Not all casualties, are happy to see us. You would think that because we are there to help people, that they would be happy to have us assisting them. Well that’s what naïve, little old me thought anyway. Boy, was I mistaken.

I was working with Chris, and we got a call to one of the local shopping malls, down in Merrylands. Apparently, there was a woman down there, that had fallen over and injured herself. We were also advised that the call had come via the police, which made us curious as to the nature of the incident. Our guess was an assault or robbery being the cause. It turned out that we were not far wrong. It was late in the afternoon, and we threaded our way through the peak hour traffic from Auburn over to Merrylands, and drove into the carpark.

Fortunately, the security had brought the patient out into the entrance of the mall in the carpark, making it so much easier to find them.

The woman in question, was accompanied by the mall security guards as she walked out to the ambulance. She was not what we expected. The woman was about five feet, six inches in height, thin build, looking as though a stiff breeze would blow her over, unkempt hair, poor dental hygiene with a few front teeth missing, tattoos in view on different parts of her body, and smoking a self-made cigarette. She also reeked of sweat and alcohol and had dirt on her knees.

As we got out of the ambulance, I wondered over to the security guys and asked them what the go was with the patient. Security had called police about the woman, and they weren’t expecting as at all.

The woman, according to the security guards, was caught stealing ash trays from a local cafeteria, and was chased by the security guys. She allegedly tripped and landed on her knees and hands, and was now complaining of pain to her knees. The security guys offered to clean the minor wounds on her knees, but she told them to go and get f**ked, so they had called for the police. As the police were given the information that the woman had injuries, they in turn activated us as well.

So, getting back to the job.

I walked over to the woman, who by this stage was squatting on the gutter in the carpark, and politely introduced myself. I always remember what Shelly taught me, she said always be polite to people, no matter how bad a person they may be, and they can’t complain about how you spoke to them. Keep a calm voice, look them in the eye and smile. So, I did.

Well it was the first time I’d been called a c*nt. Woah, was this woman a piece of work. The word “Skank” came to mind straight away, but I wasn’t going to let Shelly down. I politely asked if I could see her knees, and possibly clean them up for her, but she declined my offer. I guess that when you make an offer to help someone, and they tell you to “f*ck off c*nt”, you sort of get the idea they don’t want any help from you at that time. So, as I was about to get up, I looked at her and was in the process of saying that if she changed her mind, to let me know, when she spat at me. Normally t wouldn’t be a problem, just wipe it off and warn the police when they dealt with her, however it just so happened that my mouth was open as I was speaking, and it went right into my mouth.

To say the least, it took my attention away from her immediately.

I turned and spat out onto the ground multiple times to get as much of that shit out of my mouth.

She just sat there and started to laugh at me. The skanky bitch.’

Well I then walked over to the ambulance, opened up the old first aid kit, grabbed some saline ampoules, and irrigated my mouth with them, then went to my personal bag, got out the bottle of mouth wash, and repeatedly rinsed my mouth out with that as well. My biggest concern was that she had all the earmarks of an intravenous drug user, with marks on her arm indicating the likelihood of it being correct, and probably had a high index of suspicion for hepatitis C.

Anyway, the police turned up on scene, and came over to us. I filled them in on the situation so far, including her reluctance to allow us to help her, and the fact of her foul demeanour and her spitting in my mouth. Well, that didn’t go down too well with the police when they found out she spat in my mouth. One of the officers walked straight over to her, calling her by name, told her to get up and get over to the ambulance. As she got herself up of the gutter, one of the officers took hold of her arm, and half marched, half dragged her over to us. The language that started to dribble out of the thing she called a mouth, would have made a wharfie blush, and I hoped there weren’t too many kids around.

Well she sat on the back step of the old F250 and said we could clean her grazes and wounds.

As it happened, in those days our first aid kit was an old hard plastic case, hinged in the middle, with drawers on either half of the lid. Quite hard and relatively heavy. Since I’d had it out to get to the saline previously, it was by the back of the ambulance. Now apparently, in my frame of mind at the time, I hadn’t secured the latches properly.

As Chris was carrying the kit back around to the rear of the ambulance so he could clean her wounds, it fell open. Now instead of just letting it fall open and empty the contents of the draws all over the ground, Chris instinctively pushed it towards the ground to try to reduce the spillage occurring to our supplies. The funny part was, that the woman’s foot was directly in the way, and that he actually slammed the hard case directly onto her toes.

Well the scream that came out of her mouth, not only took me by surprise, but when I realised what had happened, it brought such a big smile to my face. It made my day. That was going to leave a bruise!

Unfortunately, there wasn’t any real damage, other than some soft tissue injury.

Well, we bundled her into the back of the ambulance, and I asked for one of the police to ride in the back with us as I didn’t trust this woman at all. It only takes one spiteful allegation to destroy a persons’ career completely.

So, we arrived at the hospital, and I gave a handover to the staff, indicating that she had minor wounds to her knees, and was now complaining bitterly about a painful foot for some reason or another.

It was then that the triage nurse, who I knew quite well, pulled me aside after I told her she’d spat into my mouth, and told me she knew her quite well, as she’d been to the emergency before with drug related issues, and that she was Hepatitis C positive. Shit.

The good thing, was that I was able to have bloods taken almost straight away, got the update on the drug information and counselling, and was back on shift within the hour.

I followed up on the blood tests over the next 6 months and got the all clear, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing as my wife was not very happy.