It's hard to imagine that two weeks ago, I was in a train from Canberra to Sydney
to start what would be the biggest event I have ever involved myself with...World Youth Day.
I managed to secure the last seat on the train to Sydney, cost me a good $56, but it was in First Class, so reclined seat all the way, thank you very much...Made it in, checked into Kensington for the next week, and tried to find out where the heck I was going for dinner (it was at the Roundhouse, but I didn't know where the hell it was; nearly walked off the side of a hill, didn't I?!).
The Welcome Dinner was fantastic, catching up with old friends, and making new ones, none more so than Ricky...it's not everyday a Private can get sloshed with a Commissioner...plus, he's an overall nice bloke...
Tuesday night was my first shift at the old Hungry Mile, or
Barangaroo...the names changed to Bangaroo and Shootaroo by the end of the first shift...there were of course, other names for it, but meh....and between 1700 (when we went on shift) to 2000, we were absoloutely smashed...the moment we cleared a bed, there was someone else sititng there ready to come in...someone did their ankle in, another girl was complaining of pressure and pain in her leg after a flight from the US, someone else was suffering from hypothermia, a girl from the UK was in considerable pain due to a accident sh
e suffered years before where her shoulder blade was sent into her spine, and a guy in that same group decided to have an epileptic fit...never stopped....oh yea, and there was this Italian fella that was complaining of pain from a constipation that he had cleared, but still felt, so we were trying our hardest to get a translator in, but nothing happened, and he eventually 
left with nothing (we couldn't give him meds because we couldn't get anything from him!) Then we had a guy who was crowd surfing come down heavily and that was sorted out quite interestingly...oh well...Wednesday saw me at the Domain for the first of two nights, and it was a distinct change from Barangaroo the night before...the crowd wasn't that large, and actually we closed up early, because, while nice to some, they decided to show Joan of Arc, from 1928, and play a musical adaption of it....the place cleared up quick smartly actually...
Thursday, got to see the Pope speed by in his Popemobile, and caught up with my sis, Mike, and the boys at the Domain again...was a bit more interesting, including being screamed at by the Royal Parks and Gardens staff because we were driving the ambulance over the grass...
Friday I did a double, firstly at Darling Harbour...if the first moments after stepping off the bus were an indication of how my day was going to be, bring it on...quite literally, just dropped off my bag and kit for the briefing, when Angus (one of the doctors) went "Two people with me,
NOW!" I was standing right in front of the door, so guess who went along...we walked from DH to the other side of the Entertainment Centre near Paddy's Markets to a lady who was involved in a Hit-and-Run...which happened an hour ago...in North Sydney...the shock finally hit her, and she started feeling a little bad...not much more we could have done except send her to hospital for further assessment and report it to the police...went back to the briefing, and found out I was a Team Leader of one...me...(I had the first aid post to myself...and couldn't do much more than say, "Here, take this and go to the Advanced Casualty Management Centre [ACMC] for further treatment...no, I do not have splinter probes here...")...as you can imagine, nothing happened....had ten people come see me the entire shift, of which I was able to only treat three, the rest were referals to the ACMC...although my first cas that I treated in the morning was going to be a saviour later on that day...I was back at Barangaroo after my DH stint, the trip which was a fun one itself...my first casualty that I treated at DH was actually the head of security for Barangaroo and DH, so when he spotted me trying to fight the walls of humanity moving around after the Stations of the Cross, he just went, "Oi, come this way!"...more or less, he sent me around through the security area and they didn't even stop me from getting around the place...
Barangaroo was slow that evening, cold, and not much happening...but we did manage to aquisition a bit of gear from the food tent next door...we were walking away with the bounty back to the main building from the post, and the police stopped us...they were like, "What's this, why is there so much stuff?" To which I replied, "We've aquisitioned some stuff for ourselves and the others back at the base..." and just stood there...the cop then went, "Well, I guess we should aquisiton some stuff for ourselves too then, see you later..." And the four of us just walked away chuckling...
Saturday was a good day...Hywel and Ricky and I went around Sydney, after lunch with Nathan at the Doncaster Hotel...good food there...cook your own...hehe...then off to Randwick that evening...
Ten of the 21 Team Leaders showed up for duty that night, so Ricky, Hywel and myself all stood up and offered our assistance...at this stage, it's nearly 2300, and we're on shift until 0800...and most of the Johnnies were down the the Wombat Flu...or Pilgrim Flu, which ever way you called it...it was cold...one post had to be evacuated to anoter post because they ran out of gas for their heater; I had a spare tank in my post, so I sent the buys on a resup mission across 
Randwick...during this time, three of them came down with a touch of hypothermia, and had to be evacuated to the rewarming centres...we were sharing one thermometer between two posts, but found out later there was another post nearby with three thremometers sitting pretty...had a girl come in suffering from an anxiety attack, then she had a psudotremor episode, then another anxiety attack...it was continous BS from her...shoffed her off to the Onsite Medical Centre (OMC) for further treatment....
found out later that she was doing it all night to the team before me...apart from that, not much else happened, except for the last half an hour, when everyone's awake and starts to come in, then there's the hand over too and all...and a young girl come in with quite severe abdo pains, and the call over the radio for an AED to be sent near by...I can assure you, jumping the fences and barriers at Randwick is not something I'd happily redo again if they asked me to do...there was six I had to jump in the racecourse to get to the place, only to be told to stand down when I got there...three there, three back...anyhow, while the Final Mass was going, I stood the team down, and managed to hitch a ride back to Kensington with the cops in their little buggy...then had to climb another fence to open the doors to get into the accomodation block...needless to say, I passed out after a hot shower...Monday, and it was "catcha next times" and "see ya's" all around, and flew into Maroochydore late after my plane broke down (it was interesting....three things
broke down on me that week....first it was the bus on Sat night when we were on our way back to Kensington from Sydney, then an ambulance during the night shift, then the plane on Monday...bad mojo...)So, at the end of that week...WYD had finally finished, the Pope's gone back to the Vatican, and I really didn't know what was going to happen next...
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