5. Mar, 2020

5. Mar, 2020

Exactly a week earlier, at 08:00 on yet another wet Sunday morning, an Asian nurse with a young family left Addenbrookes Hospital on the other side of Cambridge having finished a night shift, and was making her way home to a Fenland village. Her route would have taken her along the same stretch of the A10 - but she never arrived home. Naturally there was huge concern for her safety.

I have to assume that a bobby back at the police station put two and two together -  two wet Sunday mornings, same time of day, I wonder if....................?

On the opposite side of the road at that accident location is a deep lake, the remnants of past sand quarrying. So the Police put a team of divers in to the lake and there it was – a Volvo estate car with the poor nurses body inside (the lakes edge is now very overgrown). She’d obviously left the road at that point, but instead of ending up in the layby, she continued straight on and in to the lake. Within three weeks a steel crash barrier was installed on that bend, and to this day I still get a shudder down my spine every time I pass that location.

5. Mar, 2020

5. Mar, 2020

STORY THREE

My Last story took place in January 1989. I was on duty at Cambridge Ambulance Station on a very wet Sunday morning. My crewmate Chris and I were called to a RTA (Road Traffic Accident (we were allowed to call them accidents in those days)) on the A10 between Cambridge and Ely, just past the village of Waterbeach.

The exact location was in a large drive-through layby on a sweeping right-hand bend (GPS: N52.282685 E0.171039) . A car travelling from the Cambridge direction had come to grief and ended up there having lost control on the bend. On our arrival we found that fortunately the patient wasn’t badly hurt, and soon afterwards Paul, a ‘flying doctor’ turned up to assist if required.

He wound his window down and I began to tell him the story. Just then another car, again heading from Cambridge lost control on the bend, left the road, entered the layby, and was heading towards me. It was like an Exocet missile, it appeared to have locked on to me and in the seconds I had, no matter which way I tried to get out of its path it appeared to follow me (and had avoided hitting the ambulance). I decided to turn and run. It was then that I was struck from behind by the car and sent flying through the air, clean over the doctor’s car bonnet before landing on the grass verge further away on the other side. The car which had lost control then smashed in to the front offside of the doctor’s car.

I remember standing up and exclaiming loudly “I’m Alive!” I couldn’t believe it; I fully expected to be crushed violently between the two cars. The traffic cops on scene couldn’t believe how lucky I had been and wanted to take a couple of pictures. Paul suffered a right shoulder injury which eventually had to be operated on, and I got away with a deep cut, about an inch long on my shin.

My poor mate Chris then had four patients to deal with. The driver of the original car with only minor injuries, me with a short deep cut to the leg, Paul the doctor and the driver of the second car. Chris called for a second vehicle as back-up then set about sorting things out. He was, and still is, a very competent clinician.

Now was that luck or divine intervention?

In the photograph, picture the doctors car across the front of the picture with its bonnet pointing towards the left. On the road, left is towards Cambridge, to the right is Ely.

...............................................................But the story doesn’t end there.

5. Mar, 2020