I'd just nodded off on the settee when my alerter gave me a rude awakening.

Over at the station I was first in, arriving just as White Watch were climbing aboard the PRT.

I looked at the tip sheet to see we were heading to reports of petrol on road with the location given as the road between Oulton and Hopton. This is a tad vague but we assumed this would mean the road past Park Hill Hotel.

Even as we were getting our fire kit on the bells went again. The incident was now an RTC with persons trapped. I was driving Ladder 1 with Dennis Newton as OIC and Andy 'Cheesey' Armes, Howard Clarke and Ben Horne in the back.

The section of road between Oulton Village and the Blundeston roundabout was closed by the Police and we headed past Park Hill to find the incident located in the dip on the Great Yarmouth side of the hotel.

I fended off with Ladder 1 as the guys started ferrying kit up to the RTC.

They were confronted by two cars about 10 metres apart, both at right angles to the road. White Watch were working on a Corsa, suggesting that the casualty needing most assistance was in that car. Our crews started to set up the cutting gear for the Omega estate but were able to free the driver with minimal effort as he was only lightly trapped. In fact he was able to hobble to the ambulance himself! Very lucky, especially when you see the amount of space his lower legs had been compressed in to.

All the focus then shifted to the continuing efforts to release the young male driver from the Corsa. He was heavily trapped and it took quite some time to free him and extricate him on a spinal board to the ambulance.

Amongst all this was Mel, not as part of one of our crews but he arrived at the scene shortly after it had happened. Bit daunting being faced with a full blown RTC but with no gear, no backup and some motorists intent on weaving their way through the whole shebang!

Gear was made up and our crew got the short straw of providing scene lighting to allow the Police crash investigators to carry out their survey. This involves numerous measurements, photographs and satellite mapping of the scene. This is detailed stuff and seems to take ages - no, it did take ages!

The temperature was dropping as we were joined by the recovery crew from Hammonds of Halesworth and the council guys, there to clear the debris from the road.

To warm us up, Ben filled the kettle from the main tank and made hot drinks for all those happy to risk it!

We finally got back on station at around 1.30am this morning...

A big thank you to Karen... Those of you who know us will understand that she had to wait patiently till I got back before she could get to bed. Not one grumble, not one gripe just concerned that I was OK.