A new drunk

We often get to meet new drunks.
Drunks come in many forms, from the "inanimate drunk" to the "extremely animated", "in the street" to "made it home", conscious to unconscious and in very many states including the "undressed"! Each form of drunk can fit a wide variety of the above categories, and indeed many more!
Calls to drunks come from a variety of sources, from Good Samaritans to other drunks. Drunks are often mistaken for dead people, diabetics, fitters.... the list goes on. Unfortunately, the same list can be applied the other way.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people will phone 999 then leave the person unattended and carry on their way home before we get there. By contrast, sometimes we get a real crowd.
My latest drunk was minding his own business having a kip on the main road through a suburb of our town. He had sadly forgotten his fags, chips and can of redbull which were lying next to him on the pavement. The chips were still warm, and the red bull still cold. The local ant community had made him their latest conquest, and were strangely ignoring the chips.
On our arrival, Betty and I alighted from the trusty steed, and made our way over to the crowd of well wishers. They all had some form of input. Cars that had been sitting watching him, then driven away. Other cars from which he had alighted. Imaginary cars which had hit him then driven off. We thanked them all, and ushered them away to a safe distance. This includes the lady on the invalid bike who spent a whole 30 minutes jetting ( is that right?) up and down the road, constantly changing her vantage point. She gave the normally serene proceedings an almost comical turn.
Betty, meanwhile, had started her patient assessment. Airway, Breathing, Circulation. All present. Following this, the AVPU scale to determine levels of consciousness. AVPU stands for the tests we apply to the patient.
A is Alert. V is Responds to Verbal Prompts. P is Responds to Painful Stimuli, and U is Unconscious and responding to nothing.
I will call our patient Charley. His name isn't Charley, but you get the point.
Charley was "unconscious". He didn't respond to anything. He was a big lad though. We tried everything. We called the Police to give us a hand and to see if he was known to them, and in the meantime, carried on trying to wake him. Now, generally, once the painful stimuli have been tried we would monitor the patient, and keep trying the AVPU testing, unless we were immediately able to lift him onto our trolley and place him on the back of the ambletaxi. However, Charley, as I stated was a big lad. Betty, by contrast, is a small lady. So, we got him laid out safely with his airway protected whilst we waited for the boys in blue to arrive.
During this time Charley was leaning his head on his hand. I tried shaking the hand from side to side. This promoted a growling sound from Charley. "Aha" thought I. I tried again. Same growl. Enthusuastically, I tried again, putting a more "wavelike" motion into my efforts. Charley balled his fists. Charley is in fact asleep. And by this point starting to feel extremely seasick.
Armed with this knowledge we went about sitting Charley up. Charley is therefore seated quite comfortably, with the ants still crawling around the hair on his torso (I'm still itching just thinking about it!) when the Police arrive. It transpires that Charley is known to them, and is fast becoming the "New" drunk for both our service and the Police.
Now, because Charley is sooooooo drunk, our options have narrowed to, (a) Hand him to the Police, who will take him to the station and look after him in their cells, or (b) take him to casualty. We can't take him home and leave him to his own devices can we?

So he is lifted onto our trolley, now conscious, but incapable of pretty much anything. He has joined the one repeated question gang. "Why do you c****s keep doing this to me?". I gave him my stock answer. "Because I can't leave you in that state!" Then ignored the rest of the questions. *Unlike the old lady questions, drunk questions quickly lose their coherence, and my patience.
He slept all the way to hospital, then for about six hours once there, before awakening, no doubt fully refreshed and discharging himself for the 25 quid taxi fare home, still muttering and calling us names.
So, having completed my blog for today, I shall nip off and scratch my skin into oblivion. Damned Ants!