Why I chose emergency medicine: my story

Many ER24 paramedics enter the world of emergency medicine after witnessing a traumatic medical event as a youngster. In honour of World Trauma Day, four dedicated professionals share their stories.

“When I was 18 and in matric, I was woken up by my mom telling me my dad had been in a motorbike accident. A drunk driver had crashed into him. We rushed to the hospital, where my dad was on life support with no brain activity. It was so surreal because he didn’t have a mark on him, he looked so peaceful lying there, as if he were sleeping. I will always be grateful to the paramedics who responded to the call because they performed CPR and defibrillated him at the scene. The fact that they worked so hard to get a pulse from him meant he wasn’t declared dead on the side of the road. This meant my mom and I were able to say goodbye to him in hospital – which meant the world to me.

“My admiration for paramedics started even earlier than that. As a child, I lived close to my grandfather, who had diabetes. He’d often forget to take his medication, and when we checked up on him, we’d find him unconscious in his bed or on a chair. I remember a few occasions watching paramedics work on him, putting up a drip to treat his low glucose levels. They always seemed so competent and calm, no matter how frantic the situation was.

“At 24, I was a member of our neighbourhood watch and completed a Level 3 first aid course. I attended a few accident scenes and house calls, helping paramedics where I could by carrying equipment. My first aid instructor noticed my enthusiasm and suggested I consider EMS as a career. I completed a three-month Basic Life Support course, joined ER24 and have never looked back.

“I’m currently an ILS and plan to qualify as an Advanced Life Support (ALS) paramedic soon. I love my profession – every day is a ‘lucky packet’ because no two calls are ever the same. I now fully understand what the paramedics went through when they were trying to resuscitate my dad. Today, I always go the extra mile at accident scenes because I know what a massive difference their additional effort made to me.”

“When I was in Grade 9, I lived with my parents in the Bochabela location in Bloemfontein. One night, three doors away from us, six men broke into the spaza shop owner’s home and attacked him and his family. The home invaders hit the family with knobkerries and stabbed them when they wouldn’t hand over the spaza takings.

“Another neighbour ran to our house to ask my father, who owned a car, to drive the family to hospital. My dad was reluctant to move them as they had fractured bones and were bleeding, so he called an ambulance instead.

“While we waited for the ambulance to arrive, I stepped in to try and help the victims. Although I didn’t have first aid training, it was an instinctive reaction for me. I put shopping bags over my hands to avoid getting contaminated by the blood and used towels to staunch the flow. Although I was very calm, the family members were crying and groaning, and I still have dreams about the amount of blood there was on scene.

“That was the day I decided I wanted to work in emergency medical services. I became even more determined to become a medic after several accidents near my home. I saw a taxi crash into an electricity pole; I saw a car crash into a church; I saw a bakkie swerve and roll. Some of these accidents were fatal.  

“I studied Basic Life Support and joined ER24 as a Basic Ambulance Assistant in 2010. Fourteen years later, I still find my work exciting. I always put my patients first and get to any scene as quickly and as safely as possible. I never want my patients to have to wait a long time for medical assistance, like that family did so many years ago.”

“I will never forget seeing my daughter lying face down in the duck pond in her purple dress. At first, I thought it was the doll we’d given her for her birthday, just five days before. I screamed hysterically and immediately pulled her out of the water – but I could see she was no longer with us. She was floppy, unresponsive and purple – and there was no pupil action at all. I didn’t have time to think.

“Even though I hadn’t been trained in CPR, I had watched Untold Stories of the ER on TV. I remembered one episode where they continued resuscitating a child until help arrived, so I started doing compressions. Thankfully my uncle, who is a former police officer, was on the farm at the time. He knew first aid and was able to take over the CPR while one of our employees called the paramedics.

“This happened 12 years ago, when my husband and I lived on a smallholding in Klerksdorp. My little girl, Jana, was a year old at the time, toddling around at speed. That day, while my husband was watching her, she had managed to wander up to the duck pond. Although it was fenced and had two locked gates, the workmen had left them open by mistake. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare to run around frantically searching for their child.

“I was in the ambulance when they took her to hospital. The paramedics never stopped working on her. They couldn’t get an IV drip up as her circulation was so poor they couldn’t find a vein. I watched them drill into her shinbone to get intraosseous (through the bone) access.

“Once we got to hospital, the doctor in the resuscitation room said she was brain dead. Her blood gas showed a pH of below 7, which usually isn’t viable. Then, almost two hours after we’d taken her out of the water, her foot started moving. They rushed her to ICU where she was intubated and ventilated. After three days she opened her eyes. She stayed in hospital for two weeks, but only because she had developed a lung infection from a duck feather that had stuck in her bronchial tube. When the doctor assessed her and said she had no brain damage, we knew our prayers had been answered.

“Today Jana is 12 years old and has almost bankrupted me because I give her extra pocket money for every distinction she gets at school! The day the doctors told us she had no neuro deficit at all, I knew I was going to devote the rest of my life to emergency medicine. Those paramedics changed my family’s life – and I wanted to give back what I’d received.

“From being a stay-at-home mom, I qualified as a BAA in 2013, an ILS medic in 2014 and finally completed my training as an ALS paramedic in 2022. Every day I give my all to my patients by the small things I do. It isn’t always about saving life, sometimes it’s just a kind word that makes all the difference to someone in crisis.”

“I’ve worked in emergency medical services (EMS) for more than 24 years and I have never regretted my decision to switch careers. Before entering the field of EMS, I lived with my aunt and uncle while studying mechanical engineering.

“One night my aunt, who was in her 50s, came home from work and said she was going to lie down as she wasn’t feeling well. We continued with our normal evening routine – cooking, cleaning and watching TV. A bit later, my cousin went in to check on her. Within seconds, she came rushing out of the room screaming that her mother wasn’t responding to her attempts to wake her up.

“We called for an ambulance, but it took hours to arrive. As none of us had medical knowledge, the whole family was anxious and confused as we tried to understand what was happening. We had no idea what to do to help her.

“The ambulance only arrived about seven hours later – and the paramedics then declared my aunt dead. I was angry and disappointed that the system had failed us – and that my second mother had died before receiving any medical attention. At the time, I believed that if they’d arrived earlier, she could’ve survived.

“This ignited a spark in me to learn more about emergency medicine. The following year I left mechanical engineering and soon qualified as an Intermediate Life Support medic. Now, instead of working with metals that I could replace if they broke, I was dealing with people in pain. My personality changed completely, and I became much more patient and understanding.

“Even after all these years of working as a medic, my passion is still strong. Every day brings new challenges that encourage me to continue learning and improving to provide the best patient care. Today the feeling I get when we successfully resuscitate someone is like winning a million dollars. When the family members thank us for saving their loved one’s life, I know I’ve done my job properly."

These are just a handful of stories of trauma and triumph, but paramedics will all experience similar situations in the course of their work. On World Trauma Day, we salute all our dedicated and highly trained ER24 paramedics who remain calm and reassuring in stressful situations while ensuring the highest quality of care for their patients. 

If you or a loved one is interested in becoming a paramedic, click here for more information.