Well now that Christmas is almost here my weeks get a heck of a lot busier as they start to fill up with concerts and SJA duties Earlier this week I had my first choir concert as the conductor. I’ve taken a few choir rehearsals and some pieces during other rehearsals before, but this was my first concert debut (and I have another one this weekend for a private venue). Everything went very well, or at least I think so anyway. So I’m not worried about the concert this weekend
As for running around over the Christmas period – well, last weekend I think was a prime example of this. I had a concert on the Saturday evening, then one Sunday afternoon (which I conducted) then another one Sunday evening. I decided to head home between the two concerts on Sunday to grab a bite to eat (which I only JUST had enough time to do, I think I got home then had 5 minutes before I needed to head out of the door again – but I was grateful for the food). However, I was unfortunate enough to come across a road traffic collision on the country lanes just a few hundred meters from the venue. I did not witness the accident itself, but I did have all of my St John’s kit in the boot, so I popped my hazards on, grabbed the kit from the boot and headed straight into the scene to check for anyone that may need attention. One vehicle did not look too bad although the father and son in the car were quite shocked from the incident. The son was in visible shock and had a sore neck – his father suspected whiplash, however the father was quite angry about the incident with his shock. Luckily however the two drivers never really got near to each other. The man driving the worst damaged car however was covered in blood on his face. I managed to clean most of this off, and locate the two wounds that were causing most of the blood and got them covered with gauze and cleaned up a bit. The man seemed quite unsteady on his feet however, but would not sit down whenever I asked him to and just remained leaning against the back of his car. He was fairly unwilling to talk to me about anything, but did mention not feeling well a number of times, and later mentioned that he couldnt feel or move his left arm. I decided to leave this one for the ambulance (who were already on their way) to deal with. I could not see any visible injury to the arm however not having a torch made a full assessment quite difficult to do and I didnt want to risk aggrevating any injury further. After around 30 minutes from myself arriving at the scene an ambulance arrived and the paramedic took over from me and I got out of their way (after confirming they didnt want me to remain to help with anything else). The paramedic did manage to get the guy to sit down in the back seat of his car at one point, so I’m hoping his arm injury wasnt too bad. I managed to pass my clinical waste bag to the ambulance crew for disposal. Upon returning to my car I found that 30 mins of the car being alone with the hazards turned on had completely drained my battery. After a while 2 police officers were able to help me turn my car around and try to jump start it down the hill. Unforunately this didnt work, but where I came to a stop at the bottom of the hill there were 2 houses opposite and a lovely couple came out in their PJs and gave me a jump start from their 4×4. I then managed to get to what remained of the concert (the final 2 songs).
I’m glad to have been able to help with the incident and that no one was significantly hurt. I have a sense of pride of being equipped and trained to be able to get in there at help at a moment when none of the other drivers seemed to know what to do, and although I know (in this situation at least) that my work wasn’t life or death, I have a feeling of accomplishment and pride in being able to do what I could.

Then came the paperwork when I got back home. Filling in a patient report form for the son (who I checked out quite quickly, but aside from the muscle pains of potential whiplash and the shock did not have any other serious injuries and he was in a warm, seated environment to help with the shock), and another report form for the main driver and his multiple injuries. I can only report on as far as I was with the incident before handing over to the ambulance crew, however I believe that is sufficient for the paperwork. I will be going over it tonight with my unit leader however as I need to pop around to drop off the paperwork and to collect a few items for a duty tomorrow night with the hospice who will be lighting candle in the park in rememberance of loved ones who are no longer with people.