(Header image made with microsoft co-pilot)
Blackbird
It was a slow start today, but eventually a call came in for an injured blackbird found on the road. A simple enough rescue; we turned up at the right road – but the wrong town! Unfortunately the centralist hadn’t noted it, and our best guess in the ambulance wasn’t correct! A call to the finder literally put us on the right track!
We took the wounded creature to the rescue centre, and headed back to our building.
Change of Driver
The ambulance driver needed to head home, so another took his place. This is the guy who assesses how volunteers drive, and whether they’d be good enough to do the driving test for the larger ambulance, so I kept a good eye on how he drove! The co-driver remained the same. It was a good experience working with her because she also works on the “Pikket” – a number we call if we don’t know what to do, so having her sitting next to me was brilliant! (And she also likes science fiction, so we had plenty to talk about!).
Huffing Hedgehog
The next rescue was collecting a hedgehog who had difficulty breathing. There was also some difficulty finding the exact address because he was in a holiday park.
We phoned the park owner when we arrived at the general address. The roads inside the park are narrow, so the co-driver stepped out of the ambulance and was talked / walked through the maze to the correct location. This was more difficult than it sounds because the phone is coupled to the ambulance which means the co-driver asked a question (“where now?”) the owner gave an instruction which came through the ambulance loudspeaker, and the driver shouted it through the open window to me, and I’d run over and tell the co-driver.
(Now I come to think of it, I don’t know why we didn’t all just sit together in the ambulance, but it seemed to make sense at the time!)
Eventually we found the plastic tray with a saucer of water and a wire cage with a hedgehog under it.
It’s the first time I’ve seen a hedgehog up close! And I could pick him up! I was already prepared with some thick leather elbow-high gloves which are often used for handling cats who scratch, but the co-driver told me these weren’t necessary – there are no prickles underneath a hedgehog’s body, and this is how I was to pick him up.
He drooped over my hand; his stomach was warm and it felt like he was giving me a sort of tummy-hand-thank-you hug! This really made my day! 🙂
Two nearby ladies out for a walk watched with interest. Initially they worried we were taking the hedgehog away because maybe hedgehogs weren’t allowed on site (what a terrible rule that would be…). They cheered up when we explained he was sick and we were taking him to a rescue centre to get checked over. We gave them a magazine and that made them happy too!
Back at the base
And that’s about it. No more calls came in, so we collected some donated clothes from a collection box and dumped them in the old shed ready for sorting later (these get sold to raise funds), topped up the ambulance with petrol (I’m sure the bill was much higher than anything we’d get for selling the clothes) and I washed a pet carrier I found that needed cleaning.
Still no more calls.
There was going to be no better time; I went to the ambulance and dragged out the weighty folder with all kinds of administrative forms, documents, protocols and… I figured I may as well spend some time now getting familiar with it. Until now I’d only used 2 forms – one to leave with animals we bring to the rescue centre, and the other is a “Finder’s Declaration Form”.
The Finder’s Declaration Form is used where the finder of an animal declares they are not the owner of the animal. It’s happened in the past that unscrupulous people try to avoid costs. For example, they claim they’ve ‘found’ their pet who’s ill. The animal ambulance brings the animal to the rescue centre where it’s checked and treated by a vet, then they come back as the owner to collect their animal which they’ve reported missing for only a small fee. Very dishonest. The finder’s form means the finder cannot claim the animal as their own at a later date, so it dispenses with this dishonest human behaviour.
These 2 forms are used so commonly they’re kept on a clipboard in the ambulance so they can be found and completed quickly in the ambulance and / or on site. The other forms were what I was planning on getting to now. It turned out that many of them are very specific to particular animals in particular situations in particular districts with particular authorities that I became completely overloaded. I figured I’d get to know the right way of doing things with the right forms through experience – and through the “Pikket” phone number when necessary.
I hauled the folder back into the ambulance, and returned to the base to hear some good news: the hedgehog had been checked by the vet in the rescue and was declared healthy! 🙂 And the strange breathing noises?
He was mating!
