Believe it not, what you see above is everything I carry with me on every shift. I like to have it all with me, most of it in my pockets, it makes me feel human, heres the low down…

1. Reading glasses – It would be no good if I couldn’t read the addresses I am going to, the meds the patient is on, see the microscopic things in wounds, read my phone, etc.
2. Sunglasses – Well for a start they make me look cool driving the ambo.
3. Pens – For the writing on gloves, taping screen, and searching drug addicts pockets.
4. Gloves – For general touching of everything and everybody, sometimes necessary to double glove.
5. Scissors – These mothers cut through anything.
6. Hand sanitiser – Can be also applied right up the forearms after visiting sticky carpet houses.
7. Hand moisturiser – Which is needed after washing your hands a hundred times, and stripping your hands of any natural oils.
8. Paracetamol – For the aches and pains after humping the tenth bigger framed person down five flights of stairs, because no large people get ill on the ground floor.
9. Base makeup – So I don’t end up looking iller than the people I am seeing after a twelve hour shift.
10. Chewing gum – To add to the coolness, and make my breath smell better at 3am.
11. Mints – Just incase the gum hasn’t worked.
12. Notebook – To be honest most of what is in there is spellings, these medical words are tricky fellas to spell you know.
13. Lip balm – To stop my lips from cracking and falling off at -5 at a roadside of a vomiting teenager.
14. Eye measuring thingy – Sorry don’t know the proper name, its also good for seeing small head wounds and key code pads.
15. Eye drops – By 4am my eyeballs feel like they are going to drop out of my head, and my contacts are pieces of grit scrapping the membrane off my eyes.
16. Eye spray – It wakes me up for a long 6 hour transfer.
17. Nursey looking watch – This would help me count breaths and heart beats if only I could see the second hand…. refer to number 1
18. My personalised stethoscope – This makes me feel doctorish, adds credibility that I might know what I am talking about, but it always helps if you have it turned to the right side, which on occasions I have had a slight panic thinking a person has no heart beat, even though they are sat up breathing and talking to me.

I hope you have found a slight bit of interest in what your local emergency person carries in those big green pockets. Keep safe x