graveyard shift at emergency dispatch…

my friend sage works at an ambulance company, and last night she got stuck w/ the worst shift ever: midnight till 8am. when all of us went to dinner for sharon’s going away, she was begging people to come kick it w/ her for a few hours so she wouldn’t have to endure the thing alone. staying up till all hours of the night didn’t sound very appealing to me, but i was pretty curious as to what an ambulance dispatch center would look like, and thought it might be interesting to hang out and see what happens. i agreed to come hang out from 2-4am. i didn’t think i could survive awake till 4am, so i decided to take a quick nap from 1 to 2.

at 2 am, my alarm goes off and i’m utterly confused as to what the hell is going on. why the fuck is my alarm on in the middle of the night?? oh yeah. ambulance shift. i’m exhausted, can barely see straight, and have a *very* strong urge to call and flake. somehow i force myself to get up and drive down there anyways. the ambulance center is tucked away behind some houses, so if you didn’t know it was there, you’d probably never even notice it. i walk in to the place and am surrounded by blinking monitors, walkie talkies, and other electrical mumbo-jumbo.

sage gave me a rundown of what everything is, how stuff works, and what a typical day on the job of an ambulance dispatcher is like. it was pretty cool since this is not something everyone gets to check out. since this was the middle of the night, she didn’t get any calls, but we did hear a few calls come in over the walkie talkie from other ambulance crews around the city. it definitely seems like a pretty crazy job. i honestly dont think i could handle it. it would be too depressing for me. listening constantly all day to people who are badly injured and stuff. yikes! definitely not for me… but it was cool to just check out.

-v