I got assaulted yesterday, which made me smile…
We got called to “Male collapsed outside park”, which immediately set my 'drunk-o-detector' bleeping. This is the sort of call that is nine times out of ten, a drunk who has decided to have a sleep in a public place as opposed to going home. In a case like this we tend to wake them up, and get them to move on before another 'good samaritan' calls us out again.

We woke him up, so he stood up and started moaning that we had woken him up. Both my crewmate and myself we actually being quite nice towards him – mainly because it was towards the end of our shift and being nasty to people takes energy that we just didn't have.

Then he decided to take a swing at my crewmate – he then decided to have a swing at me, the next thing that I knew, I had him in an armlock up against the side of the ambulance. My mate called on the radio for urgent police assistance, and the radio controller asked if we were both alright, to which my crewmate replied “I'm alright, but my crewmate is restraining him”.

The police were quick to turn up, and I had just enough time to tell them that he was drunk and had taken a swing at us before he was under arrest and carted off to the local police station. It was then I realised that he had managed to hit me in the chest, right where I've got a broken rib. It was a bit painful. It had already gotten a whack from a heavy trolley yesterday, so I'm wondering if it will ever manage to heal.

I can tell you what went through my mind as I was pinning him to the ambulance; the first thing was “Oops, I hope I haven't overeacted”, the next thing (about five seconds later) was, “By the time I return to station and fill in the 'incident form' my shift will be over…Result!”. I'd imagine that, by the speed that the police arrested him, that they were close to the end of their shift as well.

I'm just waiting for a team leader to read the incident form and call me into the office to ask if I need counselling…