Emergency dash...!

RNAS Yeovilton 1975

After the army cadets I was 'properly' drafted to my first shore establishment. Again, oddly, it was an airbase. Yes the Royal Navy does have them. This one was at Yeovilton in Somerset.

This was my first experience of working in a sick bay serving the medical needs of the base. Duties could range from mundane administration, treating the sick and dashes to the airfield for emergency or precautionary landings of aircraft. All in all an interesting place to work.

Again, I volunteered to work over the Xmas period. As I have said, this is usually a pretty good time on a naval base. Paddy was my colleague who would be working over the festive period with me.

The days were passing fairly slowly and quietly with not much happening. This was to change on Xmas eve.

Paddy and I, together with a nurse were watching a bit of telly to while away the hours, when we received a call. One of the duty drivers had taken a turn and didn't look to good. Paddy and I dashed around in the ambulance.

When we got there, the driver had, indeed, taken a turn for the worst - a major heart attack. He was collapsed in his chair - no pulse or respiration. Paddy and I went into auto. We rapidly got him into the ambulance and sped of towards Yeovil hospital which was 7 miles away.

We now had to keep this guy alive until we got there! Let me explain; hurtling along at 70 miles an hour in the back of a range rover ambulance is no fun. The thing rocks and rolls alarmingly. Now, normally, one of us would have been giving mouth to mouth, the other cardiac massage. In this case, this was proving to be impossible.

Paddy and I quickly worked this out. I basically, held on tight to Paddy to stabilize him while he worked on the patient. We got to the hospital in double quick time. Happily, the patient survived this episode and made a good recovery.

Back to the telly then!