Gunmen carrying out paramilitary shootings will often telephone for an ambulance in advance, according to one Belfast ambulance-driver.
The Belfast paramedic, with 13 years' experience, does not wish to be named. "You'll appreciate I have to live in the community, too," he says.
He remembers his first callout to a paramilitary attack. "We were trying to find the location and we heard the shots being fired. As we were running into the alleyway the gunmen were running out of it the opposite direction. It was very frightening. You could still smell the cordite."
Ambulances from his unit reach any location in the city in less than eight minutes. They currently receive an average of six calls a week to pick up the latest "punishment" victim. Often the crew will recognise the injured person as the victim of a a previous attack.
Paramedics have been assaulted at the scene of attacks, and two crews now attend for back-up. Ballymurphy, Turf Lodge, Twinbrook, Lisburn and Ardoyne are ranked as dangerous for the ambulance service.
"We're just like a taxi service. I can see if they feel they have to dole out their type of justice, OK, but why do they have to involve us? Why do we have to become the butt of people's anger?" he asks.
"It's a very hostile environment. We have been assaulted by relatives or by the general public standing about. You will get the local vigilantes coming on the scene saying: `What's happened? Hurry up, get him out of here', that type of thing."
In the past victims were also regularly drunk when attacked, after drinking ahead of their "appointment" with the paramilitaries.
"I haven't encountered one with drink on him in a while, so maybe they're not using the appointment system any more."
There can be a lot of blood at the scene of a shooting, which usually takes place in an alleyway or derelict lot. "Some of them have hit the popliteal artery at the back of the knee. If you hit that you can bleed to death. Some are hit by accident, others by design."
He was also in the crew sent to collect the elderly mother of Andrew Kearney, hours after he bled to death following a republican punishment attack in the New Lodge in 1998. She was so distressed she needed hospital treatment. The injuries depend on how long the groups wish to put their victims in hospital or on crutches.
"They know what they're doing. There's the `crucifixion' which is the most feared, hands, feet and knees; there's the `50/50' one shot in the back, he might walk again he might not; or the `mixed grill' which is ankles, knees and elbows."
In a recent incident in west Belfast a teenager was forced to sit down on the kerb at the side of the street and was shot down through the knees from above.
Ammunition most commonly used is a .22 bullet for a handgun. "I've seen shotgun injuries at very close range and they cause tremendous damage and will mostly result in amputations. The leg is basically hanging on with shreds and tendons."
Beatings, too, are brutal, with gangs often forcing their way into the victim's home to carry out the attack.
"The thing about the beatings in the house is that they're usually witnessed by kids. You're coming in on top of hysterical children and you have to give them a bit of time and a bit of reassurance. `Daddy is going to be OK,' you say. You have to feel for the kids."