WORKING as an emergency medical technician (EMT) in the London Ambulance Service does not usually attract that much attention.

But I would not be hearing about drug addicts with putrid leg ulcers, or the insane but legal thrill of driving down the wrong side of the road, if it was not for Tom Reynolds being responsible for a rather popular blog, or online diary, telling the world about his job.

At the time of writing, Random Acts of Reality — so named “because life can change dramatically because of them” — was the 12th most-read British blog. It is by far the best known blog written by a public sector worker.

Reynolds (not his real name) has always been computer savvy and, while working as an A&E nurse, he hooked into the nascent blogging culture. His first effort, Why I Hate Humanity, aimed tirades at subjects such as Japanese whalers, but when he started writing with the same misanthropic but amusing bent about the ambulance work he had taken up after leaving A&E, he started getting positive feedback. His blog hasn’t looked back since.

As an EMT in the LAS, or “Da Firm”, as he and his fellow workers call it, his experiences have gripped his audience, whether they were about the “easy jobs”, such as treating chest pains, or the knife fights and other tales of “death and destruction”.

Reynolds knows why people flock to his blog. “Why are Casualty and ER so popular? People love the medical stuff,” he says. Shining light into the darkened corners of emergency medicine, he is also clearly documenting something he loves, even if there are times when he sees himself as a glorified taxi driver for people with stomach ache: “I love helping people. It makes you feel worthwhile. We can turn up in uniform and boss people around and by doing so, help them.” He also gets fresh air.

“Blood, guts, vomit, p*** and s***” are not a problem. It is the alcoholics and drug abusers flushing all their potential down the toilet that is most heartbreaking.

The bosses and everybody he knew eventually found out about the blog. He believes that his director of communications may have found out from press attention and references to it on an ambulance workers’ unofficial forum. But when they had a look at it with the legal department, they found that it was “not breaking confidentiality, not being daft about it”, so it was fine. Reynolds believes that they like it, but that if he steps over the line, then management will let him know. His workmates dismiss it as “a geeky internet thing”.

He has set his own rules to protect him from getting the sack: the retention of patient-confidentiality, no names and no ghoulish trauma pictures. People who think the internet’s anonymity will protect them are mistaken: “If you call your boss an idiot in a public forum, chances are good that you’re going to be sacked.”

Instead of revenge, he exploits the positive benefits of the work blog: humanising and getting recognition for the person in uniform, for instance, because “often newspapers will just print bad things, like ‘ambulance crew caught nicking wallet from patient’.”

Reynolds has a sense of humour to match his black mufti. It explains much of his appeal. Having written about an Aids patient vomiting blood into his mouth and him swallowing it (tests came back negative), he now dismisses it as “one of those things” and says: “It was great. It got my hits up.”

Blogging is all about feeding that ravenous readership with novelty. A few hours later I find myself the subject of a post, with Tom admitting: “Yes, I am becoming a media whore”. Anything, it seems, for a few more hits.

Born: 1971, in London.
Career: Trained to be a primary school teacher, but left before he qualified because he realised that he “loathed” children. Has worked for the NHS since he was 23, specialising first as an A&E nurse. He left after eight years because he realised that all he wanted to do was torture patients, which was not “healthy”. He currently rides in the rapid response cars, which are meant to respond to high category calls within the Government’s target of eight minutes. Arriving in nine constitutes a fail, even if a life is saved.
Little-known fact: He can swear in Tagalog, Afrikaans and Mandarin.

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