St John Ambulance critical care paramedic Paul Davies recently celebrated 10 years working on the RAC Rescue Helicopter ” becoming the first paramedic to achieve this milestone.
Mr Davies first started work as a paramedic a decade earlier in 1994, before taking up a position as a Critical Care Paramedic on the helicopter in 2004.
Mr Davies said the job was very satisfying and he enjoyed working as part of a team with helicopter partners CHC, Department Fire and Emergency Services and the RAC.
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READ NOW‘Working on the helicopter can be very different to on road,’ Mr Davies said.
‘There are moments of quiet time, plenty of routine paramedic type work and periods of adrenaline-pumped, high-acuity cases; it has been a great 10 years.
‘Working in a pressure environment such as this on the rescue chopper, you really do need to have confidence in the abilities of your crew, which we do.
‘This trust enables paramedics to do their jobs, and purely focus on the patient, no matter how challenging the situation may be.’
One of his more vivid memories involved a case where he had to fly 150km off the coast of Augusta in winter to retrieve a critically ill seaman.
‘En route my thoughts were, ‘Who will come to get us if we have a problem?’ We proceeded to winch down to the ship, retrieve the patient and load him into the aircraft in high seas. You think to yourself that was a good job, then the realisation sets in it is now I actually have to start the paramedic part of the job.’
Mr Davies was awarded a plaque marking the milestone and a celebration was held with colleagues and main stakeholders recently at the Jandakot air base.