought.

Hospital people bustled in – checked my tubes, fiddled with machines and stuff on stands. I was insanely thirsty. A desert had birthed a tribe of mini deserts – deserteenies – in my mouth, who were expanding into my throat. Soon I’d begin pooping little sandcastles.

Back in the olden days before mobile phones, instant gratification, wokeism, snowflakism and entitlementism were a thing, I’d be out with my friends, all day in the blazing summer heat, roaming the countryside on our rad bikes, outdoing each other with the best curse words or your-mom insults, building dams in streams, building forts/dens, playing a weird game I recently dredged from my long-term memory, called NakeyNakey123. It had nothing to do with being naked.

By mid-afternoon we’d skid to a stop in a clatter of bikes on someone’s lawn, and guzzle pints of water – where no tap was available, we’d go with a handy hose pipe (oh the horror!) left outside to bake under that wonderfully hot nostalgic skyward orb. The trick was to let your mate first suck on the sun heated water, laugh in his face, then snatch the hose and pour that freezing deliciousness down your throat.

The point is that I’d never been so thirsty until propped on the bed in my people tank. I was brought a tiny paper cup with a few molecules of water in the bottom, barely enough to quench a family of quarks. Sadly, even a few molecules of H2O were enough to awaken Captain Barf. Thankfully I’d been left one of those cardboard bowler hats to store my chunks in.

After some award-winning heaves a nurse swished open the people tank door. Clear as crystal I remember offering my pukey bowler hat to him (chunky red and orange contents swirling amongst a semi-sticky transparent broth) and saying: “Now, I’m no a doctor, but that does not look normal.” I don’t recall any reply, except my expelled nastiness was taken away.

Chill. We’re coming to the Daves.

Patience At The Oasis

I was finally given some anti-sickness stuff, injected into my drip. That was serious holy water. I was hooked up to an insulin pump that beeped a lot. A few other machines were attached to me – heart thingy, oxygen tube thingy, maybe another thingy. Thankfully no butt stuff. I was taken on a long smooth joy ride through the hospital to a blissfully empty room. Six bays and just me. For a moment it was peaceful, apart from the bleeping machines, and someone moaning (or crying, or maybe screaming) in another part of the ward.

I was exhausted and just wanted to curl into a ball and sleep, an impossibility with tubes and needles and stuff trailing out of me like futuristic dreadlocks. I laid there, still, at rest in the semi-darkness and let my brain relax. I’d discovered a rare oasis of calm, and I drank it in.

Memory is unreliable. Brains are picky what they consider storage worthy. Memories of the last few days, and indeed that night, remain a mixed bag – sketchy, unreliable and possible dreamt, completely absent or weirdly clear. My oasis was visited by a wonderfully large and majestic nurse checking my vitals. Her actions were relaxed and fluid, her voice deep and rich, wise and reassuring, with a tinge of an exotic accent I couldn’t place. I clocked her name badge and had to ask: “Is that your real name? Is it really Patience?”

A quiet chuckle and a smile. It sure is.

The NHS is truly an amazing thing.

During the small hours a butterfly flitted it wings over the Antarctic. A causality chain reaction rippled throughout the cosmos and resulted in me being wheeled from my oasis into another not so empty room. Five bays all occupied by cadavers elderly gents of varying levels of either senility or good old fashioned bawdy cantankerousness. I was still somewhat shaken by my ordeal and the kindly Patience pulled a curtain around my bay and gave me a sympathetic smile. Good luck.

I was going to need it.

The Daves

I’d like to say the remainder of the night was quiet, apart from the beeping, the snoring and the farting. But it wasn’t. It was a jaunting trip through a cacophony of almost Tourette’s style foul language I’d never expected from elderly chaps. Sickly sour odours and deep earthy rotten stenches crept under my curtain and invaded my senses. It was never clear which orifice they had been expelled from, except some of it ended on the floor. Splashed, if you like.

Having said that, the next prevening I witnessed one of the Dave’s purposely deposit a meaty length of stinky ex-food on the floor beside his neighbours bed. Silent, stealthy and oddly quick before slipping beneath his bed sheet with a smile of achievement or relief. Probably both.

AI imagery, not photos, better reflect my memories of the Dave’s. I’m sure they all have family’s that love them, but I remember them as larger than life, caricatures, who were equal parts infuriating, hilarious and captivating. It was like being a cameraman on the set of a bizarre reality tv show.

Follow me around the room.

Bay 1 – Sloth Dave

This guy barely moved while I was there. Through his mannerisms and brief curt conversations with the staff he came across as a belligerent arrogant sexist slob who saw any female or indeed all NHS staff as mere underlings, servants to do his bidding. I made eye contact a few times and didn’t enjoy the conceited half-smile that played on the edge of his lips.

In a previous life I believe he was a Victorian wine/brandy gulping oafish lord or plantation master with zero concept of anyone else’s feelings or well-being, and the world was there to fulfil his every whim. Countless lessons sowed in youth blossom as we age. It wasn’t hard to picture him as the quintessential spoilt little rich boy the entire staff on the estate loathed with intense hatred.

I also considered Jabba Dave as his moniker.

Bay 2 – Crazy Dave

Crazy Dave was my favourite ol’Boy and I had so much fun tweaking these AI images that I couldn’t land on the perfect picture. These pictures represent how I remember this amazing character.

Doctor Dave, from an alternate timeline, would confidently declare Crazy Dave was gifted with the Batshit Crazy gene since escaping his poor mother two hundred and twelve years ago. I don’t recall him having a teddy, but if he did you can guarantee it looked exactly like this demon.

Crazy Dave had a mental issue, dementia or something similar, which of course is no laughing matter. However, in both lucid and delirious states he would give the audience (his fellow ward companions) a conspiratorial nod and a wink, bringing them onboard his adventures. He certainly had a wonderful sense of humour, though manic at times, and never took himself or his situation too seriously.

Crazy Dave and Posh Sloth Dave were not pals.

We’ll come back to Crazy Dave.

Bay 3 – HelpMe Henry

HelpMe Henry was the worst chap there – loud and aggressive morning to night, and then night to morning. Nothing was ever done the correct way. His food was too hot or too cold, or not what he had ordered. The daylight coming through the window was too bright or too weak to read his book by. He never read it, despite keeping it nestled in his lap. Sure, his eyes would dip then rise after a moment, lips working slowly before the angry decibels poured from his thin pouting lips.

He was the guy I heard screaming on my first night, an activity he seemed to relish. He made frequent demands for the police because he was being held against his will. Whatever was going on wasn’t right, wasn’t fair, and it certainly wasn’t cricket. He fought the nurses, screaming they weren’t doing it right, whatever “it” was, I never saw the “it” as he insisted they pull the curtain around “For God’s sake can’t you lot understand a man needs his privacy!”

He would bellow “HELP ME! HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP ME!” even when the nurses were helping him. The nurses explained that he wasn’t allowed to hit them. His rebuke usually circled through a set of sexist insults “You wimin, you ought to….” or “A woman should know how to…” and the regular “Women these days don’t have the brains they were born with” which makes no sense.

He would also make requests to no one that he needed to speak with Tom, who I guessed was his son. Tom would sort this all out for him. He needed Tom to call because they had much to discuss about the “estate”. Tom and the other people couldn’t do the “things” without Henry.

Bay 4 – WiseBoy William

WiseBoy William differed to the rest of the Dave Herd. He was calm, well-spoken and sounded educated, though his general knowledge and understanding of the world didn’t stretch much beyond the early eighties. However, he shared plenty of similarities with the D-Herd – sexist (bordering on mysoginistic, though women had a very specific purpose) arrogant and rude. Willy spoke on his phone for hours. Voice overly loud so coma patients at the other end of the hospital could follow the conversation.

He shared his views with HelpMe Henry, chatting often about the shocking state of the world, their mutual disgust of today’s youths loitering on the streets, the European Single Market and how that vinegar quaffing bitch Thatcher had ransacked the country, selling us out to “all and sundry”. For too long our ridiculous open door immigration policy has let immigrants flood/swarm into the UK and then drown/suffocate the UK. Henry and Wills both lived in NostalgiaLand with zero understanding of the modern world.

His pyjamas were hideously pretentious.

Beds 1 to 4 were prime examples of Dunning-Kruger.

If WiseBoy Wills had a teddy bear it likely escaped many years ago and is still in therapy.

Bay 5 – Sleepin Stephen

Sleepin Stephen slept mostly. He also had a teddy bear which from its threadbare nature and the way he gripped it told me it was likely a cherished childhood companion. Stephen was the oldest of the Ward Crew and didn’t say much. He was enveloped in an aura of loss and weary loneliness.

One afternoon something touched my heart. A nurse wheeled a video unit over to his bed and gently woke him. She pressed buttons and a guy appeared on the screen. Stephen was almost blind, so he was confused with the nurse’s news. His feeble bewilderment ceased when a voice came from the speaker. “Hi dad, how are you?”

Stephen’s voice was raspy. “Lee? Is…is that you?”

“That’s right dad! I’m on the screen. I can see you.”

Stephen’s next words were choked off. A trembling hand tried to straighten his pyjama top and smooth out his ruffled hair. He had a little cry.

Talk about lump in the throat. I put my earbuds in and left them to it.

That’s all I have to say about that human moment.

Bay 6 – Normal Dave

The tour ends with me, the Normal Dave, right? No pic here. Now you and the gang have been introduced we can move on with the fun and games. Okay, just games. Well, events or maybe incidents, is a more accurate term.

You’ll need patience for my third post in this series. We’ll pause here. Go reward yourself for sticking with it. I suggest a cool/hot glass/mug of something wet and fizzy/bland. And a small cake.

Next time I’ll regale you with the tales of Crazy Dave’s emergency midnight interview with “the boss”, Crazy Dave’s bed hopping marathon with chants of support for the “Blue Army”.

And the dancing.

Oh, the dancing.