Life Of A Paramedic

What are the most satisfying parts of your job?

It's often very rewarding when you do save a life. It's a bit of a cliché that you don't save a life every day. However, there are times when patients are in fairly poor condition and from your interventions the patient comes out and there is a success story at the end. Delivering babies is part of the job and we do that. That is satisfying and we do that on a fairly regular basis. That is very rewarding.

How many babies have you delivered?

I don't know, more than twenty, that's for sure. More than twenty.

What are the hardest parts of your job?

Often we do cover some really stressful situations with people that are in real grief from situations that's happened. Even when we get trained in it, we don't know the people, so obviously we have got distance from them to separate us. It's still sometimes hard when we go to people's houses, elderly people who have been married for longer than a lot of us have been around, and then they've just lost their loved one. You see how their whole life is changed from that moment in time, and it can be quite depressing at times.

What was the most difficult situation you've had to deal with in your work?

I was involved with some of the terrorist bombings in London and they're horrific incidents to happen. Even though we train and we train and we train again, an exercise for these type of incidents, when it actually happens it's still quite out of the blue and it can be quite difficult to control. We're used to dealing with patients individually, ones and twos, but when you're confronted with many patients, some with massive major injuries, it can be very difficult. Often, we treat the most life threatening first and there's a process that we go through. At the time you're very busy and you don't even think of it. It's not really difficult at the time, but afterwards, in reflection, it still can at times affect you. We got good counselling, good support from our managers and we've got all the systems in place, but it's a difficult situation to work.

What's the most unusual thing you've seen as a paramedic?

Well, there's some unusual situations people get themselves in from sex acts and things like this and there have been some occasions where the ambulance has been called where there are objects in orifices that maybe they shouldn't be. I suppose often we're professional when we're dealing with a situation as it arises, but you do have to ask yourself afterward "what was happening?"

How often do you receive hoax calls?

I don't know the exact figures. No doubt, the control staff would be better to tell you. I don't think it's that many. I suggest it's probably not as heavy as the fire service, for some reason. But we don't seem to get a huge amount.

What are the consequences of hoax calls?

If it's a hoax call, it's a waste of the vehicle. There's often a risk of driving to the call for us even though we're progressive but careful drivers. There's a risk there. When we get to the scene we don't just come back because there's a process of investigation to make sure that there isn't a patient there. We have to check back with the control room and we have to ring the caller back. If there's anyone in the house and we don't get an answer, they could be collapsed so we may have to get the police to break entry, and there could be no one in there. It could be time consuming for all concerned. It takes the vehicles and paramedics off the ground for the same amount of time as it takes to deal with the call. Equally, we do get calls where no one is there at the time, but nobody had realized there's an ambulance somebody called at the time.

Have you ever been attacked when attending to someone?

Yes I have. Not that often but there are times when people just don't listen to reason and have tried to attack us. One coincidently, was when I was taking him home. This was a chap that had been found lying in the street, and was called by a member of the public. The public member was good enough to wait for us, and that always a bonus rather than just walking off. We put this chap in the ambulance and he was inebriated, and we didn't seem to find any interest with him. He definitely didn't want to go to the hospital, so we said we would run him home which wasn't far in North London. He had so much to drink and we were assured by him that somebody was at home. We wouldn't take him home to an empty house as its not safe due to a clinical risk. This person did have somebody at home so we were happy to take him home, but as we were driving around he was more disoriented and just couldn't really relate to his name of his crew. He kept shouting "what's happening" and swearing at us "where are you taking us." We were trying to settle him down until the end and we did manage to get to his house and he just wanted to attack us, so he was running around the ambulance with a broom chasing us; but because he had so much to drink he was twice as slow and all over the place, but he was swinging out for us. We were just doing our best to settle him down and hopefully call in for his place and that situation was after itself when i arrived.

What are the modern demands on paramedics today?

The vast difference in what we deliver; the vast difference in patient care, I mean very much when I joined, it was a transport service. I think it was advertised as driver, stroke attendant and it really was. It was to drive and even though at the time it seemed like there was a fair bit to do, in fact, there was very little to do. There was no drug therapy. There was oxygen but that is about what it was on the vehicles. So it was to go out, pick the patient up, do the minimum treatment, take them to the nearest hospital. Whereas now, there is a vast amount of kit, equipment and knowledge and the education, the training and the development of paramedics is just gone from strength to strength; it really has, and now we deliver good and sometimes definitive pre-hospital care on the scene.

Do you think being a paramedic is more dangerous today than 20 years ago?

I think so. The call rate is going up, so the volume of work we do is more. So that's a contributing factor. Because obviously, we're doing twice as much, if not three times as much work than we ever did. But I think generally, society has changed. I don't know why this would be, but it has. It has for me. No evidence to support it, but for me, I'd say it's just changed in the number of calls. Society's attitude maybe towards emergency services has changed, and it just seems to be more of a dangerous job, mainly from violence. I don't think it's any more dangerous in the job we do. I think it's safer, because we've got better protective care. We've got good communication. So our actual incidents where it's predominantly dangerous from a road accident or building site, they're much more controlled, better risk assessments and controlled environment. If it's a situation like that, there's often a manager is sent as well to coordinate the response, whereas in the past that maybe wasn't there. But I think generally, from violence, that's increased, very much so.

Do you need to be unshockable?

No, I don't think you ever will be. I don't think you'll ever get somebody in the job who's unshockable. Even now, there are still jobs that will shock you. I don't think you could be too hard. There's people's lives that we're dealing with and you do need to, at times, be shocked by it. It's a fine line from actually being professional and carrying out your job efficiently. I'm confident that all the paramedics and every ambulance trust in London and throughout the UK are good, competent practitioners in the service, but afterwards they can be shock able and may sometimes need some help.

Do you become hardened to traumatic situations?

I think you get hardened to traumatic situations, I think you get more used to it, so you'll be more prepared for it. But I don't think you ever get that hard that you're just not shocked by it. I think at times it would just be that, one job that you can relate to having a similar situation before, or can relate to your own lifestyle, and it can shock you. Or just the mass casualty situation, where after all the SSRs in training, it can still be a bit of a shock when it's confronted.

After 29 years as a paramedic what do you think of human nature?

Generally, people are fairly kind. Most people mean well. However, there is always a minority of society that seem to be very aggressive, especially when they have had a few drinks. Generally, people are fairly humane and they support us in a lot of ways. We get calls from lots of people. It's not often that we find patients alone in the street without somebody looking after them. Nice people would stop, call an ambulance, and look after them until we arrive.