Some years ago I worked in an amusement park over the summer which was probably the best time of my life or so. My position was as a ride operator which basically meant that I received payment from customers, helped them into the carts, gave them safety instructions and helped them out of the cart again when they came back. You get a completely different view of amusement parks when you get to work in one.
I was at work one day. Got early off while the afternoon was still going and I visited a party of my friend's who had just graduated. The next day I woke up and took the train to the inner city to deliver my bike to a shop to get it fixed (the metal frame of the wheel had exploded) and then took the same train back out of the inner city to go to work. That day I, alone, operated a ride that was pretty "kids friendly" so there was no way for people to get hurt while riding it (it was basically a bike on rails). Lets call it "The Crocodile". As an operator you had to, single-handedly, receive payment from customers, put them into the carts, give them safety instructions, and pull them back out again when they came back. This may not seem like much but I'm telling you it was stressful and difficult to coordinate. I had just opened The Crocodile half an hour earlier and everything was doing fine until I all of a sudden felt sick to the bones. I was dizzy, the world seemed to spin, it was like having fever x10. I thought there was some material used in building The Crocodile, like asbestos or something, that made me sick. While fumbling around I never let my duty down though because it was VERY difficult to get replacements during a shift and I continued to receive payment from customers, give them instructions and letting them out of The Crocodile again. Meanwhile I was all the time contemplating how I was going to visit a doctor or physician who was going to give me a medical leave and that I was never going to operate The Crocodile again, the thought of which was probably the only pleasant thing I felt in those hours my condition lasted (operating The Crocodile was absolutely the worst possible duty you could have in that amusement park and I would be happy to be free from it).
Then after 3-4 hours a second operator came to The Crocodile (on some, VERY, lucky days two operators stood at The Crocodile some of the shift). I told her about my condition and whether she could take the rest of the shift alone (she probably wanted that as little as I did) because some of the construction material used on The Crocodile made me ill.
She told me I was probably hungover.
And then all of it made sense. Last night at my friends party I had drunk an entire boxful of cheap rose wine so it made sense that I was currently hung out of my mind.
I didn't think that a hangover could have a delay as I had experienced (about 2-3 hours after waking) but that was probably it because I (unfortunately) never felt sick while operating The Crocodile again.
It was a very exciting job. I have countless more stories.
Working in an amusement park made me realize just how many ambulances pull up to such things. I think there was an ambulance at the park at least once a day. There was also a local medical unit with their own building. Mind you, it was a medium sized if not small park. Sometimes there was police too.
Another story from The Crocodile would be when an elderly lady got hurt in her heart from treading the pedals. My college (it was a two person shift) closed the ride while I ran down to the local doctors. She ended up fine.
Another time, I have been told, it wasn't my shift, some grandpa was treading the pedals with his grandson but end up dying from a heart attack in the middle of the ride so the carts behind them had to push them through the rest of the ride.