Out with paramedics
2010-03-17 15:00
Cape Town - It is past two in the morning, and after five emergency calls, paramedic Nadine Seymour and her partner Francis Solomon, an intermediate life support paramedic, are waiting at the Pinelands Ambulance Station for another call.
This gives us a chance to talk uninterrupted - until the next call at least. Foremost on my mind is to ask whether they feel safe. I refer specifically to the incident last week in which a female paramedic was raped and her colleagues attacked as she and her team responded to an emergency call.
"You've got to be street smart. I mean, there are situations that we wouldn't go into, like if there's shooting or rioting," says Nadine.
In the two years that she has worked for the Western Cape's Emergency Medical services, there has never been a personal attack on her.
She worries more about getting hit by a car while attending to road accident victims. (A point I saw demonstrated at their night's second accident scene in Khayelitsha as an irritated Nadine asked, in vain, that the police close off the street to traffic.)
Safety
Francis, who is the more reserved of the two, says he was "shocked" by the rape incident.
"Guys put their lives on the line to help people and then things like this happen."
But generally, he says, he feels safe. "But you never know, people always want to try something new," he laughs. "They watch too much TV."
They both agree that it's only on the odd occasion that something goes wrong. Like the night someone broke into their ambulance and stole a GPS.
"In certain areas we always try to treat people in the ambulance. And then we don't hang around," says Francis.
It is difficult to get them to single out any specific areas as dangerous. A conversation earlier with the Provincial Ambulance Chief Pumzile Papu, who still goes out on calls to meet the Health Professionals Association of South Africa's licensing requirements, also drew a blank. "You never know, you could be in Claremont and something happens."
A good night
On this night, though not a quiet night, everyone was well behaved. We initially catch up with the pair just after 19:00. They have just attended to an "MVA" (Motor Vehicle Accident) in Khayelitsha.
We tag along in the response car to the next call: MVA in Hout Bay.
We are driving at dizzying speeds through Hout Bay's winding streets. The siren whines and the blue lights flash. I feel slightly nauseous as the muted sounds of the Black Eyed Peas' I Gotta Feeling from the response car's radio are completely drowned out.
"What's a good night?" I have to ask.
"Busy is good," Nadine says adding obligatorily that it is not because she loves to see destruction, but has an aversion to sitting around.
There are already a number of ambulances at the scene. We hear later that the young female driver of a BMW was racing with another car, which has fled the scene, before apparently losing control and slamming into a fence and a tree on the side of the road.
In the car with her were five other people, two of them children aged 7 and 9. Paramedics at the scene said they could smell alcohol on the driver's breath. The jaws of life have to be used. One of the girls screams in pain as she is finally pulled out of the wreckage.
Because the field of paramedics has a number of levels of competency, there was no one around to give her painkillers other than morphine, which Nadine says would have lowered her blood pressure even more. But a doctor soon arrives.
Qualifications
The intricacies of the field are many and explaining them seems to be Nadine's passion. One does not just become a paramedic, first you become a BAA (Basic Ambulance Assistant) and study your way up through on-the-job experience and academics.
Although she is a qualified paramedic both she and Francis are still studying and use the quiet nights to do their assignments.
"I'd like to teach, management is not my thing," she says about her future prospects.
At the Hout Bay scene they join a large team of other medics who shout, put up drips and administer drugs as a huge crowd gathers.
Everyone seems to know each other and the teamwork is evident. It is something I also notice in the car as we race around Cape Town.
When we come to an intersection Nadine, who is driving, holds back instinctively it seems, until Solomon assures her with a "clear", and off we zoom.
Despite the mangled wreckage, everyone emerges from the BMW alive, though the driver has badly injured a femur. As we drive off Nadine seems particularly concerned about the "kiddies". She can't understand the senselessness of it, she says.
On Monday, it was reported that the 7-year-old girl who was hurt in the accident had died from her injuries.
'Yellows'
"Response 3," the radio cackles and we are headed to Khayelitsha: MVA. It's a head-on collision but we get to the scene and find all four patients are "yellows".
That means the patients are not able to walk on their own, but they'll be fine, explains Seymour. Green is when they are completely fine. Red is when they need urgent attention. "When someone is blue, they are dead."
A call comes in from the Salvation Army in Green Point; an old man with asthma.
Denise and Francis work together to take the man's blood pressure and other aspects of a basic check up. She asks him questions to which he responds weakly. I'm out of earshot, but every now and again I hear faint laughter from the old man, who now has an oxygen mask on his face. And when they are done and an ambulance is ready down stairs, he calls her "sweet". She protests lightly, and laughs.
The moment captures the feeling Francis says makes him love his job.
"The feeling that you get when you've helped someone and they say thank you. That's all you need. It's my motivation to go to the next scene, to do my best."
It gets colder as the night progresses, and by the time a call comes in from the Milnerton fire station, it is freezing.
A man who was stabbed in the face is vomiting blood. It seems he swallowed it as it flowed from the wound on his cheek. Although there is an ambulance there, they need more qualified people to handle the patient. I can't see what is happening in the ambulance, but there is a lot of blood. The man is treated and sent off to hospital.
For me the night is over but for Nadine and Francis, there are still five more hours to go before 07:00, and many potential disasters waiting to happen.
Not a hero
We have been driving around coming to the rescue of the helpless all night so I am a bit taken aback when, as we are about to part ways, Denise says the one thing people must know about her and her job is that she is not a hero.
"It's not all guts and glory, it's not all about being heroes or saving. It's about getting in there, doing the job and doing it to the best of your ability.
"Don't try to be a hero, because heroes are dead people." And she should know.