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    Paramedic Girl
    Paramedic Girl
    Paramedic Girl
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    Paramedic Girl

    By Jessica Beale-Roberts

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Jessica swings the ambulance door wide open and invites us along for an exciting ride...
    .
    Paramedic Girl is the memoir of a South African Emergency Medical Technician named Jessica. It’s a personal account of the harrowing and occasionally humorous events that took place during the years she spent working on the road. As a young woman, Jessica was driven to help others and determined to succeed in the field of emergency medicine. Armed with a “never say die” attitude she set out on a bumpy journey which would eventually change her life forever.

    While some of the dark humour may make you laugh Paramedic Girl also explores the hidden challenges associated with working in the South African Medical industry in the early 2000’s. Jessica shares her honest accounts of experiences with death, trauma, workplace discrimination and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

    With her straight to the point writing style, Jessica allows us to view life through the eyes of a female paramedic trying to make a difference one emergency call at a time.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJessica Beale-Roberts
    Release dateDec 15, 2016
    ISBN9781370937721
    Paramedic Girl

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      Book preview

      Paramedic Girl - Jessica Beale-Roberts

      Paramedic Girl

      Jessica Beale-Roberts

      Copyright © 2016 by Jessica Beale-Roberts

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Dedication

      Special Thanks

      Chapter One, This Is My Story

      Chapter Two, The Black Pool

      Chapter Three, Night Cycling

      Chapter Four, Dangerous Times

      Chapter Five, It’s Just My Finger

      Chapter Six, If You're Not Careful It Will Fall Off

      Chapter Seven, Bitter Goodbyes

      Chapter Eight, One More for the Reaper

      Chapter Nine, The Grind

      Chapter Ten, The Dreams

      Chapter Eleven, Murder 101

      Chapter Twelve, The Point of No Return

      Chapter Thirteen, Hospital

      Chapter Fourteen, Re-exposure

      Chapter Fifteen, No More

      Chapter Sixteen, What Happened Next

      Chapter Seventeen, Epilogue

      Dedication

      This book is for Tristan Clarke

      Special Thanks

      There are so many people that have encouraged me to keep going, finish my story, and share it with the world.

      Special thanks go to my husband, Robbie Beale-Roberts, who is always in my corner cheering me on. Without him, this book would not have happened. Also huge thanks to my mom, Judy Rae, my number one fan!

      I want to thank all the EMS professionals that I worked with during my time as a medic. You gave me so much inspiration! Another huge thank you to my dear friend Tamryn Sherriffs for constantly asking about the progress of this book and sending me inspirational video clips — you have no idea how much you helped!

      I would like to thank Terence Clarke for allowing me to tell his son’s story and dedicate this book to him.

      To every person who offered me kind words and encouragement — thank you.

      Chapter One: This Is My Story

      Joseph Stalin said: The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic. I believe this quote has great significance for the EMS worker and I will explain why.

      If I gave you a picture of a child injured in a bus crash, you would feel immediately feel a surge of empathy. After that, if I showed you a picture of an old man, hurt in the same incident you would still feel empathy, yes? But what if I kept on going? What if I showed you one hundred or even a thousand pictures? Studies have suggested that the collapse of compassion occurs when people are exposed to multiple victims. This appears to be some sort of emotional survival instinct that humans possess to enable us to keep moving even when we face dire situations. What would happen if we felt the same empathy for thousands of people? What would that do to the psyche? I believe this explains the numbing effect felt by paramedics, while also explaining how one death can still be a catastrophe for us. Because we are exposed to thousands of patients gradually, day in and day out over a long period of time.

      I bet you a million dollars that no one would ever think I am an EMS worker. I definitely don’t fit the part. Firstly, I’m a girl. These days it is more common for women to be EMS workers, but when I started in 2001, it was still a little unusual.

      Even now when I think of paramedics and emergency staff I tend to think of tall, strong and confident men. Maybe it’s a stereotype that makes me feel safe. I’m that other girl, the alternative one. I’m short and stocky with mousy brown hair and plain brown eyes. I have a couple of tattoos and listen to rock music. I’m not a girly-girl, but I’m not butch either. People don’t know what box to place me in. I’m just, unashamedly, me.

      I believe I am a pretty smart girl most of the time, but I also believe this was part of my downfall.

      This story is about my experiences in emergency services and my struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. However, it’s not just my story. There are countless others being affected by this frightening and debilitating disease and this is their story too. Perhaps you or someone you love has been affected by PTSD, or perhaps you are reading about it for the first time. Either way, I hope my story entertains and educates you. And if you are living with PTSD I hope my story will help you see that you are not alone.

      This story includes accounts of incidents I responded to as a paramedic. Sensitive readers are warned that some of my stories are graphic and may upset you.

      Chapter Two: The Black Pool

      When I worked as a medic I lived in fear of a call that would break me. I think the reason for this was that I had seen it happen to someone else, who just broke down on an accident scene and never returned to the work. It was a strange type of fear that I always felt I needed to defend myself against, although I had no idea how I would do this.

      But PTSD doesn’t take you this way. It prefers to stalk you. It likes to sneak up on you when your defenses are down. It finds you when you are weak. And even once it has you, you may never know where the breaking point was. I know when it happened to me. It started innocently enough, while I was buying oil.

      It had been a long, hot, and frustrating day. My usual partner had called in sick, so I had found myself working on the ambulance with my senior paramedic, Sandy. This was out of the ordinary as senior paramedics usually drive response cars, but his was in for repairs. We had been running around the whole day, busy with primary calls (accidents and house calls) as well as hospital transfers. It was late in the afternoon when things seemed to finally be slowing down, that we received a call from the workshop about Sandy’s car. They told us that the problem the car had was still under warranty from another repair shop and that we needed to take it back there to be fixed. Okay. But the reason it was in the garage was that it was leaking oil. It was leaking oil excessively. Now it seemed we would need to drive it across town in rush hour traffic. We were not impressed.

      So, on our way to the workshop, we stopped at a petrol station to buy five large tins of diesel oil that we hoped would be enough to make the journey with. While I was paying for the oil, another call came through on the emergency cell phone. As soon as I heard Sandy answer I knew it was serious. I could tell from his tone that is was not our control center on the other end. This meant that it was someone we knew, someone who had our direct number.

      Sandy kept trying to tell the caller to calm down and give him an address. I grabbed the map book (no GPS back then, so map reading was a critical skill) and listened while he repeated the location back to the caller. The person on the other end of the phone was a friend from another ambulance service. His baby had fallen into the pool at daycare and he begged us to get there as soon as we could.

      Sandy is one of the calmest people I’ve ever known, but on that afternoon he was another man. The tension and fear that poured off us and filled the ambulance was thick and cold. I kept praying that the baby had been pulled out of the water quickly. I prayed that he would be all right and safe when we arrived. The traffic was heavy and we had to fight to get through it. I can say honestly that this was one of the days I wanted to open the door of that ambulance and just run away. But of course, I didn’t because I had a duty.

      When I stop at a house and people come running to the ambulance, I’m usually concerned. To me, that means either they don’t know how to cope with what is happening inside and/or that whatever is happening inside is terribly frightening. This was the case when we stopped at the day care. From the second we stopped, people seemed to come at us from all directions and we were almost mobbed by the crowd. A huge woman almost physically pulled me out of the ambulance because she felt I wasn’t moving fast enough.

      Strange as it seems now, I remember this call in slow motion. Everything happened so quickly, but it was as if my mind took hundreds of pictures to remember this day in agonizing detail. I can still smell the thick green grass and the sickly sweet red roses along the garden path. I remember the oversized front door and the way

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