Monday, August 27, 2007

24th of August. Friday


When you look at the image above, what's the first thing that comes to mind? A fun thing to watch on a Friday?

Didn't think so.
Now try putting not one, but two homeless people in an ambulance in one day.

First it's Olga. Her pain is so bad she cant even lift herself off the ground. A lady from Carlos, Gwen, who is a trained paramedic happens to walk past. She attends to her and gets an ambulance. They arrive, due to her insider pull I am sure, within 20 minutes. We get Olga on an ambulance and hope for the best.

Sure as hell, not even an hour later Samantha calls me. Thandi's nose just wont stop bleeding. I run over and see this giant puddle of blood on the ground. I panic. Aragorn and I run over to Carlos to get Gwen. She drops everything and comes with us. She estimated a liter of blood to be lost and calls an ambulance. They send out life support that arrives withing 20 minutes (Bless you Gwen). A lovely guy called Kevin attends to Thandi, and I must commend him on his level of professionalism. Thandi's heartbeat was through the roof. He put her on a drip, hooked her up to a machine... and we sat in the cold for 2 hours waiting for a bloody ambulance, while people in expensive cars insisted on parking almost on top of us, despite Kevin telling them he needed to keep the space clear for his ambulance. Riddle me this: when You see a life support vehicle, a lady covered in blood and a paramedic attending to her, is your first thought 'OOH look, a free parking!''? WTF!? Poor Kevin. I am sure he has enough crap to deal with, trying to save lives, and here he is having to argue with some selfish rich person.

After Thandi finally left - I went over to Carlos to have a much-needed drink and thank Gwen and Lesleigh for everything they did for us. They allowed me to take a photo.



Here they are, the new owners of Carlos coffee shop. Both of them are trained paramedics and Gwen used to run a children's shelter. Admirable people and by far the nicest, kindest and most genuine residents of Norwood. They selflessly went out of their way to help Olga and Thandi, so you'd all better support their business :-)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you know the names of the paras that helped? I would like to send them a thank you email.

How are the two patients?

Evyl Shnukums said...

The guys that fetched Olga were Kevin and Thabo - I didn't get their last names :/

Olga is back but still an out-patient - she has to go for X-rays tomorrow. She seems very positive but the real problem hasn't actually been sorted out something to do with complications due to a previous operation.

Thandi is still in hospital, not sure how she is as I was initially told she would be operated upon (??) today but later they told me otherwise. At any rate she is still seriously ill and not in a very stable condition - her heart rate is apparently still through the roof :( Olga went to see Thandi when she was there and seems very worried. will find out again tomorrow and update