Flood

I think the flooding in Cumbria is pretty unmissable.
You can't not hear about it; you can't avoid the fact that it's happened. It's everywhere, on the news, radio, in the papers.

So imagine being one of the people affected by the disaster. Imagine having all your possessions destroyed by torrents of water, lethally rapid, cold and dirty.
Imagine being the person trapped by rising waves, seeing devastation and destruction and wondering if you are going to get out of the mess alive.
Then imagine being the person called to help. The samaratin, the rescue worker, the emergency responder, fireman, police officer, ambulance personel, RNLI volunteer and first aider.

I can't account for the sights my colleagues witnessed while there over the weekend; I wasn't there to experience the damage first hand.
But what I can be sure of - from reports back and from simply knowing my team so well - is that they have worked their soggy socks off to help the people affected by the watery crisis.

With the graciousness of local stores like Asda and Tesco supplying them with much needed goods, the swift water rescue teams worked day and night delivering the supplies to rest centres, and those cut off from any source of necessities.
They also participated in searches, assisting the fellow emergency services in scanning the area for anyone who may be lost, injured and needing help.

The volunteers crewing the rest centres offered a haven of welcome, safety and warmth, with food and drink, clean clothes, and a place to bed down for the duration.
They also gave emotional support, reassurance and advice, and were generally a shoulder that anyone could lean on.

It was a long weekend, with many difficulties and hardships facing all involved. The waters were threatening, but somehow the teams managed to maintain their morale and worked around the clock to help those in need.

I am so proud of the teams I know and love who responded to the cries for help.
That is true humanitarianism, right there. A prime example of the kindness of others, and the sheer determination that arises in the hearts of those who care when a fellow person is in trouble.

I take my hat off to them - each and every one of them. Well done to all who helped, from Red Cross to the other emergency services and responders.
I don't know where we'd be without people like you.

Diagnosis: Drunk.

Utter fools.

Those club-loving, scantily clad, drink-infested morons who collapse on the steps of night clubs, ko'd by the unimaginable volume of alcohol in their bodies.

And they are surprised to find themselves in A&E once they wake up several hours later, with a needle sticking out of their arm and a bag of saline attached to it, nourishing their poor intoxicated bodies with much needed fluid of the non-poisonous variety.

Then these still drunk buffoons, baffled by their sudden predicament, become angry because
a) they can't remember collapsing unconscious in the street and the thoughtful passer-by who realised that they needed medical treatment, b) we killed their alcoholic high by replacing the stuff with water, and c) we saved their wet-skinned asses by doing so.

Most of them are also angry because they're butt naked. This is because we can't leave them lying in their wet, piss-soaked, vomit-caked clothes while they sleep off the drink, for hygiene and for their own comfort.

From what I've seen, paramedics, nurses and doctors in emergency care only do their very best for every patient, even the drunk ones.
It's just sad (and slightly sickening) that the thanks they quite often get is a mouthful of abuse and occasionally the odd attempted thrash across the face.

Next time you go out on a booze up, try and keep in the back of your mind the place you could end up in if you drink a little too much for your body to cope with.
No one wants to wake up in A&E with a hangover - wouldn't folk much rather have their own bed to cover in spew?

There are some entertaining aspects behind it for the health worker though - drunken verbal abuse can be quite entertaining if it's slurred and total babble.
It also helps us work out how 'with it' you are - I mean, if you're saying "fuck off" in the right context, then at least we know you're orientated to your situation.

Don't be diagnosed as a piss-head.

A pause for thought...

In my boredom I decided to surf the net for quotes.
How desperate for entertainment can you get?
But I have stumbled across a few words of inspiration which I think are highly relevant to many people I know, care for, and work alongside...

There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.
- John Andrew Holmes Jr., American writer and minister

The broadest, and maybe the most meaningful definition of volunteering: Doing more than you have to because you want to, in a cause you consider good.
- Ivan Scheier

and my fave:

Volunteers don't get paid, not because they're worthless, but because they're priceless.
- Sherry Anderson


It's too true for many people =]