I left that mob up the road, you know. "Dxxo, the Internet that doesn't work". I was there for almost a year - frankly, I deserved a medal. Though funnily enough, I increased my technical skill set by a mile.

It was my third and a half week in-between jobs. In that period, fifteen interviews had been attended; half of them I rejected after getting the real lowdown on the pay, conditions and job description that bared no resemblance of the advertisement. It was all becoming just a smidge tedious. Even though I became a skilled player in the farcical role of job seeker.

April the fifteenth. A still and mild day. I was returning from a rather oddish interview conducted in a suburban house in Bentleigh. I felt confident of the outcome and genuinely interested in the job - a thirty year family business based in Moorabbin. A stone's throw from home.

If you are unfamiliar with the suburb, Brighton can be a tangle of streets. I was driving towards Church Street. I felt calm and peaceful, motoring at forty five kph along with the sunglow in St. Andrews Street.

I was in the same state of mind, when completely out of the blue I was blasted from the left, by what felt like a cannon ball. I remember the grey nose of a car crushing the cabin of my vehicle. Then everything went black. A ferocious thump from the rear woke me. As I started to comprehend what was now happening, my car was still rolling slowly, out of commission, towards another street adjacent to the intersection I had attempted to pass. Without even braking, my car kept rolling along as it gently mounted a nature strip and came to a stop all by itself, missing a power pole by a foot.

The light had an eerie soft quality about it. I asked myself, did I just have an accident ? If so, I think it was a big one.

A profound and hideous pain let itself be known both in my lower back and flanks. I immediately wiggled my toes. Thank God !

People rushed towards the car. An anxious woman's face appeared at my driver window.

Lady: "Are you alright?!?!"

Me: "NO! CALL AN AMBULANCE NOW ! I HAVE AN EXISTING SPINAL CONDITION !"

Confusion followed between this lady and her husband over mobile phones and numbers - the husband just wasn't handling the situation well at all.

Lady to Husband: " Oh for God's sake, give it to me!"

She rang the ambulance. Calmly and correctly she gave them all the exact details of what had happened, plus all the details of my pre-existing condition.

As the ambulance was being called, a shrieking and bug-eyed wraith of a woman came running towards us. She was restrained by another man and was made to sit on the edge of the nature strip.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry I just didn't see it!", she cried.

I asked the lady who rang the ambulance,

Me: "Was I in the wrong ?"

Lady: "No. You are in the right. She flew through a STOP SIGN out of nowhere like a rocket, and hit you. I was driving behind you and saw everything"

This kindly and organised lady gave me her business card ( the address said: Durrant Street, Brighton. Good, I thought). Incredulously, I am thinking and communicating very clearly through all of this monstrous pain. Then began my own and very real episode of "All Saints"

I heard the siren, I heard the sobbing woman.

Lady: "Can I let anyone know ?"

Me: "My wife,"

More confusion over mobile phones and numbers.

A uniformed attractive young girl, with a blokey voice materialised from God knows where - I must have passed out again at some point.

Ambo: "Stay calm mate, I need you to stay calm" (they always say that). As my buckled car door was wrenched open, she leaned in and applied a blood pressure band.

I tried to communicate my pre-existing condition and my anxiety of what might have happened to my spine (being the solid calcified column of rock that it is). I think she understood what I meant. Another ambo said,

"Now how are we going to get him out, get the spinal board?"

A younger assistant in this groovy looking medico/sporting outfit arrived with a thin, flexible shiny white board.

Girl Ambo : "Mate, you're gonna have to slide your legs up to the right"

An older male partner of the girl ambo lowered the seat of my car.

I roared.

Again: "Stay calm mate, I need you to stay calm"

With huge will and effort, I got my legs up and to the right onto the board.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH FAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRCK!"

"Good boy, good boy." cheered the male and female ambos in chorus.

The spinal board was slipped underneath my body and before you knew it, I was brought out onto the wheeled stretcher/bed and into the amulance. Inside the ambulance, I found myself surrounded by high tech medico equipment.

The girl ambo sitting beside me asked "which hospital do you wanna go to, mate ?"

"Get me to Cabrini" I croaked.

I was given a kazoo-like flute to breathe through, with a strange but not unpleasant vapor. It eased the pain somewhat.

Girl Ambo: "Well at least your blood pressure is down to 160. It was 200 before"

Male ambo: "We are going over Dandenong Road tram tracks mate, hold on"

Oh God, I knew where I was. The crossing of Hawthorn Road over Dandenong Road. I knew what to expect, those tram tracks feel like 5kmh speed bumps in any vehicle.

I arrived at Cabrini Hospital.

(See link, unbelievable multimedia website, then continue to PART 2)

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