The Ambulance that Got Away
When Grandpa suffered a turn, we
Called the ambulance, right away,
They strapped him onto a gurney
So he couldn't sit up, or sway,
‘We'll see you up at the hospital, '
We cried, as we waved him well,
The ambulance went with bells and lights
Like a demon bound for hell!
Grandma wasn't at home, we
Had to phone her on the cell,
She couldn't come back just then, she said
She was having a fainting spell,
So we waited until he was settled in
Then drove in a convoy down,
To the hospital at Ullarook,
Just fifty miles from town.
The nurse at the desk said: ‘No-one here
By the name of Alfred Groom,
We only have private patients here,
We bed them, one to a room,
If he hasn't got private cover, then
You'll have to look elsewhere,
Maybe the ambulance took him off
To the hospital at Bulnare.'
We phoned the hospital at Bulnare:
‘He hasn't been seen round here,
There was an ambulance, come to think,
But he left with a flea in his ear!
We don't take patients from out of town
There's few enough beds for us,
He's probably over at Gundacoot,
They run their own private bus.'
We drove ten miles to Gundacoot,
An ambulance sat in the drive,
We thought, ‘Thank God, he must be here!
Let's hope that he's still alive! '
We all raced in through the sliding doors
And crowded around the Nurse:
‘Who? Alfred Groom, in a private room?
Not here! ' We left with a curse!
We split up the convoy into two,
I drove to the nearest town,
A middling place called Jerribee
With a hospital, quite run down,
‘The government cut our funding, '
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poem by David Lewis Paget
Added by Poetry Lover
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