Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced, the Galligle people of
Speaker 1: the orination. We pay our respects to elders past and present.
Speaker 2: It's twenty eleven and we're in the back of an
Speaker 2: ambulance with two paramedics and one incredibly nervous Sally Guld
Speaker 2: halfway through her paramedicine degree. This is her first shift.
Speaker 2: She watches on as her superiors perform an impressive and
Speaker 2: almost choreographed dance to try and save a young man
Speaker 2: who's had a cardiac arrest. She's relieved to be an
Speaker 2: onlooker today and is quietly confident, understanding most of the
Speaker 2: lingo thanks to paying attention in lectures and binge watching scrubs.
Speaker 2: A few years on, and it's Sally who's calling the
Speaker 2: shots and saving lives, a responsibility she doesn't take lightly.
Speaker 2: She's giving everything to her job, but obsession takes over.
Speaker 2: Thoughts of the next shift start to creep into every
Speaker 2: spare moment. At just twenty three years old, Sally is
Speaker 2: already at breaking point. I'm at Middleton and this is
Speaker 2: headgame today, a war of insight into how it feels
Speaker 2: to be brought into people's lives at their worst hour. Sally,
Speaker 2: you've certainly been put in some situations where you've required
Speaker 2: to really lose your head and use everything that you've
Speaker 2: got to not only survive, but to be able to
Speaker 2: fight to work another day. How old were you when
Speaker 2: you first realized that your father was saving lives?
Speaker 3: I have very early memories, maybe as a six year old,
Speaker 3: of knowing what he did for a job, but having
Speaker 3: no concept of what that really meant. I understood from
Speaker 3: what people said to him that his job was unique,
Speaker 3: that not everyone could do that job or did that job.
Speaker 3: And I also knew from what people said that his
Speaker 3: job was really gross. And I heard a lot about that,
Speaker 3: how hard it was, how gross it was, and so
Speaker 3: I just think I adopted that as a child, like, oh,
Speaker 3: dad's job is so gross.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And was there many moments of like stress where you know,
Speaker 2: you'd notice that he would come in and be, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of he's had a bad day or he's you know,
Speaker 2: was there any moments where as a youngster and as
Speaker 2: your upbringing where you thought yourself, what does my dad
Speaker 2: actually do?
Speaker 3: I think I was incredibly well buffered by Mum and
Speaker 3: Dad from the realities of the work. They made sure
Speaker 3: that Dad left work at work and that when he
Speaker 3: came home, I just remember him as dad.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: He'd bring us treats from the hospital canteen. He'd play
Speaker 3: fun games, the wrestle tumble, all those things that dads do.
Speaker 3: And I have that memory of him, which I'm very
Speaker 3: grateful for, because I know it's incredibly hard from my
Speaker 3: own experience, to be able to leave work at work
Speaker 3: and to come home just as a parent, you know,
Speaker 3: and not bring all of the stuff from work home.
Speaker 3: I think the thing that made my childhood maybe a
Speaker 3: little bit different was the stories that Dad told around
Speaker 3: the dinner table. Even though he sheltered me from the
Speaker 3: reality of the maybe the mental struggle of doing a
Speaker 3: job black paramedicine, he didn't really hold back on sharing
Speaker 3: the gross stories at the table, so I think he'd
Speaker 3: come home with what he was telling in quite a
Speaker 3: humorous way. Were stories that probably weren't overly appropriate for
Speaker 3: us as kids at the age that we were.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I enjoyed them.
Speaker 3: I loved them, and I fell in love with you know,
Speaker 3: hearing about those stories, but also hearing about how calmly
Speaker 3: and confidently my dad had managed the situations. And that's
Speaker 3: when I started to gain an appreciation for the fact
Speaker 3: that he could turn a situation where most people run scream,
Speaker 3: panic into one where he said, well, no, it was easy.
Speaker 3: I just did what I was trained to do, and
Speaker 3: everyone was okay.
Speaker 4: In the end.
Speaker 2: What was you thinking about when you were growing up
Speaker 2: and going through school, going through education, When did you decide, right,
Speaker 2: this is what I want to do.
Speaker 3: I think as a teenager, I had that classic mentality
Speaker 3: of oh, I'm not going to do what dads already done.
Speaker 3: I don't want to follow in his footsteps. I want
Speaker 3: to create my own path. And I felt very strongly
Speaker 3: about that. But unfortunately, or fortunately, I narrowed down my
Speaker 3: career choices as a sixteen year old to that medical field.
Speaker 3: So I was looking at psychology, I was looking at medicine,
Speaker 3: I was looking at nursing, but none of them really
Speaker 3: had all the draw cards that I was after, you know,
Speaker 3: the changing scenery, the being outside, the unpredictability, the range
Speaker 3: of patients, and I sort of almost just admitted to
Speaker 3: myself in defeat, oh, I think I want to do paramedicine.
Speaker 4: Exactly like dad did.
Speaker 2: And I suppose, like you said, you know from the stories,
Speaker 2: I think this is really interesting and how mouldible you
Speaker 2: are as a child, you know that becoming the norm?
Speaker 2: Did it just make sense to you that do you
Speaker 2: know what this is? This is what I'm destined to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a point at which I didn't know
Speaker 3: if I had the ability to do the job. I
Speaker 3: didn't know if I was going to love it, but
Speaker 3: I just had this incredible drive like that's what I'm
Speaker 3: going to do. That's what I'm supposed to do. Let's
Speaker 3: go for it.
Speaker 2: And did you have a proud dad that was pushing
Speaker 2: you on? He like, yes, go and do it? Or
Speaker 2: was he because I know that parents can be quite
Speaker 2: standoffish because I know my son wants to join the military,
Speaker 2: right and I'm sort of like, you know, I've been there,
Speaker 2: you don't really you know it. Was it a proud
Speaker 2: father moment or was he quite dubious about it?
Speaker 3: I think he took the same approach that you're taking,
Speaker 3: is that he was very aware that it was my
Speaker 3: path and my decision. And now I can reflect back
Speaker 3: that he understood very much that the job could hold
Speaker 3: so much joy, and he didn't want to hold me
Speaker 3: back from that, But he also knew that the job
Speaker 3: could hold so much trauma and it had the potential
Speaker 3: damage me, and so he really sat quietly and supported
Speaker 3: what I was doing, but certainly didn't offer any advice
Speaker 3: of whether I should or shouldn't. He was just sort
Speaker 3: of the quiet in the background, like, if that's what
Speaker 3: you want to do, go for it. And now I
Speaker 3: understand it's hard to look at a child and want
Speaker 3: them to go into a profession that you know carries
Speaker 3: all the exposure to trauma.
Speaker 2: So how young were you, because this is quite you
Speaker 2: entered the trade quite young. How young with you you?
Speaker 2: And what was how long was the training and what
Speaker 2: was the training like?
Speaker 3: So I had a gap year after school and moved
Speaker 3: away to earn some money, and then went straight into
Speaker 3: the university degree and lived on campus there to study.
Speaker 3: I did an accelerated version, which meant I only had
Speaker 3: two years at UNI, and then I was straight on
Speaker 3: road as a twenty one year old, so very little
Speaker 3: life experience straight out of high school straight into UNI.
Speaker 3: Not a lot of living done, I guess, And yeah,
Speaker 3: twenty one years old, I pulled on that uniform for
Speaker 3: the first time.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you, no living done.
Speaker 4: You think you've done the living? You know you have it,
Speaker 4: you haven't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in your head, you're like, oh, I'm twenty one
Speaker 2: years old.
Speaker 4: I know everything. I know exactly what to expect.
Speaker 2: And you know nothing. So you said you went on
Speaker 2: the accelerated court. Is that because you obviously took to
Speaker 2: it really well, and obviously you know with the background
Speaker 2: of your father and the knowledge that you'd probably already ascertained.
Speaker 2: Was it How did you find the accelerated course? You
Speaker 2: find it challenging or did it come naturally to you?
Speaker 3: I think it was a new program the UNI was offering,
Speaker 3: and I was I knew as soon as I could
Speaker 3: get on road, it felt to me that that was
Speaker 3: where the real learning was going to happen. And we
Speaker 3: did a placement within the university course on road where
Speaker 3: you're third up on a car, you have no responsibility,
Speaker 3: but you're able to watch the paramedics in action. And
Speaker 3: that was only three weeks, and I think it was
Speaker 3: the best three weeks of my life I've ever had.
Speaker 3: And from that moment, I didn't want to go back
Speaker 3: to UNI. I just wanted to get on road so
Speaker 3: badly because I could just see how much I'd grown
Speaker 3: in three weeks, and I just I just wanted to
Speaker 3: be there already.
Speaker 4: I was very impatient.
Speaker 2: Wow, And you're exactly right. When you're thrust into it
Speaker 2: and you're you're forced to act and you're forced to
Speaker 2: to sort of lean back on your training and the
Speaker 2: little of it that you had, you grow so quickly.
Speaker 2: Take me back to that moment when you thought yourself, right,
Speaker 2: I just want to be on the road. You know,
Speaker 2: were you you? You? You're just a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: into your into your training.
Speaker 4: I think it was the first day of my ride
Speaker 4: along on road and I've been.
Speaker 2: Popped into the very first day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as a ride along, I fell in love with
Speaker 3: the job. I already knew that I was, I was
Speaker 3: getting an interest in it. But from the moment I
Speaker 3: stepped forward in the ambulance they shut me into the back,
Speaker 3: we raced off to a cardiac arrest, and I just
Speaker 3: watched these paramedics with such poise, calm control, and I
Speaker 3: just thought, I have to do this job. I have
Speaker 3: to do this job.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. So the passion was that you knew the
Speaker 2: passion was there, you knew what you wanted to do,
Speaker 2: and what was your What were you thinking when you
Speaker 2: actually saw the paramedics jump into action on that very
Speaker 2: first day that you were widing along, because obviously you
Speaker 2: were there to observe, to take it all into I
Speaker 2: suppose this is a super important moment two of realization
Speaker 2: if you want to do the job or not, because
Speaker 2: this is what you're going to be doing, saving lives.
Speaker 2: So wow, to have that moment of this is what
Speaker 2: I want to do, that's that's you sort of know
Speaker 2: that that's your career path, right Yeah.
Speaker 4: But don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3: I didn't at that point have any real knowledge of
Speaker 3: weather or proof whether I could do the job or not.
Speaker 3: And I was still very grateful that I was just
Speaker 3: a spectator, you know. I had the luxury of watching
Speaker 3: it all unfold and being impressed by it and dreaming
Speaker 3: that one day I'd have the skills and the experience
Speaker 3: to be there. But it was more just watching their
Speaker 3: ability to transform chaos into an ordered scene that just
Speaker 3: attracted me so much.
Speaker 4: To that role.
Speaker 2: And what do you think, you know, because obviously the
Speaker 2: passion and you being attracted, what do you think of
Speaker 2: the attributes that are required for you for a paramedic
Speaker 2: to not like, not like you said, knowing if you
Speaker 2: can do it, but knowing that you want to do it.
Speaker 2: That the passion that you had from that very first
Speaker 2: ride along. What do you think, you know, made you
Speaker 2: really really want to do the job.
Speaker 3: I think it's the combination of skills that you need
Speaker 3: for the job is such a unique skill set. It's
Speaker 3: not that you need to be the smartest person, the
Speaker 3: fittest person, but you need a little bit of everything.
Speaker 3: You know, you need the ability to be strong enough
Speaker 3: to carry the gear, but agile enough to get yourself
Speaker 3: into these ridiculous situations. You need to be smart enough
Speaker 3: to know all about the body and the medications and
Speaker 3: all the conditions you're seeing. But you need to have
Speaker 3: this sense of humor to just be able to laugh
Speaker 3: at off with your mates after. Like, it's just this
Speaker 3: ridiculous skill set that you need to be okay with
Speaker 3: getting rained on, spat on, you know, yelled at all
Speaker 3: the things, and then I don't know, just be able
Speaker 3: to find the resilience to turn back up to work
Speaker 3: the next day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you said, it's almost as well, you know,
Speaker 2: is that humor in the face of adversity that we
Speaker 2: use in the military as well, being able to you know,
Speaker 2: because you experienced such you know, negative things and you
Speaker 2: know potentially traumatic situations. I don't know if it exists
Speaker 2: in the paramedic world, but it certainly does in the military.
Speaker 2: There's that dark humor. It does help, though, doesn't it,
Speaker 2: Because to be able to sort of find a bit
Speaker 2: of humor in the face of adversity, that's super important.
Speaker 3: It's essential. It's essential to carrying on in the job
Speaker 3: and to turning up with a good attitude the next day.
Speaker 3: And paramedics I think are known for our horrifically dark
Speaker 3: of humor a lot of the time, which often isn't
Speaker 3: appreciated by the general public.
Speaker 4: But the job we're doing.
Speaker 3: You know, life is funny, and if we don't laugh
Speaker 3: about it, you know, we probably cry about it.
Speaker 2: So let's laugh about it. If you don't laugh about it,
Speaker 2: all you will do is cry about it. Take me
Speaker 2: back to the very first day that you were on shift.
Speaker 2: You know, you're fully qualified, You get the call out
Speaker 2: and where you go. Do you remember that very first
Speaker 2: day where you had to then take charge?
Speaker 3: You feel like an impost from that moment you put
Speaker 3: on the uniform and you realize it's only you and
Speaker 3: your partner, and you become very grateful for that partner
Speaker 3: sitting beside you. And I had a lovely training officer
Speaker 3: who was very supportive, very competent on his own, and
Speaker 3: he had the space and the kindness to give me
Speaker 3: the room to learn. I distinctly remember one job we
Speaker 3: went to very early in my training, and it was
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night, and it was three am,
Speaker 3: and you're trying to peel your eyes open and they're
Speaker 3: stinging in the cold night air. And this woman that
Speaker 3: we attended was on death story and I went into
Speaker 3: the house. I looked at her and the only thought
Speaker 3: I could muster was, Oh, she looks like she's about
Speaker 3: to die. And then my mind was blank. There was
Speaker 3: nothing else there. And I just hadn't yet finessed the
Speaker 3: ability to access all that training that I'd done. And
Speaker 3: my partner sprung into action. He knew exactly what to do.
Speaker 3: He was treating her, helping her feel better, doing all
Speaker 3: the right things, and it just took me a beat
Speaker 3: to sort of get my head in the game, you know,
Speaker 3: to go, oh, that's what's wrong with her. That's what
Speaker 3: we need to do. And from that moment, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm back on I'm able to move swiftly. I'm on
Speaker 3: the same team as my partner. We're working together. And
Speaker 3: afterwards I reflected to him and I said, oh, how
Speaker 3: did you know what it was so quickly? And how
Speaker 3: did you, you know, manage it so confidently? And he
Speaker 3: was so humble. It was sort of like, oh, I
Speaker 3: don't know, you know, it's just part of the job.
Speaker 3: But that's what it was. He's done the job, he's
Speaker 3: done the years he's seen those patients, until I'd built
Speaker 3: up that repertoire and the ability to access that training
Speaker 3: in a car manner. You know, I just need to
Speaker 3: do that. I needed the time and the exposure until
Speaker 3: I would reach that point. But there's a lot of
Speaker 3: those where you just you feel lost, you don't know
Speaker 3: where to go next. You're giving those help me eyes
Speaker 3: to your partner, like what do we do next? What's
Speaker 3: this about? And they're just calmly guiding you through. And
Speaker 3: I think that's the beauty of our job and the
Speaker 3: way we mentor as our colleagues. You know, you're sharing
Speaker 3: that huge vast body of experience until the people have,
Speaker 3: you know, a body of experience of their own to
Speaker 3: bring to each patient. And I think you do the
Speaker 3: training at university and that's great. The simulations are super important,
Speaker 3: but you just can't get the fidelity of the real
Speaker 3: life stuff. You know, the darkness, the dog that's sparking
Speaker 3: at you, the relative screaming at you, the rain that's
Speaker 3: pouring out of the sky, all those things, you just
Speaker 3: can't simulate those. So when you're trying to draw on
Speaker 3: that knowledge that you've practiced in a controlled environment into
Speaker 3: all these uncontrolled environments, I think that's where the challenge comes.
Speaker 3: And with the real experience is where you get your fluency.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And you know there's so many similarities to
Speaker 2: the military. How hard was that because to be able
Speaker 2: to just take away those distractions And was there a
Speaker 2: moment that of calmness that you realized through that exposure
Speaker 2: repetition that you realized to know what hyper focus on
Speaker 2: the job and to ignore the distractions because at first,
Speaker 2: I suppose with yourselves, that's something that can affect you
Speaker 2: the way you function and operate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's certainly hard to split your focus between that
Speaker 3: situational awareness and a task that might take all of
Speaker 3: your attention because it's a high level or high risk
Speaker 3: procedure that you're doing, or it's a skill that you've
Speaker 3: just learned or one you're doing for the first time.
Speaker 3: So I think that's why we work really well in
Speaker 3: our partnership. We're always paired with another paramedic and sometimes
Speaker 3: if I've got officer surroundings and I'm on the patient,
Speaker 3: you know they're doing the scanning of the situation to
Speaker 3: make sure that both both bases are covered. But as
Speaker 3: the more you do in the job, the better you
Speaker 3: get it being able to do both simultaneously. But there
Speaker 3: are some jobs where you just need your mates to
Speaker 3: have your can be looking out for other stuff that
Speaker 3: you haven't noticed yet.
Speaker 2: And how hard is it to you because I know,
Speaker 2: you know, having done a small bit of medical training,
Speaker 2: I know you know when you get onto the scene,
Speaker 2: you've got to make sure there's nothing that's going to
Speaker 2: threaten you. But time is crucial, you know, seconds to
Speaker 2: save a life. You know seconds count, minutes count. You
Speaker 2: know how hard was it for you not to just
Speaker 2: get carried away with seeing someone that needed your help,
Speaker 2: that needed their lives saving and you know, taking that
Speaker 2: little step back and assessing a situation before you dive
Speaker 2: in head first, right.
Speaker 3: I think as a junior paramedic that that urge to
Speaker 3: step in before it's safe is huge. But the training
Speaker 3: is so good, i'd say, in assuring that we consider
Speaker 3: our safety first. So these days I have no qualms
Speaker 3: in making sure I'm safe and my team is safe
Speaker 3: before we head in, regardless of what's happening inside. Because
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, I want me and
Speaker 3: my colleagues to be going home to their family, and
Speaker 3: that's my number one priority. If everything's safe in order,
Speaker 3: I can do my job a lot better.
Speaker 2: What was it like losing your first patient? How hard
Speaker 2: was that to process? And what do you remember that
Speaker 2: first time?
Speaker 3: I do remember the first time i'd worked on a
Speaker 3: patient and had heard later that shortly after she'd passed away,
Speaker 3: and it just shocked me. I think we train for
Speaker 3: the unexpected a lot of the time, and we think
Speaker 3: that we can recognize the patterns and know what's coming,
Speaker 3: and that we treat sick people and that they do
Speaker 3: die and that's the reality of it. But I'd worked
Speaker 3: on this lady who hadn't, you know, appeared too unwell
Speaker 3: and we'd been talking the whole time we'd been with
Speaker 3: each other. We'd been having conversation about her family, and
Speaker 3: then to find out that she'd died, I just I started,
Speaker 3: you know, critiquing myself in what have I missed? What
Speaker 3: could I have done something? Did I discount something she'd said?
Speaker 3: Did I downplay something?
Speaker 4: Is that on me?
Speaker 3: And that horrible thought of yeah, could I have done more?
Speaker 3: And in this scenario, there was nothing more I could
Speaker 3: have done. She was sick and there was something beyond
Speaker 3: you know, my ability to diagnose, and it was just
Speaker 3: catastrophic and she wasn't going to make it. But it's
Speaker 3: certainly dredged up a lot of self critiquing and criticism
Speaker 3: on myself as to whether I could have done more?
Speaker 3: And I guess I was able to thankfully lean on
Speaker 3: my colleagues to sort of debrief and reflect with them
Speaker 3: and listen to their stories which they'd had similar experiences,
Speaker 3: and to hear that, you know, we can do everything
Speaker 3: we're trained to do, we can do everything right, and
Speaker 3: even then sometimes it's not enough and that's actually outside
Speaker 3: of our control.
Speaker 2: How hard is it not to take it personally.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the thing that makes me good
Speaker 3: at my job is that I do reflect on what
Speaker 3: I did, and I do make plans to do better
Speaker 3: next time. And if I ever lose that, I think
Speaker 3: I need to get out of the job because I
Speaker 3: should always be reflecting, I should always be growing, and
Speaker 3: I should never just settle for I did Okay, Well,
Speaker 3: what can I do next time? What can I do
Speaker 3: better next time? And I'd love to hold onto that
Speaker 3: forever in a positive way, because I think that's the
Speaker 3: way I'm going to continue to grow and be engaged
Speaker 3: in my job in a healthy way. But there's a
Speaker 3: way that we can flip that and have it in
Speaker 3: a negative light and you know, really be hard on
Speaker 3: ourselves and ruminate on that negative side.
Speaker 4: And that can be really self destructive.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, I know a lot of soldiers that
Speaker 2: take things personally, and you know, therefore, you know, the
Speaker 2: whole mental health issue kicks in PTSD, where ultimately you're
Speaker 2: trying to control the uncontrollable, which will only end one way,
Speaker 2: and that's you know, down down a dark road. Right, yep.
Speaker 2: Did you ever get onto a situation where you've you
Speaker 2: actually felt scared where you actually felt, you know, that
Speaker 2: your life was in danger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there have been a few times when the scene's
Speaker 3: not as been as secure as I'd like it. And
Speaker 3: often they come out of nowhere, and again you think
Speaker 3: you're prepared, you think you've done your scanning and you're
Speaker 3: checking your egress points, and then something unexpected will happen
Speaker 3: and you just feel like the rug's been pulled out
Speaker 3: from under you and you've put yourself in a really
Speaker 3: dangerous position. I was working with a partner and we
Speaker 3: attended this young female who had her mother on scene.
Speaker 3: And as we entered the property, it just looked fairly benign,
Speaker 3: a tidy ordered house. The people greeted us respectfully. She
Speaker 3: was holding her face as if she'd had some sort
Speaker 3: of injury underneath it. And I started introducing myself and
Speaker 3: my partner and speaking to the patient, and the mother
Speaker 3: just looked a bit unsettled and uneasy, and her eyes
Speaker 3: sort of started diving across the room, and obviously I
Speaker 3: started tingling, you know, feeling uncomfortable. Something's going on here,
Speaker 3: And the next words out of my mouth were going
Speaker 3: to be, you know, is anyone else home? But before
Speaker 3: I could say that a door open and across the
Speaker 3: other side of the room, and a young male who
Speaker 3: looked completely furious, stormed out and then pinned his mother
Speaker 3: up against the wall by the throat. And I remember
Speaker 3: just freezing in that instance and just thinking, this is
Speaker 3: not what I'm here for, This is not what I'm
Speaker 3: paid for, this is not in my job. This violent
Speaker 3: man I don't know. I don't know anything about him,
Speaker 3: I don't know anything about these people, and now I'm
Speaker 3: in their house watching this unfold. Thankfully, he wasn't targeting us,
Speaker 3: and we you know, made it out safely and okay,
Speaker 3: and managed to treat the people and they were also
Speaker 3: okay in the end. But that feeling of being completely blindsided,
Speaker 3: out of control, unsafe, and then for me, when I reflected,
Speaker 3: it was also the concern that, you know, what would
Speaker 3: I have done? Would I have been able to defend myself?
Speaker 3: Would I have was I aware enough of my exits?
Speaker 3: All those types of things, And yeah, I think that
Speaker 3: was a wake up call. Just you know, the next
Speaker 3: few weeks months, I was, you know, had my eyes everywhere,
Speaker 3: was asking people who's home, you know, all these types
Speaker 3: of things, because it just all these little jobs that
Speaker 3: don't go the way you planned, a little reminders.
Speaker 4: That you carry with you probably for the rest of
Speaker 4: your career.
Speaker 2: And does it change your approach, that change how you
Speaker 2: operate and how you function.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it ups your vigilance for every job
Speaker 3: from then on, you know. And that's the beauty of
Speaker 3: the way we learn as paramedics in sharing our stories.
Speaker 3: You know, you go back to the station and you
Speaker 3: tell your mates this happened to us, so that they
Speaker 3: can also carry that with them and keep themselves even
Speaker 3: safer on the next job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose as well. Looking just hearing that story,
Speaker 2: you're entering people's private spaces, aren't you. You're intruding into
Speaker 2: people's personal space. It can feel like that, right.
Speaker 3: And we're also coming on a day that's high stress
Speaker 3: for them. It could be the worst day of their life.
Speaker 3: And everyone responds so differently to trauma and stress, and
Speaker 3: often for some people them feeling out of control and
Speaker 3: scared comes out as anger and violence. And you can't
Speaker 3: always predict who's going to act that way. But you know,
Speaker 3: parents with young children are a big one. You know,
Speaker 3: they panic, they feel out of control, and for some
Speaker 3: of them, the only coping mechanism they've got is to
Speaker 3: turn that into fear, you know, and and anger, and
Speaker 3: we often cop the brunt of that just trying to
Speaker 3: de escalate that and care for the child or whoever's injured,
Speaker 3: and for the people that are there having an emotional response.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose. And do you know what each day
Speaker 2: for you, which is literally, well not even each moment
Speaker 2: for you in the day, is a huge learning curve,
Speaker 2: right because you're going into the unknown, you know you're
Speaker 2: going you don't know how the situation is going to unfold,
Speaker 2: you don't know the outcome. It takes a certain mindset
Speaker 2: to be able to do that. How how do you
Speaker 2: process that when you're when you're at home, when you're
Speaker 2: off the job, knowing that you're going to get called
Speaker 2: into a situation that, again you know, you know nothing about.
Speaker 2: Does it Does it have some kind of effect over time?
Speaker 3: I think in the early days it certainly did. I
Speaker 3: carried a lot of stress on the job. In between
Speaker 3: the jobs, back at the station, back at home, my
Speaker 3: mind was always turning with what's next?
Speaker 4: Will I be able to manage it? Will I have
Speaker 4: the skills to cope?
Speaker 3: You know? All those types of questions, and they just
Speaker 3: went on and on and on for the probably the
Speaker 3: first year of the job. The longer I'm in the job, thankfully,
Speaker 3: I can sort of turn that off. I can realize
Speaker 3: if I'm not at work, it's not my job, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not my job to respond, it's not my job
Speaker 3: to be on high alert when I'm at home relaxing
Speaker 3: or doing things with the family. But also there's a
Speaker 3: flip side to it in that the unknown is oddly addictive,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 3: I love that, you know, sense that I don't know
Speaker 3: what's coming next. I don't know what skills I'm going
Speaker 3: to have to draw on, but I guess over the years,
Speaker 3: I feel very confident in my skill set in knowing
Speaker 3: that whatever I'm shown, I have training, skills, medications, procedures
Speaker 3: to combat whatever I come across.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I'm I know, you know, you know, when
Speaker 2: you do put your head down and try to sleep,
Speaker 2: your mind's just constantly you know, when's the next school
Speaker 2: going to come in? You know? Am I going to
Speaker 2: deal with it? Am I going to succeed it? Am
Speaker 2: I going to save a life? Or and we're going
Speaker 2: to lose a life or so therefore I'd go on
Speaker 2: to the next task, onto the next mission. You know,
Speaker 2: I'd be at ninety percent when I should have been
Speaker 2: at one hundred percent because my mind's just churning around.
Speaker 2: Did that ever happen with yourself? And did you ever
Speaker 2: feel like that? You know, maybe it was too much.
Speaker 3: I really noticed that sort of rumination mindset that you're
Speaker 3: talking about, where you're turning things over and over when
Speaker 3: I had a job that hadn't run exactly the way
Speaker 3: that I'd wanted it to, so sort of on the
Speaker 3: after side of it, and I'd bring that home with
Speaker 3: me and I'd carry that and I'd be running through
Speaker 3: the job over and over again, replaying every step and
Speaker 3: at every moment, whether I'd made a different decision, there'd
Speaker 3: be a different outcome in all senses, you know, the
Speaker 3: clinical senses, the extrication sensors, the soft skills, the way
Speaker 3: I spoke to the family, the information I gave them,
Speaker 3: how I managed the team, all of it, just over
Speaker 3: and over again. And that can you know, take away
Speaker 3: your sleep, you know, take away your appetite, take away
Speaker 3: your desire to want to hang out with your family
Speaker 3: and be normal you because you're just so preoccupied by
Speaker 3: that job playing over and over again. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 3: I know that that state very well.
Speaker 2: I've got an extract from your book. You've written a
Speaker 2: book called Frog, and do you want to explain why
Speaker 2: it's called frog? First and foremost, I know why, and
Speaker 2: I find it fascinating because when it when it when it.
Speaker 2: When I saw the title of the book frog, obviously,
Speaker 2: I'm a former frogman, you know, so I sort of
Speaker 2: smiled at it. But you're your description of frog is
Speaker 2: a bit different to mine.
Speaker 3: Yes, I currently work as an intensive care paramedic and
Speaker 3: intensive care paramedics in my service known as frogs. The
Speaker 3: nickname came in a long time before I joined the job,
Speaker 3: and I'm told it was because everything they touched croaks.
Speaker 3: But if you interrogate that too much, it doesn't really
Speaker 3: make sense as to who's doing the croaking. But yeah,
Speaker 3: to this day we're known as frogs. It's our nickname.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to read you. Obviously you've written a book,
Speaker 2: but I found this really interesting. And then this is
Speaker 2: an extract from the book. It says death plays a
Speaker 2: leading role in a paramedics work. We respond to people
Speaker 2: who are long dead, those who die in our presence,
Speaker 2: those on the brink of dying, and those who wish
Speaker 2: they were already dead. Wow, those that wish they were
Speaker 2: already dead. I found that very interesting when I read that,
Speaker 2: because I suppose it's is it almost like people asking
Speaker 2: you to put them out of their misery? Is that
Speaker 2: what you is that what you mean by that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's certainly a whole host of people come across
Speaker 3: for various reasons, that feel like they're ready to die.
Speaker 3: There's those patients that are suicidal and feel like there's
Speaker 3: no hope and they've got wishes to die, and we
Speaker 3: have to meet them in that space, and that obviously
Speaker 3: demands a lot of care from us in the way
Speaker 3: that we manage and support those people. And the other
Speaker 3: cohort is those elderly people that feel like they've done
Speaker 3: enough living. You know, their body doesn't feel like there's anymore,
Speaker 3: they're not capable of doing what they wish they could do,
Speaker 3: and they're lonely and they're in pain. And so many
Speaker 3: of them say to me like, oh, can't it just
Speaker 3: be over? I'm ready to die? Yeah, And I think
Speaker 3: out of society Honestly, I tell them that I can't
Speaker 3: disagree with their perspective. You know, they've lived for however
Speaker 3: many years and they're not enjoying it anymore. They don't
Speaker 3: have quality of life. And who am I to tell
Speaker 3: them that that's you know, not the right thing to wish.
Speaker 3: And I think as a society we're not really set
Speaker 3: up to support people into that end of life stage.
Speaker 3: And we sort of think, because we've got the capacity
Speaker 3: to give people medications and keep them living, that that's
Speaker 3: what we should do. But I meet so many elderly
Speaker 3: people that just you know, wish that you know, they've
Speaker 3: had a good life and they'd like to end that
Speaker 3: chapter and you know, have some peace and some rest
Speaker 3: from all the pain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get that. I understand that as well. And
Speaker 2: how hard is it to tell loved ones that they've
Speaker 2: lost you know, their husband, their wife, their partner, their child.
Speaker 2: You know? How is it something that you try and
Speaker 2: shy away from doing or is it something that you
Speaker 2: actually find piecing doing? What end of the spectrum do
Speaker 2: you sit on?
Speaker 3: When I started the job, I had that fear of like,
Speaker 3: this is a huge responsibility and I don't have the words,
Speaker 3: and I don't have the training, and who am I
Speaker 3: to waltz into this person's private space and give them
Speaker 3: the worst.
Speaker 4: News of their life.
Speaker 3: But as I've been in the job for a few
Speaker 3: years and the more I've done it, it's a huge
Speaker 3: privilege and it's almost an honor, i'd say, to be
Speaker 3: able to do that because I put so much weight
Speaker 3: on the responsibility of doing it in the best way possible.
Speaker 4: You know that if I.
Speaker 3: Can do it gently but clearly enough that they get
Speaker 3: the message in as gentle a way as possible, that
Speaker 3: I've done my job, and that hopefully they don't remember
Speaker 3: me in a good way. You know that I'm not
Speaker 3: an even worse part of their already terrible day. And
Speaker 3: if I do a bad job of it, I'm probably
Speaker 3: going to stand out and they're going to remember not
Speaker 3: only did my loved one die, but then this insensitive
Speaker 3: paramedic bluntly told me and didn't offer any support, and
Speaker 3: I become part of that narrative of the worst day.
Speaker 3: But if I do it in a gentle way, and
Speaker 3: I support them, and I read their cues on how
Speaker 3: I think that it's going to land with them, then
Speaker 3: hopefully I just blend into that terrible day and they
Speaker 3: only feel a sense of being supported by us. You know,
Speaker 3: we couldn't do everything to bring their relative back, it
Speaker 3: was out of our can, but we can do everything
Speaker 3: to support them and the start of their grief journey.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting us. But it makes complete sense as well.
Speaker 2: That's an amazing way to put it. You know, if
Speaker 2: they don't remember me, then I've done my job. Wow.
Speaker 2: Does it differ from I suppose telling a loved one
Speaker 2: that they've lost someone their grandmother for example, to losing
Speaker 2: a child. Is the process different? You know? Do you
Speaker 2: just treat each individual case as it presents itself, or
Speaker 2: is it the same sort of routine for for everyone?
Speaker 3: Generally speaking, I follow a similar process in terms of
Speaker 3: I use clear words like dead. We don't use euphemisms
Speaker 3: like passed on gone to a better place. When we're
Speaker 3: delivering this important information. It's really crucial that there's no
Speaker 3: mixed messages and we're not misunderstood. So I often use
Speaker 3: a blunt, quite clear statement. You know, I'm sorry, but
Speaker 3: your loved one is dead or they have died, just
Speaker 3: so that we're clear, we're on the same page and
Speaker 3: I don't have to re explain that horrible thing because
Speaker 3: they've misunderstood what I've said. I always like to leave
Speaker 3: space for people to have a response, because they're not
Speaker 3: going to take on and comprehend that message in an instant.
Speaker 3: You know, to me, it's just another day at work,
Speaker 3: but to them, it's probably the worst day of their life,
Speaker 3: and they need space to sort of process that. And
Speaker 3: I don't know how much that's going to affect them
Speaker 3: or in what way. And then I think I just
Speaker 3: buckle up for whatever sort of grief response is going
Speaker 3: to happen, which has a huge range and you can
Speaker 3: never predict it because some people feel just as strongly
Speaker 3: about losing their elderly grandmother as they would a child.
Speaker 3: And I'm not someone to judge what sort of response
Speaker 3: you're going to have. I'm just there to sort of
Speaker 3: hold them in those initial moments and let it play out.
Speaker 3: You know, some people do get angry, some people do
Speaker 3: get sad. Some people go into denial or try and
Speaker 3: argue with me about it, and that's all okay, you know,
Speaker 3: that's all normal.
Speaker 2: Yes, So you almost expect that to happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, expect the unexpected.
Speaker 3: It could go either way, it could be anything, But
Speaker 3: I'm going to allow some space for it because it's
Speaker 3: their moment, it's not mine, and I don't know anything
Speaker 3: about these people. I've only just met them. So the
Speaker 3: least I can do for them is, you know, be clear,
Speaker 3: be concise, answer any questions, but then give them space,
Speaker 3: you know, to process that.
Speaker 2: Can you remember, you know, was there a particular individual
Speaker 2: or person that you found it really really hard to
Speaker 2: They're all tough, obviously, I know they are, But is
Speaker 2: there is there one that stands out in your mind
Speaker 2: that was particularly tough to deliver that information?
Speaker 3: There's probably not one that comes to mind, or maybe
Speaker 3: my mind's blocked it out to protect myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, But it's it's the ones that maybe are
Speaker 3: completely unexpected or a traumatic sort of incident where there
Speaker 3: was no forewarning. It wasn't like someone had an illness
Speaker 3: leading up to it. It sort of comes out of
Speaker 3: the blue. And those completely unexpected ones where I think
Speaker 3: it's you know that this is very unexpected and that
Speaker 3: they haven't been eased into it at all and you're
Speaker 3: about to just completely alter their entire life going forward.
Speaker 2: Is there ever a moment, because we call it combat fatigue,
Speaker 2: where you just go through the same process and combat
Speaker 2: fatigue or burnout. Was there ever a moment in your
Speaker 2: career where you felt that, because it's very, very similar
Speaker 2: to going on the military operation of the unknown and burnout.
Speaker 2: You know, it just it just comes, doesn't it. A
Speaker 2: combat fatigue just hits you before you know it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I certainly reached a point in my career where at
Speaker 3: the start, I jumped in, you know, the whole of me,
Speaker 3: super passionate, super keen. I'd fallen in love with it,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to think about nothing else, do nothing else,
Speaker 3: which meant that self care took a real backseat. I
Speaker 3: just loved my days on. I wanted to be there
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 4: I wanted to think.
Speaker 3: About work, study, work, talk about work, it work all
Speaker 3: the time. But I reached a point where I wasn't myself,
Speaker 3: you know, I was treating people at work without the
Speaker 3: respect that they deserved, without the patience. I wasn't as
Speaker 3: empathetic as normal, and I kind of just had this
Speaker 3: descent into someone I didn't even recognize as myself. And
Speaker 3: I don't even know how it happened. And I found
Speaker 3: myself at the point where I just thought I can't
Speaker 3: turn up to work tomorrow and be a good clinician.
Speaker 4: I can't do it.
Speaker 3: I'm not in the headspace to go and offer my
Speaker 3: service to other people because I'm actually the one that
Speaker 3: needs help right now.
Speaker 2: And that's what I mean. It just it creeps up
Speaker 2: on you and you realize it when you're on the job.
Speaker 2: How old were you when you realized that you're at
Speaker 2: the stage, because you started really young and it only
Speaker 2: takes you know, a couple of years to be that
Speaker 2: intensified for it for it to happen. Were you still
Speaker 2: young or was it later on in your career now?
Speaker 3: I was still in my early twenties. I'd only been
Speaker 3: in the job a few years, which meant I was
Speaker 3: in complete denial. That's something I loved so much had
Speaker 3: the potential to damage me, you know. I was like, no,
Speaker 3: I love this job. I get so much out of it.
Speaker 3: I want to be here. But then why am I,
Speaker 3: you know, transformed into this non functioning human that doesn't
Speaker 3: feel capable of getting back to work?
Speaker 2: And how did you get how did you overcome that?
Speaker 2: How did you get through that?
Speaker 3: It wasn't a linear or a quick process. It was
Speaker 3: just going back to the basics and I realized I
Speaker 3: hadn't taken care of myself and the job that I'm
Speaker 3: in and that I know you can relate to is
Speaker 3: you have to respect the darkness of the job and
Speaker 3: do the work in your other time to nourish yourself
Speaker 3: enough to be in the right space to go there.
Speaker 3: And I'd kind of neglected that. So things like getting
Speaker 3: enough sleep, eating enough you know, good food, exercising, having
Speaker 3: social connection, having time away from the job to decompress,
Speaker 3: and I, you know, just ignored all those factors. So
Speaker 3: I think I got lucky, chatted to my GP, got
Speaker 3: some professional assistants, and just made small steps that made
Speaker 3: little differences over a long period of time to get
Speaker 3: back to to where I knew I was me again,
Speaker 3: and where the way I describe it is like the
Speaker 3: world was colorful again. I hadn't noticed, but everything had
Speaker 3: sort of been sucked out in terms of the color.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't until it came back and I was
Speaker 3: well again that I went, oh, yeah, everything's colored again,
Speaker 3: like I'm me, I'm me again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's so intense, it's so relentless, it's so
Speaker 2: back to back. How supportive was the organization?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I made a lot of steps in my
Speaker 3: personal life and decided to keep it sort of separate
Speaker 3: from the service because I think I had a whole
Speaker 3: lot of stuff myself going on that I hadn't worked through.
Speaker 3: I'd gone through my coming of age on the front line,
Speaker 3: like I hadn't developed as an adult yet and sorted
Speaker 3: out my own identity before I developed this kind of
Speaker 3: warped identity inside of a uniform that I hadn't considered
Speaker 3: the human underneath that. And so I had a lot
Speaker 3: of work to do on myself to sort of become
Speaker 3: an adult in my own right that wasn't just Sally
Speaker 3: in uniform. And and so I think, yeah, that was
Speaker 3: a bit of the process for me.
Speaker 2: And so after that, that's that that burnout and you
Speaker 2: started seeing all the colorful things again. I suppose you're
Speaker 2: it's you're You're a great example. Really be one of
Speaker 2: them that those people that individuals that people can really
Speaker 2: come to and get knowledge from. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think when you've been given that experience yourself
Speaker 3: to sort of reflect and better yourself and develop really
Speaker 3: good self care sort of toolkit, I guess it's it's
Speaker 3: my duty to pass that on to the junior staff
Speaker 3: and people embarking on their career to you know, use
Speaker 3: those tools preemptively to protect themselves and you know, heading
Speaker 3: into a job that can have darkness, but yeah, to
Speaker 3: give them encouragement that if they look after themselves then
Speaker 3: they can build the resilience to have a great career.
Speaker 2: And how how is your career at the moment? Are you?
Speaker 2: Where do you find yourself? What's your job tied to?
Speaker 2: What are you doing?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I work as an intensive care paramedic, which is
Speaker 3: one of the highest skill levels of on rown paramedic
Speaker 3: and I get the pleasure of heading out to usually
Speaker 3: the sickest people, which sounds horribly insensitive, but keeps me
Speaker 3: engaged in my job. But I also have the role
Speaker 3: of supporting the junior crews and attending jobs with them
Speaker 3: and giving them a hand And I love that. I
Speaker 3: love seeing you know, people at a position in their
Speaker 3: career where I once was.
Speaker 4: I haven't forgotten it.
Speaker 3: I remember what it was like to start, and I
Speaker 3: think seeing people at the start gives you a renewed
Speaker 3: sort of excitement about the job, seeing it through their eyes,
Speaker 3: seeing the greenness, and supporting them to develop themselves as
Speaker 3: a clinician, So yeah, loving my job still.
Speaker 2: Do you know what, having come up through the ranks
Speaker 2: at such a young age like you have, it's such
Speaker 2: a great position to be in through life experience, through knowledge,
Speaker 2: through being there yourself as a young paramedic. How has
Speaker 2: your job impacted you'll view on life and death? You know?
Speaker 2: How do you view life and death at where you're
Speaker 2: at right now?
Speaker 3: I think part of it is I've got that dark
Speaker 3: sense of humor to carry me through the tragic things,
Speaker 3: but also seeing life cut short so often and how
Speaker 3: unfair that.
Speaker 4: Is and how destructive that is.
Speaker 3: I am often filled with just an incredible sense of
Speaker 3: appreciation that I'm alive and the opportunity that comes with that,
Speaker 3: and really wanting to to grab that and make the
Speaker 3: most of it because I see that it can be
Speaker 3: taken away at a moment's notice.
Speaker 2: And do you have a fear for your life? Do
Speaker 2: you ever do you ever think about you know, because
Speaker 2: you're exposed to it so often, do you ever think
Speaker 2: about death yourself?
Speaker 3: I think about it, but I don't think I'm afraid
Speaker 3: of it. I think if you're living each day to
Speaker 3: the fullest and you're connected to those around you and
Speaker 3: you're building other people up and you're making the most
Speaker 3: of every experience, then hopefully you can sort of be
Speaker 3: content with that that, you know, I like to think that.
Speaker 3: Of course I don't want to die, but if it
Speaker 3: was to happen, that I did everything I could with
Speaker 3: every day I had and made the most of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you don't realize the phenomenal mindset that
Speaker 2: you have in order to be where you're at, to
Speaker 2: have gone what you've gone through, and you know, to
Speaker 2: be at the stage of the job that you're in
Speaker 2: is it requires well a mindset and a half and
Speaker 2: ahead game like no other, which is phenomenal. Now, let's
Speaker 2: finish up on your book. What made you want to
Speaker 2: write Frog?
Speaker 3: It started actually as the journals I kept in that
Speaker 3: ride along when I was in university.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we had.
Speaker 3: A clinical log to keep, which was, you know, what patient,
Speaker 3: what was their age, what was their presenting complaint? But
Speaker 3: I also kept a journal that was about, you know,
Speaker 3: how I felt about it, what I was seeing the
Speaker 3: paramedics do, and how amazing it was. And I capture
Speaker 3: every moment of the day in my little journal. After
Speaker 3: the shift, and when I looked back on that journal.
Speaker 3: Even a year later, I thought, Wow, I've come so
Speaker 3: far and I've grown so much in a short space
Speaker 3: of time, and I can only imagine what the rest
Speaker 3: of that trajectory is going to look like. I have
Speaker 3: to sort of capture it. And then it just reached
Speaker 3: a point where I was like, I have to turn
Speaker 3: this into a book. I have to write it down,
Speaker 3: you know, to celebrate my career and to validate the
Speaker 3: experience of the other paramedics.
Speaker 4: I just had to do it.
Speaker 2: And what was it like going back through those notes,
Speaker 2: because obviously there's a lot that you forget. Was it
Speaker 2: was it quite a frapeutic experience or was it quite
Speaker 2: hard to actually go back to some of those moments.
Speaker 3: Now, it was exciting because I still remember the jobs,
Speaker 3: but it was also humbling because there was so much
Speaker 3: I didn't know, so much that had gone over my
Speaker 3: head in those first few of shifts that now I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, of course that's what the paramedics were doing.
Speaker 3: Of course that's why they did that, and it all
Speaker 3: makes sense. But at the time I was just completely overwhelmed,
Speaker 3: and then, you know, blown away by what they were doing.
Speaker 2: Listen, I can't wait to have a good read of it.
Speaker 2: I've ever managed to get some extracts of the book listen.
Speaker 2: It's been phenomenal speaking with you. You are a life saver.
Speaker 2: Keep saving lives and I wish you all the best
Speaker 2: of your book.
Speaker 4: Thanks for coming on, Sally, Thanks so much, Ed, Thanks
Speaker 4: for having me.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me on Headgame. If you
Speaker 2: enjoyed this episode, make sure you're subscribed so you don't
Speaker 2: miss any of our incredible stories, and leave me a
Speaker 2: review wherever you're listening. I'm Aunt Middleton. Catch you again
Speaker 2: next time.