Gulf War Bomb Scare

 

In January 1991 Operation Desert Storm began. A coalition of forty-two nations invaded Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. As always, the John Radcliffe was assigned to care for the injured soldiers from that war. We were put onto a special routine, setting up an entire ward and commandeering two operating theatres in the main JRII suite for the purpose, with the help of the Royal Medical Corp. I missed out on a lot of that "action", something to my chagrin seeing I was in my youthful gung ho mood at the time. I remained in my department, Delivery Suite. All I could hope for was for some overtime away from it. As it happened I did become very involved, much more so than I would have liked, and in the most unexpected place. My overtime was unfortunately not in JRII, but I was instead deployed to the JRI lodge, this was pre-Women's Centre when it was purely Maternity. Gynaecology had yet to move up from the Churchill. The senior porter was away so I acted as "desk porter". I groaned; this was one of the most tedious jobs a JRH porter could do. How wrong I was! At one point in the shift, in the afternoon, I noticed a travel bag sitting in the entrance airlock which was clearly visible from our desk. I suddenly remembered a memorandum we had been sent in which the Department of Health had been told by the police and intelligence services that, because of the Gulf War, terrorists might target hospitals in use by the military. I gasped in fear, but I'm pleased to say I did not panic and immediately got on the hotline to security. The guard who picked up was somebody I knew, and I spoke clearly and calmly: "John! (Not his real name) You better get over here..." He interrupted: "We know, Ben. We can see it on CCTV. We're on our way. Could you go and stand in the airlock to keep the public away?" I obeyed before I realized what I was doing. They wanted me to move towards the bomb and stand next to it! I was terrified, but somehow managed it. I braced myself in case it detonated, which was pretty futile considering it was six feet away. I was comforted by the fact that Maternity was just a three minute dash from the security station so I wouldn't have to face this peril for very long. The men who were paid to take these risks would appear and take over very soon. I looked at my watch. Three minutes passed; then four, then five. It then occurred to me that the security staff were not dashing; they were taking their time. They had obviously decided to skip the dangerous duty themselves by getting Ben to risk it. After about another two minutes I saw John and one of his colleagues casually strolling up the hill from the car park, having walked the long way round. At the same time a man appeared and knocked on the sliding doors, which I had locked. "Could I come in and get my bag please?" I unlocked the doors. It turns out he was a new father who was so excited about his new baby that the bag had slipped his mind and he had abandoned it there. He and the security guys all converged on my location at the same time. I honestly was not sure who to be most angry with! I never trusted security again.