Two sides to the coin (The good and bad of being a Revenue Officer) Part 2

Now that I’ve had some sleep and a chance to recover, welcome to Part 2 of my post on Friday.

Saturday Night

FA Cup Final day.  Manchester City vs Stoke City = 6 Hours of overtime for me…..YYAAAYYYY!!

Started my shift at 16:00 walking through the station wondering where everybody was, it was a total graveyard with hardly anyone on the concourse and the silence was deafening.  Experience of football days reminds me that this will not be the case later in the shift but I am totally relaxed after journeying in from home rocking to some of my Iron Maiden tunes.

Quiet trains came and went and at 17:00 I attended the customary briefing held on these occasions to let the whole team know what sort of night we are in for.  Zero tolerance and dry trains are the order of the day and it is our job to make this happen.  For those who don’t know what dry trains are, these are services where no alcohol is served on board and passengers are stopped from bringing their own onboard, this being achieved by questioning and, if necessary, searching passengers bags to make sure.  Any alcohol found is either confiscated and binned to the amusement of some and the absolute indignation, disgust and anger of those who are caught (including those who hide multipacks of lager and bottles of spirits in their children’s backpacks).

19:00 Zero Hour….The peace and quiet is shattered by sheer mass of football fans returning home, from the first scheduled departure, the familiar sounds of football chants, swearing, rowdiness, alcohol being deposited into bins fills the air.  All goes well until the 19:30 departure when a Train Manager decides to close the train early thus leaving at least 100 people standing on the entrance ramp while the platform doors are closed and the train departs.  Cue choruses of abuse, threats, screaming, shouting, crying and general disorder to the point that myself and several colleagues were swallowed in a sea of humanity trying to explain the situation.

One of my colleagues who was experiencing his first taste of checking tickets on football trains was faced with the unfortunate spectacle of one football fan holding up one of his kids whilst shouting and swearing about not being able to board the train.  It still amazes me that these “people” seem to disregard their responsibilities as parents and use their children to try to gain some sort of perceived advantage.

Huge amounts of credit must be levelled at the British Transport Police for their invaluable help with troublesome fans, including one who decided it would be a good idea to push, shove and argue the toss after having been stopped for not having a ticket.  Cue 5 officers physically manhandling politely escorting the gentleman to one side and having a quiet word in his ear, amazing how quiet people become after the threat of arrest.

The rest of the shift followed a similar pattern until thankfully the large majority of fans had departed for home and we finally had a chance to draw breath.  Only a small chance followed as we were then collared by a group of City fans who had missed their last train home and were effectively stranded, several phone calls, enquiries and web searches later revealed that there were no trains to the North from any stations at that time so we ended up enquiring about National Express services from Victoria Coach Station.  Thankfully there were services running through the night so we duly dispatched the group onto London Underground to get them to their way home.

If you mention football trains and crowds to most people they will cower in a corner and hide whereas people like me and several of my colleagues thrive in that sort of environment and the buzz we get is better than any drug.  All in all another brilliant shift and yet another reason to say that I LOVE MY JOB!!!

Footnote:  In the two parts of this post I have documented how I can deal with both sides of humanity at any time.  I am not ever going to lump all football fans into the same group as the majority I have met have been a pleasure to help and the minority that act like assholes will not change my view.  As a follow-up to the first part of this post, I contacted the hospital again to enquire about the lady I helped treat, she was released from hospital this afternoon and has returned home, hopefully to make a full recovery.

Two sides to the coin (The good and bad of being a Revenue Officer) Part 1

It’s been a bit strange on the rails this week.  I have once again seen the good and bad side of people in the course of doing my job and I can still say I love every minute.

Friday Night

Friday night was pretty much a run of the mill shift on the barriers with one noteable difference, I helped to save someones life.

Coming to the end of my shift I had just finished checking my penultimate train when a passenger came running up to me informing me that a passenger had collapsed at the top of  the platform entrance ramp.  Cue slightly overweight (dashing, handsome, oozing sex appeal) revenue officer running up the ramp towards the apparently collapsed person.

Arriving on scene I was relieved to find the passenger had managed to return to a vertical position but was obviously in a lot of pain.  First thing I noticed was the distinct smell of alcohol (VERY strong) rising from the patient and the near incoherent attempts at conversation.  Talking to the passenger I managed to determine that she had recently broken a rib and had fallen on the site of the previous injury.  Calling upon the excellent first aid skills of one of our Network Rail colleagues, between us we managed to get the lady into the First Aid room and my colleague examined the injury site.

From the examination, it was clear that the rib had indeed re-fractured but this was only the start of the problems.  Firstly the patients boyfriend (also three sheets to the wind) was making an ass of himself insisting that they both catch their train home and he will take her to the Doctor when they get there.  Secondly, with further talking to the lady patient, we managed to find out that she had been prescribed Morpheine & Tramadol (two high strength painkillers) for her fractured rib.  Thirdly, the lady informed us that she had an alcohol problem and had been prescribed Temazepam, oh, and she is also an Asthmatic.

Cue frantic radio calls to Network Control for urgent ambulance assistance, all the time with the boyfriend insisting he should take her home.  Luckily we didn’t have long to wait before a Rapid Response Paramedic arrived and agreed with our diagnosis that the combination of medication and half a bottle of vodka was not a very good idea.

A further 5 minutes passed before the ambulance crew arrived and we wheeled the lady out to the vehicle and the paramedics settled her in for the short run to hospital.  Time for a quick cigarette before going back to finish my duties on the barriers, only for me to see a very worried ambulance driver running from his cab to the rear of the ambulance, our passenger had chosen that moment to lose conciousness.

A slow run to hospital turned into a full blue light run and to be honest I just went back to work hoping the lady would be ok.  After finishing my shift I decided to telephone the hospital on my way home to enquire about her health.  A lovely nurse informed me that she had regained conciousness and had been on the rough end of a stomach pump but she was very much alive and improving.

In all this, I bet you’re wondering where I helped save her life?  Think about this, what would have happened if I had caved in to her boyfriend’s demands to let him take her home?  What would have happened if I had just written her off as another Friday night drunk? Simple answer, unless she was VERY lucky, she would have died on a train, in the middle of nowhere, with help too far away.

This job can be rewarding sometimes.  I’m afraid you will have to wait for the other part of this post as it’s late, I’ve had a long shift today and I need some sleep.