An eye opener, indeed.

Spending a night in Paya Lebar FS is certainly different from spending a night anywhere. One moment, you could find yourself warmly cuddled up in rolls of inviting white blankets in the air-conditioned paramedics office and the next, you could just be out of such comfort, collecting a call text and making a frantic beeline into your assigned alpha, upon the authoritative siren of an ambulance informing the whole firestation that someone out there is in need of medical attention.

It was 6 am in the freezing morning when such a siren went off, interrupting our slumber. Pulling my body lazily out of those thick blankets, I made a quick trip to the watchroom where a noisy printer cranked out a pink slip which bore the call text. "Case of China man colliding into a lorry", it read. I handed it over to the paramedic(who takes up the front seat with the driver) and settled onto the back seat of the ambulance. We arrived at the accident scene and we were greeted by a tanned-looking china man who had made a seat out of the pavement. Droplets of blood riddled the side of the road, where he sat, his face taut with pain. His wounds were still oozing out blood. His upper lip was torn, a bad bulging bruise had emerged from his temple and his nose, obviously crooked, was broken as a result of the impact. Judging from the injuries he sustained, anyone could tell, he had landed face-first into the obsidian granite road. Bystanders watched as if enjoying a thriller as the other medic and I tended to his facial wounds. My paramedic questioned him on how he was afflicted, enlisting the help of a chinese-speaking singapore to translate for him. We were after all attending to a china man. Well, this isn't the worst case yet. I hope to see more tomorrow!!