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| 4. All Fixed Up...Well, sort of!!!! |
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The news was all over Moss Abbey Hospital...the goose was missing!
Of course Ben Madigan had known that for a couple of days now, but the paramedics only realised when Ben turned up at the station to tell them he'd lost the tracking signal.
He told them about the fire fighters, but he didn't know the goose had been kidnapped again by the police. And he'd absolutely no idea about the escape...or the crash landing.
The paramedics weren't best pleased: they had no goose and no tracking signal. At least they did have the internet!
In a back office, two paramedics, a station manager and secret agent Madigan held an emergency meeting. A 'MISSING GOOSE ALERT' was hastily drawn up, and with the push of a button, it was sailing through cyber space to every serving and retired ambulance person who had access to a computer.
*
Talking of sailing...guess who was doing just that?
Maud Pinkerton, of course...into a Scottish harbour on the Mourne Maiden ship...having a good old nosey at the Scottish coastline with my ancient pair of binoculars!
And what should she see but the poor little one-eared dog flaked out on the grass, hardly able to get a breath!
You see that's the thing about asthma...when you've got it, and you start to get breathless, the very last thing you want to be doing is chasing ships through clouds of dirty smoke!
You've got to stop doing what you're doing and sit down; take it easy, take your inhaler and ask someone to stay with you. Normally that does the trick.
If it doesn't sort you out, then you need to call for expert medical help, like a doctor, or paramedics. (Or in the case of a one-eared dog...a vet!)
The ship's captain radioed ahead, and sure enough, the local vet was on the scene in minutes.
There was little he could do on the muddy path though, so the dog was scooped up and rushed back to his surgery and put into a special oxygen cage full of medication that turned to steam so he could breathe it into his lungs.
*
Stepminder Castle was quiet now. Maud Pinkerton might be saving doggy lives on holiday in Scotland; Doctor Chloe Grant might be back saving people lives in the Molly Malone Hospital; but Professor Edna Dunlambert was simply saving energy...dozing on the ocean waves with a fishing rod by her side as the tide moved in.
But up on the Northern Irish coast, the tide coming in was creating a bit of a problem.
Ernie Walker was out walking on the Giants Causeway rocks, when he recognised the bits of rubber scattered all over the place. Ernie was a retired paramedic and had spotted the 'MISSING GOOSE ALERT' on his laptop earlier.
And he didn't need to be a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon to realise that if all the pieces weren't gathered up quickly, the tide would have the goose swallowed up and sent around coastlines far and wide.
So with just minutes to spare, Ernie scrambled across the slippery stones, scooping up every last piece of goose he could see, and hoping for the best.
*
The one-eared dog was tired. He was breathing normally again, but he needed to stay in the vet's for the night, just to be sure he was over the asthma attack properly.
Thirty miles away, Ben Madigan checked his blood sugar level and took his insulin injection before settling down with a snack and a sleeping bag in the ambulance station, right beside the computer; hoping for some news.
The paramedics called every ambulance station in the country to make sure they were on full alert.
The fire fighters called every fire station in the country to make sure THEY were on full alert.
The Scottish police tried to call in helicopter search and rescue support from their Irish colleagues, but it was just too dark and the weather over the Giants Causeway wasn't looking too clever anyway.
What none of them knew, of course, was that in a small shed somewhere in the far north of Ireland, a retired paramedic was busy putting all his old skills to good use: rebuilding a shattered goose as best he could, with glue and huge safety pins. He even managed to put the glasses back together with a great dollop of sticky tape.
Ernie's wife, meanwhile - a dab hand at stitching - was singing away merrily as she rustled up a cute little goose-sized uniform...in paramedic green...with its own little badge.
And when they'd finished that, they both built a special goose-sized wooden crate, with a label...addressed to:
MR. BEN MADIGAN
C/O MOSS ABBEY AMBULANCE STATION
GALASHIELS
SCOTLAND.
Later tonight, the box and its precious cargo would be on its way back to where it came from.
HOPEFULLY!
Watch out for the next blog...coming soon.
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