With regards to the March 11 article Stroke
victim left waiting for care, I have been a paramedic for a
number of years, and have refused to go into a number of calls
without police assistance, mainly because the information we
received indicated a potential for violence. We are not armed,
do not wear
body armour, have no self-defence training,
and have little or no training in recognizing a potentially
violent situation.
The only thing we have to base a decision on
is the caller's information which we receive from our
dispatcher, as well as our street smarts.
A search of 11 different Internet search
engines returned a total 433 hits about paramedics being
assaulted.
A number of years ago, I responded to a call
for an unconscious female and was met outside by a male who
said he came home and found his
girlfriend unconscious on the floor. We
entered the apartment and found furniture strewn everywhere.
The male claimed this was the way it was when
he came home.
We began to treat the patient, and she
regained consciousness and became extremely violent. It turns
out she was unconscious because the male had assaulted her and
we were in the middle of an extremely violent domestic
dispute.
We called for immediate police assistance and
were told that the police were responding from about 15 minutes
away. We had no means of defence and no available exit from the
building as the couple was between us and the exit. I could go
on about numerous calls I have face over the years that
appeared safe but actually were not.
It would be very refreshing to read a
positive article on Sudbury's paramedics rather than always
something negative.
Bruce Welch
Greater Sudbury