My dad was a vicar, and was enjoying his retirement
One time a holyman in a nearby parish fell ill, and couldn't give the ecclesiastical speeches one Sunday. So in this time of dire straits my dad donned his vestments and ministered the neighbouring congregation.

It was (wait for it...) an emergency service!

Am I doing this right?
(McChinaman banned, Fri 17 May 2013, 5:12, 1 reply)

Sumo
21st birthday party. I had hired sumo suits. About midnight a friend did a flying jump onto me as I lay on the ground. Now, as you sit reading this, completely straighten and relax your leg. Wiggle your kneecap. Notice it no longer sits in its little crevice? Well, if 14 stone of sumo-suited Scotsman happens to hit the side of it while it's in that precise position, then your kneecap might well end up travelling about a third of the way round your leg. And that is what happened to me. It looked pretty much like this - www.kneeclinic.info/images/contribute/Dislocatedpatella.jpg (not me). Screaming agony, couldn't stand up with support let alone walk.

Quite rightly, the ambulance service considered me a low priority compared to the drunks in town glassing each other in the eyes, and I had to wait 90 minutes for the ambulance to turn up. But drunk I certainly was. Reeling drunk. Eventually the crew got me into the ambulance and started to administer plentiful gas and air to quell my incessant screaming. Boy did it do the trick, and I was reduced to good-natured swearing instead.

'Careful', joked one of the paramedics, 'this is a truth drug'.

'I've got a ten inch knob!*' I immediately riposted.

'Shut up, you're being obnoxious' said my Mum, who was sat next to me.

We got to A&E where they gave me even more drugs, and I was honestly completely off my tits. Several doctors and a nurse tried to relocate my kneecap, and when they couldn't do it they would just give me more drugs. It was my happiest birthday ever.

The final straw came when a doctor came and sat next to my leg and said 'I'm just going to feel your kneecap to see where it is laying'. The liar - I could see his knuckles turning white as he unsuccessfully tried to push it back in.

'I'm not hurting you am I?' he said.

'No' I replied, then turning to my mum and saying in a loud stage whisper 'he's turning me on'. The doctor's hands stopped immediately, and he walked off.

Next thing, and no doubt as a result, a consultant arrived with a team of medical students, a trolley of equipment tactfully covered with a cloth, and an anaesthetist who put me under completely, no doubt because they were fed up with me.

I guess my point is that I was an obnoxious (albeit good natured and non-aggressive) twat the entire time, and I got nothing but caring and friendly treatment from everyone who treated me - despite it being the middle of the night and my injury sustained in silly circumstances. I don't know if I would have been as patient as them.

*Gas and air is not a truth drug
(ricully, Fri 17 May 2013, 3:11, Reply)

In which drugs are bad and coppers are amused
Had a party round mine years back, based on the key ingredients of brown microdots and an Ozric Tentacles CD. Don't judge me; the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. Anyway, the "highlight" of the album is a track called Abduction. Cue us lot milling about dementedly in the garden shouting about having been abducted.
The excitement subsides a few hours later, and a few of us are sat down trying to smoke our way into oblivion.
Knock knock at the door. Oh fuck, it's either the neighbours or the police. I peer round the the curtain, and there's three big chaps in suits. Police, then. One mate sticks his spliff in the microwave, another throws his stash out of the catflap. Deep breath and I open the door.
"Stay exactly where you fucking are, nobody move"
Biggest copper has his hand inside his jacket, finger on the trigger. Another is on the radio.
"Can we have confirmation on the object thrown from the door?"
"Fuck all, area secure"
"Stand down lads"
Apparently there are several coppers with rifles trained on the back door. A couple get up from behind the neighbour's wall. Dressed in black, Heckler and Koched right up. Nice one, I'm terrified and tripping.
They hustle me inside, sit me down and ask in no uncertain terms -
"So, who's been abducted then?"

Turns out a girl had gone missing locally. Watford's top copper and the armed response unit for Hertfordshire quickly established that we were "a bunch of silly cunts" and took my explanation of being tipsy at face value. Still, I had to present myself at Watford police station the next day, armed only with a copy of "Abduction" on CD as mitigating evidence. The coppers on duty were highly amused, some making pew pew noises and gun fingers as I walked down the corridor to the interview room. Went home, opened the microwave, sparked up and decided I'd stick to taking massive drugs in the safety of nightclubs from then on.
(woocfot friends with Sacha Distel, Fri 17 May 2013, 1:05, 18 replies)

Poodling round Aberdeen
2am Saturday morning, had been driving through an October storm since leaving North London @ midday Friday, I was knackered and going slowly trying to find my way (lost as usual in pre-satnav days).

Predictably, pulled over by 2 officers who were convinced they'd got a drunk heading 'carefully' home. After a brief conversation they put away the breathalyser unused (!) and led me 3 miles across the city to my destination before giving a cheery flash of the blues and disappearing off.

I like Scottish cops. Don't know why they have such a hardened reputation.
(Carpe Cyprinidae, Fri 17 May 2013, 0:10, 1 reply)

Got mugged once
(loosely linked to the topic)

Sort of my own fault. I was coming back from a shift at the bar, early hours on a Friday night/Saturday morning. Rather than stand with the mob outside the pub I walked up to the next bus stop, which was the start of the line and was a deserted bus park next to a closed petrol station, just a little off the main road. I sat under a light and read my book in peace.

Until 4 hoodies approached and asked for a cigarette. I knew what that meant. I was asked for my phone and refused. After a thump to the head I was asked again and refused once more. Got kicked about a bit and they made off with my phone. I'd struggled enough that they didn't go for anything else, kept my wallet and the contents of my bag - a bottle of wine I'd liberated from work and my camera (this was before phones were cameras).

I picked myself up and wandered around the corner, tried to get someone to call the police in a kebab shop, but a patrol car was passing anyway and it was flagged down.

I pointed down the road where the buggers had scarpered and we drove down looking for them. A gang of about 10 hoodies were walking down the road and the police officers asked if I recognised any of them as my attackers. They slowed the car so I could get a good look - but I couldn't tell if it was them or not. The buggers clarified their guilt by suddenly dispersing in all directions and the police officers jumped out the car and gave chase.

---

I was left in the back of the car for a very long time, the car itself right in the middle of the road. I really enjoyed it from that point on - I took some pictures of me in the car posing with my cut and bruised face, I opened up the bottle (screw cap) and read my book, constantly being updated on the situation with my assailants via the car radio.

My favourite bit was when they said some of the guys had jumped into residential gardens and asked for advice, whoever answered flippantly said "oh, just set the dogs on them" and soon after came the sounds of intense barking.

They didn't get my phone back, but I didn't mind so much, one of the guys was busted for drug possession, but that was about it really. I've probably still got the pictures somewhere.
(MrTeapot hasn't played with himself since, Thu 16 May 2013, 23:38, 1 reply)

Car Crash!
A couple of months ago my missus was involved in a serious motor vehicle accident.

She was driving between jobs (she's a carer for people with dementia in the the community). As she pulled away from a green light another bloke ran a red light and t-boned her on the drivers side. He hit her at about 60kph. Her side airbag deployed and when she could move she (after calling for help and being un-heard) she managed to crawl out of the passenger side door and walk away.
2 plain-clothes cops had been pulled up at the lights directly behind the other guy and had watched him do the whole thing. The the intersection where it happened was across the road from the local copshop. His car ended up sitting next to the flagpole in the forecourt. Oh and he was uninsured.

I got a phone call at about 0800 from a strange woman (my wife was too distressed to even dial me) telling me my missus had been involved in a car accident (you can imagine where my mind went there!) but she put my sobbing missus on. I found out where she was, called the insurance and what-not and off my daughter and I went.
The 2 plain-clothes guys were still sitting with her when I arrived, tea had been served and they were gently trying to convince her to go to hospital. The fireys had attended and both cars had already been towed.
The missus refused to ride in the same ambo as the other guy (he got a nasty donk to the noggin), so I took her to hospital. Several hours later and an xray they released her with no breaks or bleeding. She has been receiving physiotherapy and is going to the gym regularly for an injury to her right hip. She's currently back at work doing full duties but our GP refuses to sign her off until she's completely free of any symptoms caused by the crash.

The insurance company stumped up the agreed value 3 days later, after the assessor had rung me telling me he was amazed anyone walked out of that alive and within another week we had a new (used) car. We are so far about AUD$6000 out of pocket.
The only issue I had with the insurance company was when they suggested there maybe problems with the claim because my wife had failed to get the other guys insurance details or any witness contact details - I explained that aside from the the fact that she was too distraught to at the time, the 2 police officers who witnessed the accident had kept both her and the other bloke separate anyhoo. That seemed to suffice.

In the mean time whilst we were a 1 car family (1st world problems, right?) I had rows with my work for leaving site for 20 min. to go and drop my daughter off at school once.
The pics of the wreck are here (1,2) if anyone's interested.

Knowing that many of us here have had to deal with tragedy related to car accidents, it was really nice to see the way all of the emergency personnel dealt with the situation - what to them is "just another job" to many of us can be one of the worst days of our week/month/year/life & seeing them deal with it in a professional and caring manner makes me stand in awe.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Thu 16 May 2013, 23:37, 39 replies)

Firemen
They are all damn sexy. Every single one.
( Herb Alpert's Taxi Driver I have very beautiful lips, Thu 16 May 2013, 23:03, 29 replies)

There are bikers who have had an accident, and bikers who haven't had one -yet-...
I did quite well for a few years, but in the end had someone pull out on me to a degree where we bounced off one another.

I hit the deck, and the ambulance was duly called to scrape me up and haul me away to A&E.

"Says here this is your first accident, that right?"
'Yep, I was hoping for something a bit more spectacular to be honest.'
"Ha. Well, you're very calm for a first-timer..."
*pause*
'You've got me strapped head to toe to a spine-board, and everything is currently generally Your Problem... What else are you expecting me to do?' 0_o

Ambulance staff were great, as were the two guys prodding me to make sure my neck was still a neck.
However after they proved I was intact everyone vanished like mist... "Er. I've been told that all I need is some painkillers and to sign the paperwork, and it's been a couple of hours. Don't you want your A&E cubicle back?"
I was sure -someone- coulda used it...
(PerspexAvenger, Thu 16 May 2013, 22:49, Reply)

Fireman Pearoast
My father was a volunteer fireman in rural Corrales, New Mexico. One night, their crew responded to a fire at a farm. They arrived and started laying out hoses as the bright flames cast flickering dark shadows across the barn yard. Almost immediately, the fire chief vanished. The leaderless firemen nevertheless proceeded to snuff out the fire. Afterwards, they searched for their chief.

Turned out, one of the first things the fire had burned down at the farm was the outhouse. The chief, running around in the uncertain light, had fallen right into the black hole.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Thu 16 May 2013, 22:30, 3 replies)

Fucking Ouch.
I'd put my hand in a chop saw, leaving a surprisingly neat but still painful groove in my thumb bone.

The nurse felt the need to go through the usual

"Oh dear, what did you do?"..."Well that was a bit silly wasn't it"

Coz the one thing my already brilliant day was missing was some patronising fuckwit talk.

Anyway

While she was cleaning the mess of my hand, I listened to the guy in the next cubical, and gleaned that he was a diabetic having infected ulcerating wounds cleaned and dressed. He left. And then my nurse, needing some more swabs, reached round to the diabetic's treatment tray and grabbed a couple off it.

The bint even got all huffy when I suggested it wasn't such a good idea.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Thu 16 May 2013, 21:37, 8 replies)

Police escort
The duckling used to have really bad asthma. One night she went from being 'a bit wheezy' to 'fuck me lets call an ambulance' rather quickly. and 999 was called.

So Mrs Duck went in the ambulance and I quickly sorted out an overnight bag fed the dogs & cats then followed in the car.

When she left in the ambulance I'd never seen her looking so bad so I was really tanking it, so inevitably the police seeing a car belting through the outskirts of Bristol at 3am I got pulled over.

As soon as I got out the car I'm afraid I turned into a big girl and began to cry. The emotion of seeing my little girl in such a state combined with the panic and being pulled. The police just looked bemused and obviously wanted to breathalyze me. But I pulled myself together sufficiently and explained about the duckling at deaths door.

"what engine you got there?" he said looking at my car
"1.8" I replied
"okay he said "you'll keep up...we'll give you an escort to the BRI (Bristol's main hospital)"

So we got back into the cars and they put the lights on and they set off at fuckingstupidmilesanhour into Bristol and found me a cheeky free parking space I didn't know about. Geezers.
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Thu 16 May 2013, 21:26, 2 replies)

I once had a job training coppers at Hendon police academy
It was a fine time; We were overpaid and poorly supervised by police who had little idea what we did. Given a free rein, we maturely reacted by having 3 hour lunches and letting our project deadlines slide for months. I was shooting educational videos on things like misuse of drugs and criminal damage. My favourite job, even though it really wasn't part of my role, was turning up to the media training sessions for senior detective level or above. I'd pose as a journalist in mock press conferences and deviate from the script by asking the most awkward or difficult questions I could, just to get that rabbit-in-the-headlights look from coppers clearly way-out of their comfort zone.
Mock Journo: "Why is the search taking so long? Do you have any leads about the identity of the kidnappers?"
Superintendant: "We are doing everything we can to find the missing girl. The public will have to accept that these things take time"
Me: "And how many times of the girl being raped do the police consider an acceptable number, Superintendant?"
Superintendant: "......"
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Thu 16 May 2013, 21:19, 1 reply)

Probably an urban myth, but anyway:
I heard a story about an old lady who called the police to say there was someone in her garden acting suspiciously. After a 2 hour wait, she called back to tell the police not to bother sending anyone as she'd shot the intruder. The police were there within 5 minutes.
( 4Q just lurking, Thu 16 May 2013, 21:00, 9 replies)

I used to do a bit of hunt-sabbing. I wasn't as dedicated as some, but I'd go whenever I had the time.
One day it was all getting rather physically expressive and the local village plod were having trouble maintaining order, so they called in some proper police from a different force based in a nearby city.
The divide between the yokel bobbies and the the townie force they called on was nearly as marked as the difference between the sabs and the hunters.
One of the redcoats was getting a bit aggy with one of our lot and turned his riding crop round so he could use the heavy handle as a weapon against him.
On seeing this, a city police stopped him and told him to get off his horse. A local bobby asked 'what are you doing? He's the master of the hunt'. 'I don't give a fuck', said the other cop, 'that constitutes an offensive weapon' and dragged the posh twat off his horse and nicked him.
( 4Q just lurking, Thu 16 May 2013, 20:44, 5 replies)

After flagrantly ignoring the 70mph motorway speed limit for a few panicked miles
I made it to Membury just in time to avoid shitting myself.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 16 May 2013, 20:11, Reply)

Last year we were camping out on private land when a cop car appeared.
Out of the car grunted a wheezed a large unhealthy looking policewoman who began to question us on a serious crime which had been reported only hours earlier.
Apparently a gruesome triple murder had taken place some golf balls had been whacked across the river into a field containing some vulnerable grass and weeds.

It wasn't us and we said so.
The cop decided that taking our word for it wasn't enough and that further investigation was required. She wanted to talk with some other members of the party who were further down the field. We offered her a bike since she couldn't take her car down there.
She declined, stating that she would have "wait for backup"; upon which she returned to her car, got on the radio and put the flashing lights on.
Sure enough in a few minutes 2 more cars came tearing down the road and joined us so that now this looked like a large scale incident. It was dusk and the whole fucking valley was now illuminated in red and blue.

We continued to drink beer and offered the 3 officers some birthday cake.
They said they couldn't eat on duty, which was clearly a lie as the first officer looked like she couldn't have gone 20 minutes without a doughnut.

Then, as subtly as they had arrived, they decided that there was no evidence and off they went into the sunset.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, my heroes.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Thu 16 May 2013, 18:01, 3 replies)

Chewed up
The one time I spent in the back of a Police Car (detained for being carried in a car where my friend had a joint on him) I was amazed at how chewed up the door handles were.
(vikingaero Deilvered To Your Door in 30 mins, Thu 16 May 2013, 17:52, 3 replies)

The local plod
The local police in the little town where I grew up were notorious for overreacting to stuff. In fairness, this was probably because nothing ever happened, so they had to take their excitement where they could get it. As an example, two women once had a bit of a barney in the toilets of the local workingmen’s club during the Christmas Eve party, and two panda cars and a van turned up. This resulted in some confusion as the incident had passed by this point, the offenders had been chucked out, and 12 policemen suddenly burst through the doors of the function room to find nothing more sinister going on than a load of pissed people trying to do the Locomotion.

The weirdest occasion that I personally experienced though was partly my Mum’s fault. When I was about 11, we had an argument one night. Nothing serious – I can’t even remember what it was about. It was enough, however, for her to decide when she came back the next day at 6pm and I wasn’t already home, that I must have run away. She panicked as I was always home before her, unless I’d specifically told her to expect otherwise.

The local bobbies were there like a shot, swiftly followed by a plain clothes senior officer, who sat with my mum, got some recent photos to give to a WPC who dashed off with them to photocopy, etc. An alert was put out and a patrol car was even sent out to the nearest service station to see if I was trying to hitch-hike to London. Within half an hour, they were probably starting to think about getting the helicopter out from Birmingham...

Which is when my mum looked out of the back window and noticed that I was sat on the bench in the garden doing my homework. I'd forgotten my keys.

To be fair, they were very nice about the whole thing, and I think it probably made their afternoon. Mum sent a cake to the police station the next weekend.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 16 May 2013, 17:22, Reply)

When I dropped my first born, face first onto a gravel car park,
I rushed him to the A&E, only to be told that he was fine. I took him to the dentist, the following day, to be told that two cracked teeth is not fine, particularly not as they were causing a great deal of discomfort, and would inevitably become infected.

Couple this with my earlier story, and I have to wonder if Luton doesn't deliberately staff it's A&E with fuckwits, in an effort to thin out the population.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Thu 16 May 2013, 16:50, 6 replies)

I've never had the chance to ride in an ambulance but I did get to go in the doctors car
When I had surgery to remove my cancers, the surgeon who performed the operation gave me a lift home. He pointed out that he lived a few streets away from me and it would be a waste of money to get a taxi.

So after I had recovered for a few hours, and he had finished work, he drove me home. It wasn't a great journey as I was still a bit drugged up, and all he wanted to do was talk about the size of the tumour. The way he obsessed about it, I wonder if he keeps it in a jar on his desk.
(slickback, Thu 16 May 2013, 16:34, 1 reply)

A St. John's ambulanceman gave me a cup of tea from his flask once.
He then regaled me with tales of varied medical emergencies he'd attended including putting a band-aid on the little girl's finger after she was nipped by a hungry pony at the village fête and that time when a diabetic lady needed a biscuit.

Harrowing stuff.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Thu 16 May 2013, 15:39, 13 replies)

Next Tuesday, I'm gonna blow up a Panda in Croydon.
Yeah, right on! Bloody zoos, who needs them?
(McChinaman banned, Thu 16 May 2013, 15:02, 3 replies)

Hi gys, me again!!! I saw an ambulance once, true story!
More posts coming up!!!
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 16 May 2013, 14:39, 6 replies)

Oh no! It's the pigs!
What a bummer! Do a runner!
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 16 May 2013, 14:25, 1 reply)

oh the shame
called the police once because someone was hanging out of the window of a 12th-floor flat in the local high-rise.
they called back half an hour later to tell me they'd successfully rescued a pair of damp jeans.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 16 May 2013, 14:13, 2 replies)