Rapid Response!

So, we were just having a nice Saturday night, dinner and a movie when we get a call that out Guard is ‘critically ill’ and we must send an ambulance to pick him up and get him to hospital. ..

Easier said than done out here, but nevertheless Ali got on the phone to the on-call driver only to find out that the Ambulance is on ‘business’ somewhere else(!). The other vehicle can only be driven in the day on account of the no-headlights problem it has so, nothing else for it, we climbed into Baby Beastie, popped on the emergency sirens + flashing lights and zoomed off to find him. We’d asked one of the 2nd year students to come with us as he lives in the same area and could show us the way.

The road was terrible, full of holes and I kept expecting things to jump out in front of me, not sure why. The student happily regaled us with tales of Minibus drivers that scavenge for people along that route and the ‘buggrars’ that will rob you. Nice.

Anyway, we found our guard. He was hoisted into the car, didn’t look great but certainly didn’t live up to the ‘critically ill’ status I was imagining we’d find him in. The journey back to the hospital was fine, no dramas on the way thank goodness. Ali and I had a chat, under the radar, about the possible diagnoses… We got him to the ward, had him checked out by the clinician – he seemed pretty asymptomatic for everything, including malaria, but was admitted anyway. Very difficult to know what to think but there didn’t seem much point in sticking around so we got off home.

Next morning, we went to check, not bright as a button but certainly no worse so that was good. No real established cause for all the drama….