It’s a cold, clear night, the tower block is almost completely in darkness, save for a few bedroom lights high up and the twinkling of someone’s obscenely premature Christmas decorations in a window at the top. We’re headed for the eleventh floor for a thirty five year old male who’s slit his wrists.

We’ve not even pressed the button on the entry system when a metallic voices barks from the speaker.

“He’s no here.”

Ummmm….?

“He’s the other block, tenth floor.”

Bag on the shoulder and O2 under an arm we tromp across the carpark to the neighbouring building, where the same nippy-robot-woman shouts at us from the entry phone. I idly envisage her in her volcano lair at the centre of Arthur’s Seat, peering at CCTV footage of emergency workers across the city and cackling to herself.

She buzzes us in and the lift hauls us to the tenth floor.

Which is deserted.

“Eleven?”

My partner nods and up we walk, up towards raised voices and tears. There’s a police car in the carpark downstairs, so everything should be hunky dory.

Out of the stairwell and we find ourselves on a communal landing with two people, one a screaming woman in a flat’s doorway and a youngish man lying on the floor. His a laceration on his throat bleeds steadily, his wrists are red from their own wounds.

Neither of these people appear to be the police, or at least, if they are, they’re mightily undercover.

Awww crap.

The patient isn’t actively bleeding, although the polka-dots of blood on the floor are comically bright, the friendly primary shade of blood that comes from arteries, his clothes are wet with it, it’s smeared across his face and down his hand. The hand that’s still holding the smashed neck of a beer bottle.

I step closer and his grip tightens on it, drunkenly waving the shard back and forth.

“Don’t touch me! Don’t come near me!”

Muttering platitudes I take another step forwards, letting him know that nobody’s going to hurt him, that everything’s cool, just put it down. He relaxes slightly, allowing me to get close enough to place the toe of my boot on the back of his wrist, lean over and flick the glass out of his fingers, tossing it across the landing into a far corner.

He leans back against the wall - check me out, I’m the Radge Whisperer.

A quick pat down of his pockets to ensure he’s not carrying a knife or needles, the woman at the door jumps in -

“He’d not hurt you, he isn’t like that.”

Call me Cynical Susan, but he’s obviously had no qualms about sticking himself with a big sharp pointy thing…I can’t see him thinking long and hard before carving a lump off me.

Despite his injuries, he’s not actually that sick, his pulse and blood pressure are more than acceptable and despite being a tad on the emotional side, there’s not much else wrong with him.

We roll him down to the ambulance and pop him on the stretcher where he leans back, wet eyes staring at the ceiling.

“I always fuck this up…I’ll do it properly next time, take tablets or something.”

“Don’t do that, mate.”

“I want to die.”

“I know.”

“So why shouldn’t I take tablets?”

“Because it’s very hard to get right, you’ll end up permanently sick, but you’re highly unlikely to die.”

“So what do I do?”

“Now THAT I’m not allowed to tell you.”

“So what use are you?”

To a suicidal person?

Not much.