I find the patient lying down with a group of men in conspicuously bright golf attire, their carts parked off at a distance. They’ve not moved the patient, thankfully. I assess him. Pupils a little dilated, but fine. Heart rate is at ninety-two, blood pressure is low, ninety over fifty. Oxygen levels at ninety-eight percent. Everything else is fine. We’ve got time to get him to the hospital. I radio ahead. Scotty pulls the stretcher out, running it over. With his skinny limbs and pot belly, Scotty always reminds me of those middle-aged men who play social sport and drink too much beer after.

‘We’re going to help you stand and climb onto the stretcher, okay?’

One of his friends comes forward, volunteering to help.

‘It’s fine, we can manage.’

‘He’s okay?’

‘He’s doing well, just need to get him to the hospital if you don’t mind.’

One of the men says something I don’t quite catch but the two others with him snigger. I get it a little bit less now that I’m in my thirties. Years ago, I stopped wearing make-up at work. Now I don’t wear any jewellery at all, I keep my nails clipped short and free of polish. When my hair was longer, it was always pulled back tight into a no-nonsense ponytail.

The patient looks sick in the face but gets onto the stretcher and lies down. We load him up and force the stretcher into the back of the ambulance. I notice that Scotty’s eyes are a little dilated.

‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s get him on the road.’

I climb in the back and keep an eye on the ECG the entire trip. At the hospital I brief the triage nurse, then they wheel him into a monitored unit. I fill out the notes on the call, filing the report. By the time I get back to the ambulance Scotty still hasn’t finished cleaning and replacing the equipment and stretcher. He’s off the pace today. He can be a little aloof, with a sense of humour some would describe as un-PC and others would call crass or perhaps worse. I’m his eleventh partner but we’ve been working together for almost four years now. Someone has to work with him, and I find it easy enough to block out the crap. If nothing else, he’s always been a hard worker.

The moment we are cleared from the job I expect the next call from the station but nothing comes through.

‘Greasy Spoon cafe?’ Scotty says.

‘Why not?’

You learn early as ambulance officers to order food and drinks in takeaway containers. You never know when the next call is going to come. Scotty has finished his BLT and I’m two-thirds of the way through my salad when our pagers sound. We stride back to the ambulance and head out.