Official: Photographing toxic clouds is real bad for you

If that statement is true then why, after being stuck under the toxic cloud for nearly three hours yesterday, did I wake at 07.30 this morning with a pounding, spinning head and unable to catch my breath?

Answer: toxic clouds from burning fuel depots are real bad for you.

I woke suddenly. Something was wrong I was certain the moment my eyes sprang open. But what? I breathed in heavy. Nothing happened. I tried a second time. Still nothing. I bolted out of bed and ran into the kitchen. My chest burned. It felt constricted. My throat was itching and raw. I gulped on a glass of water, breathed and then coughed thick green and black phlegm from the bottom of my lungs.

This continued for the next half-hour. I cleaned my teeth, trying to get rid of the awful taste in my mouth. Still more lung butter came up. I could smell burning deep inside my nostrils. The taste in my mouth reminded me of the time I tried to siphon petrol from the car for a lawn mower. I coughed to the point of choking, my chest tightening up with every wretch, sharp pains burst under my left shoulder blade. This is not good I thought. Maybe I should quit smoking.

After a hellish morning at work, trying not to cough up all over the clients, or pass out as regular bouts of light-headedness took hold, I rang the NHS 24-hour help-line number that had been flashed up on the mainstream media reports of “safe” toxic clouds and expert discussions on whether the disaster would raise the price of petrol.

The front of my lungs, under the rib cage, felt raw, bloody, and the short sharp panic attacks of not being able to breath had not subsided. I needed some advice.

“Firstly, sit down and relax,” said the nurse on the other end of the phone.

“Relax?” I croaked. “I can’t breath properly. No oxygen and I die. You don’t need medical training to understand that.”

I told the nurse about being under the toxic cloud. The nurse went silent for a second then asked to take me through several questions. Were my lungs burning? Yes. Was my throat sore? Yes. Anywhere else causing pain? Yes. Left jaw, left shoulder blade and left arm was aching.

“Are your lips swollen?”

“What?” I ran to the mirror. “No, not that I can see.”

The questions continued. Bad taste? Yes. Dizziness? Light-headed. Vision? Okay. The nurse advised that I go directly to accident and emergency: “I think you need to be checked out,” she said, “just to make sure.”

“Is it because of the cloud?” I asked.

“We need to establish that,” she replied. “It could be anything. That’s why you need to go to hospital. If you get worse or feel you are losing conciousness you need to call 999 for an ambulance.”

“If I’m unconscious I’m not going to be able to phone an ambulance. Have you had many complaints like this this morning?”

“Personally you’re my first. But I think there have been more, yes.”

“In this area?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir?”

I checked into A&E about 12.30, after having to pay £2.70 for parking. Never did understand that. We have come to see our dying father. That’s £2.70 please. We don’t have any money. Well, you can’t come in then, get a job.

“Next of kin?” asked the receptionist, after she had taken down my other details.

“Is it that serious?” I joked.

“No sir, it’s routine,” she didn’t laugh, or even smirk.

The waiting room was half full, some 40 people. Men, women, teenagers in hoodies, braided hair, children. Some screamed in pain, others just because they could. One elderly man was wearing a winter coat over his pale green pyjamas. His hair was cut into a bowl shape. He hobbled when he moved, and talked to himself. Every 20 minutes or so he would get up and accuse the receptionist of stealing his money. Then he demanded money from them, said he wanted it for booze. They had already thrown him out several times.

Two cops with an injured prisoner walked in and the man sat down again. But it struck me, this man obviously needed some kind of help. They just treated him like a criminal, or worse, a subhuman. Something lower than themselves. I noticed several of the receptionists wore a Christian cross around their necks.

A doctor called me in after about 45-minutes. I was called in ahead of many others. He began asking me the same questions the receptionist and the nurse on the phone had. Then he asked some more. His assistant put a clip on my finger and it lit up red, and he took my blood pressure.

The moment I mentioned my symptoms he ran off, leaving his assistant, a student nurse in front of me.

“You had many respiratory problems in here recently,” I asked, “say in the last few days?”

“Some,” he replied, “but you are my first.”

“How many?” I pushed.

He looked around: “Lots,” he finally said.

“And you don’t find that strange after a huge toxic clouds flies right across the area?”

He didn’t answer.

The doctor came back and told me to go back to the waiting room. I sat and watched the news. No inquiry into the 7/7 bombings. What a surprise. Nevermind the many unanswered questions. Cancelled trains, diverted buses, mock terror attacks, CIA managers, downgraded terror alerts, downgraded surveillance, floor plates that blow upwards into the carriage, removing 6,000 Metropolitan police officers to police the G8 summit in Gleneagles.

I waited another 30-minutes. Then the doctor called me. He took my temperature, looked in my ears and throat, said “hmm” a few times, and questioned me. He asked me when it started. This morning I told him. He asked what I was doing yesterday.

“This is about the cloud,” I stated. “How many people you had in with these symptoms?”

“You’re my first. But I think there has been a few.”

“A lot?”

“Some. But not as many as Hillingdon or Hemel Hempstead.” He went on to tell me there had been many complaints. Respiratory, headaches, distorted vision, muscular pains: “Some more serious,” he said. “So, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a journalist.”

He went silent.

The doctor’s advice for me was to buy some cough mixture and rest. He said my lungs were definitely irritated by something, but did not say what, said it would hurt for a few days, but I would be okay. I asked him about the long-term effects of whatever it was that affected me. He didn’t answer.

As I left the ward the old drunk man was surrounded by social workers, nurses and cops. He was taking off his trousers.