We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast was produced, the Galligle people of the orination. We pay our respects to elders past and present.
It's twenty eleven and we're in the back of an ambulance with two paramedics and one incredibly nervous Sally Guld halfway through her paramedicine degree. This is her first shift. She watches on as her superiors perform an impressive and almost choreographed dance to try and save a young man who's had a cardiac arrest. She's relieved to be an onlooker today and is quietly confident, understanding most of the lingo thanks to paying attention in lectures and binge watching scrubs.
A few years on, and it's Sally who's calling the shots and saving lives, a responsibility she doesn't take lightly. She's giving everything to her job, but obsession takes over. Thoughts of the next shift start to creep into every spare moment. At just twenty three years old, Sally is already at breaking point. I'm at Middleton and this is headgame today, a war of insight into how it feels
to be brought into people's lives at their worst hour. Sally, you've certainly been put in some situations where you've required to really lose your head and use everything that you've got to not only survive, but to be able to fight to work another day. How old were you when you first realized that your father was saving lives?
I have very early memories, maybe as a six year old, of knowing what he did for a job, but having no concept of what that really meant. I understood from what people said to him that his job was unique, that not everyone could do that job or did that job. And I also knew from what people said that his job was really gross. And I heard a lot about that, how hard it was, how gross it was, and so I just think I adopted that as a child, like, oh, dad's job is so gross.
Yeah.
And was there many moments of like stress where you know, you'd notice that he would come in and be, you know, sort of he's had a bad day or he's you know, was there any moments where as a youngster and as your upbringing where you thought yourself, what does my dad actually do?
I think I was incredibly well buffered by Mum and Dad from the realities of the work. They made sure that Dad left work at work and that when he came home, I just remember him as dad.
You know.
He'd bring us treats from the hospital canteen. He'd play fun games, the wrestle tumble, all those things that dads do. And I have that memory of him, which I'm very grateful for, because I know it's incredibly hard from my own experience, to be able to leave work at work and to come home just as a parent, you know, and not bring all of the stuff from work home. I think the thing that made my childhood maybe a little bit different was the stories that Dad told around
the dinner table. Even though he sheltered me from the reality of the maybe the mental struggle of doing a job black paramedicine, he didn't really hold back on sharing the gross stories at the table, so I think he'd come home with what he was telling in quite a humorous way. Were stories that probably weren't overly appropriate for us as kids at the age that we were.
Yeah, but I enjoyed them.
I loved them, and I fell in love with you know, hearing about those stories, but also hearing about how calmly and confidently my dad had managed the situations. And that's when I started to gain an appreciation for the fact that he could turn a situation where most people run scream, panic into one where he said, well, no, it was easy. I just did what I was trained to do, and everyone was okay.
In the end.
What was you thinking about when you were growing up and going through school, going through education, When did you decide, right, this is what I want to do.
I think as a teenager, I had that classic mentality of oh, I'm not going to do what dads already done. I don't want to follow in his footsteps. I want to create my own path. And I felt very strongly about that. But unfortunately, or fortunately, I narrowed down my career choices as a sixteen year old to that medical field.
So I was looking at psychology, I was looking at medicine, I was looking at nursing, but none of them really had all the draw cards that I was after, you know, the changing scenery, the being outside, the unpredictability, the range of patients, and I sort of almost just admitted to myself in defeat, oh, I think I want to do paramedicine.
Exactly like dad did.
And I suppose, like you said, you know from the stories, I think this is really interesting and how mouldible you are as a child, you know that becoming the norm? Did it just make sense to you that do you know what this is? This is what I'm destined to do.
Yeah, there was a point at which I didn't know if I had the ability to do the job. I didn't know if I was going to love it, but I just had this incredible drive like that's what I'm going to do. That's what I'm supposed to do. Let's go for it.
And did you have a proud dad that was pushing you on? He like, yes, go and do it? Or was he because I know that parents can be quite standoffish because I know my son wants to join the military, right and I'm sort of like, you know, I've been there, you don't really you know it. Was it a proud father moment or was he quite dubious about it?
I think he took the same approach that you're taking, is that he was very aware that it was my path and my decision. And now I can reflect back that he understood very much that the job could hold so much joy, and he didn't want to hold me back from that, But he also knew that the job could hold so much trauma and it had the potential damage me, and so he really sat quietly and supported what I was doing, but certainly didn't offer any advice
of whether I should or shouldn't. He was just sort of the quiet in the background, like, if that's what you want to do, go for it. And now I understand it's hard to look at a child and want them to go into a profession that you know carries all the exposure to trauma.
So how young were you, because this is quite you entered the trade quite young. How young with you you? And what was how long was the training and what was the training like?
So I had a gap year after school and moved away to earn some money, and then went straight into the university degree and lived on campus there to study. I did an accelerated version, which meant I only had two years at UNI, and then I was straight on road as a twenty one year old, so very little life experience straight out of high school straight into UNI. Not a lot of living done, I guess, And yeah, twenty one years old, I pulled on that uniform for the first time.
Well, I'll tell you, no living done.
You think you've done the living? You know you have it, you haven't.
Yeah, in your head, you're like, oh, I'm twenty one years old.
I know everything. I know exactly what to expect.
And you know nothing. So you said you went on the accelerated court. Is that because you obviously took to it really well, and obviously you know with the background of your father and the knowledge that you'd probably already ascertained. Was it How did you find the accelerated course? You find it challenging or did it come naturally to you?
I think it was a new program the UNI was offering, and I was I knew as soon as I could get on road, it felt to me that that was where the real learning was going to happen. And we did a placement within the university course on road where you're third up on a car, you have no responsibility, but you're able to watch the paramedics in action. And that was only three weeks, and I think it was the best three weeks of my life I've ever had. And from that moment, I didn't want to go back
to UNI. I just wanted to get on road so badly because I could just see how much I'd grown in three weeks, and I just I just wanted to be there already.
I was very impatient.
Wow, And you're exactly right. When you're thrust into it and you're you're forced to act and you're forced to to sort of lean back on your training and the little of it that you had, you grow so quickly. Take me back to that moment when you thought yourself, right, I just want to be on the road. You know, were you you? You? You're just a couple of weeks into your into your training.
I think it was the first day of my ride along on road and I've been.
Popped into the very first day.
Yeah, as a ride along, I fell in love with the job. I already knew that I was, I was getting an interest in it. But from the moment I stepped forward in the ambulance they shut me into the back, we raced off to a cardiac arrest, and I just watched these paramedics with such poise, calm control, and I just thought, I have to do this job. I have to do this job.
Yeah. Wow. So the passion was that you knew the passion was there, you knew what you wanted to do, and what was your What were you thinking when you actually saw the paramedics jump into action on that very first day that you were widing along, because obviously you were there to observe, to take it all into I suppose this is a super important moment two of realization if you want to do the job or not, because this is what you're going to be doing, saving lives.
So wow, to have that moment of this is what I want to do, that's that's you sort of know that that's your career path, right Yeah.
But don't get me wrong.
I didn't at that point have any real knowledge of weather or proof whether I could do the job or not. And I was still very grateful that I was just a spectator, you know. I had the luxury of watching it all unfold and being impressed by it and dreaming that one day I'd have the skills and the experience to be there. But it was more just watching their ability to transform chaos into an ordered scene that just attracted me so much.
To that role.
And what do you think, you know, because obviously the passion and you being attracted, what do you think of the attributes that are required for you for a paramedic to not like, not like you said, knowing if you can do it, but knowing that you want to do it. That the passion that you had from that very first ride along. What do you think, you know, made you really really want to do the job.
I think it's the combination of skills that you need for the job is such a unique skill set. It's not that you need to be the smartest person, the fittest person, but you need a little bit of everything. You know, you need the ability to be strong enough to carry the gear, but agile enough to get yourself into these ridiculous situations. You need to be smart enough to know all about the body and the medications and
all the conditions you're seeing. But you need to have this sense of humor to just be able to laugh at off with your mates after. Like, it's just this ridiculous skill set that you need to be okay with getting rained on, spat on, you know, yelled at all the things, and then I don't know, just be able to find the resilience to turn back up to work the next day.
Yeah, like you said, it's almost as well, you know, is that humor in the face of adversity that we use in the military as well, being able to you know, because you experienced such you know, negative things and you know potentially traumatic situations. I don't know if it exists in the paramedic world, but it certainly does in the military.
There's that dark humor. It does help, though, doesn't it, Because to be able to sort of find a bit of humor in the face of adversity, that's super important.
It's essential. It's essential to carrying on in the job and to turning up with a good attitude the next day. And paramedics I think are known for our horrifically dark of humor a lot of the time, which often isn't appreciated by the general public.
But the job we're doing.
You know, life is funny, and if we don't laugh about it, you know, we probably cry about it.
So let's laugh about it. If you don't laugh about it, all you will do is cry about it. Take me back to the very first day that you were on shift. You know, you're fully qualified, You get the call out and where you go. Do you remember that very first day where you had to then take charge?
You feel like an impost from that moment you put on the uniform and you realize it's only you and your partner, and you become very grateful for that partner sitting beside you. And I had a lovely training officer who was very supportive, very competent on his own, and he had the space and the kindness to give me
the room to learn. I distinctly remember one job we went to very early in my training, and it was in the middle of the night, and it was three am, and you're trying to peel your eyes open and they're stinging in the cold night air. And this woman that we attended was on death story and I went into the house. I looked at her and the only thought I could muster was, Oh, she looks like she's about to die. And then my mind was blank. There was nothing else there. And I just hadn't yet finessed the
ability to access all that training that I'd done. And my partner sprung into action. He knew exactly what to do. He was treating her, helping her feel better, doing all the right things, and it just took me a beat to sort of get my head in the game, you know, to go, oh, that's what's wrong with her. That's what we need to do. And from that moment, you know, I'm back on I'm able to move swiftly. I'm on
the same team as my partner. We're working together. And afterwards I reflected to him and I said, oh, how did you know what it was so quickly? And how did you, you know, manage it so confidently? And he was so humble. It was sort of like, oh, I don't know, you know, it's just part of the job. But that's what it was. He's done the job, he's done the years he's seen those patients, until I'd built up that repertoire and the ability to access that training in a car manner. You know, I just need to
do that. I needed the time and the exposure until I would reach that point. But there's a lot of those where you just you feel lost, you don't know where to go next. You're giving those help me eyes to your partner, like what do we do next? What's this about? And they're just calmly guiding you through. And I think that's the beauty of our job and the
way we mentor as our colleagues. You know, you're sharing that huge vast body of experience until the people have, you know, a body of experience of their own to bring to each patient. And I think you do the training at university and that's great. The simulations are super important, but you just can't get the fidelity of the real life stuff. You know, the darkness, the dog that's sparking at you, the relative screaming at you, the rain that's pouring out of the sky, all those things, you just
can't simulate those. So when you're trying to draw on that knowledge that you've practiced in a controlled environment into all these uncontrolled environments, I think that's where the challenge comes. And with the real experience is where you get your fluency.
Yeah. Absolutely, And you know there's so many similarities to the military. How hard was that because to be able to just take away those distractions And was there a moment that of calmness that you realized through that exposure repetition that you realized to know what hyper focus on the job and to ignore the distractions because at first, I suppose with yourselves, that's something that can affect you the way you function and operate.
Yeah, it's certainly hard to split your focus between that situational awareness and a task that might take all of your attention because it's a high level or high risk procedure that you're doing, or it's a skill that you've just learned or one you're doing for the first time. So I think that's why we work really well in
our partnership. We're always paired with another paramedic and sometimes if I've got officer surroundings and I'm on the patient, you know they're doing the scanning of the situation to make sure that both both bases are covered. But as the more you do in the job, the better you get it being able to do both simultaneously. But there are some jobs where you just need your mates to have your can be looking out for other stuff that you haven't noticed yet.
And how hard is it to you because I know, you know, having done a small bit of medical training, I know you know when you get onto the scene, you've got to make sure there's nothing that's going to threaten you. But time is crucial, you know, seconds to
save a life. You know seconds count, minutes count. You know how hard was it for you not to just get carried away with seeing someone that needed your help, that needed their lives saving and you know, taking that little step back and assessing a situation before you dive in head first, right.
I think as a junior paramedic that that urge to step in before it's safe is huge. But the training is so good, i'd say, in assuring that we consider our safety first. So these days I have no qualms in making sure I'm safe and my team is safe before we head in, regardless of what's happening inside. Because at the end of the day, I want me and my colleagues to be going home to their family, and that's my number one priority. If everything's safe in order, I can do my job a lot better.
What was it like losing your first patient? How hard was that to process? And what do you remember that first time?
I do remember the first time i'd worked on a patient and had heard later that shortly after she'd passed away, and it just shocked me. I think we train for the unexpected a lot of the time, and we think that we can recognize the patterns and know what's coming, and that we treat sick people and that they do die and that's the reality of it. But I'd worked on this lady who hadn't, you know, appeared too unwell and we'd been talking the whole time we'd been with
each other. We'd been having conversation about her family, and then to find out that she'd died, I just I started, you know, critiquing myself in what have I missed? What could I have done something? Did I discount something she'd said? Did I downplay something?
Is that on me?
And that horrible thought of yeah, could I have done more? And in this scenario, there was nothing more I could have done. She was sick and there was something beyond you know, my ability to diagnose, and it was just catastrophic and she wasn't going to make it. But it's certainly dredged up a lot of self critiquing and criticism on myself as to whether I could have done more?
And I guess I was able to thankfully lean on my colleagues to sort of debrief and reflect with them and listen to their stories which they'd had similar experiences, and to hear that, you know, we can do everything we're trained to do, we can do everything right, and even then sometimes it's not enough and that's actually outside of our control.
How hard is it not to take it personally.
I mean, I think the thing that makes me good at my job is that I do reflect on what I did, and I do make plans to do better next time. And if I ever lose that, I think I need to get out of the job because I should always be reflecting, I should always be growing, and I should never just settle for I did Okay, Well, what can I do next time? What can I do
better next time? And I'd love to hold onto that forever in a positive way, because I think that's the way I'm going to continue to grow and be engaged in my job in a healthy way. But there's a way that we can flip that and have it in a negative light and you know, really be hard on ourselves and ruminate on that negative side.
And that can be really self destructive.
I think, Yeah, I know a lot of soldiers that take things personally, and you know, therefore, you know, the whole mental health issue kicks in PTSD, where ultimately you're trying to control the uncontrollable, which will only end one way, and that's you know, down down a dark road. Right, yep. Did you ever get onto a situation where you've you actually felt scared where you actually felt, you know, that your life was in danger.
Yeah, there have been a few times when the scene's not as been as secure as I'd like it. And often they come out of nowhere, and again you think you're prepared, you think you've done your scanning and you're checking your egress points, and then something unexpected will happen and you just feel like the rug's been pulled out from under you and you've put yourself in a really dangerous position. I was working with a partner and we attended this young female who had her mother on scene.
And as we entered the property, it just looked fairly benign, a tidy ordered house. The people greeted us respectfully. She was holding her face as if she'd had some sort of injury underneath it. And I started introducing myself and my partner and speaking to the patient, and the mother just looked a bit unsettled and uneasy, and her eyes sort of started diving across the room, and obviously I
started tingling, you know, feeling uncomfortable. Something's going on here, And the next words out of my mouth were going to be, you know, is anyone else home? But before I could say that a door open and across the other side of the room, and a young male who looked completely furious, stormed out and then pinned his mother up against the wall by the throat. And I remember just freezing in that instance and just thinking, this is not what I'm here for, This is not what I'm
paid for, this is not in my job. This violent man I don't know. I don't know anything about him, I don't know anything about these people, and now I'm in their house watching this unfold. Thankfully, he wasn't targeting us, and we you know, made it out safely and okay, and managed to treat the people and they were also okay in the end. But that feeling of being completely blindsided, out of control, unsafe, and then for me, when I reflected, it was also the concern that, you know, what would
I have done? Would I have been able to defend myself? Would I have was I aware enough of my exits? All those types of things, And yeah, I think that was a wake up call. Just you know, the next few weeks months, I was, you know, had my eyes everywhere, was asking people who's home, you know, all these types of things, because it just all these little jobs that don't go the way you planned, a little reminders.
That you carry with you probably for the rest of your career.
And does it change your approach, that change how you operate and how you function.
Yeah, I think it ups your vigilance for every job from then on, you know. And that's the beauty of the way we learn as paramedics in sharing our stories. You know, you go back to the station and you tell your mates this happened to us, so that they can also carry that with them and keep themselves even safer on the next job.
Yeah, I suppose as well. Looking just hearing that story, you're entering people's private spaces, aren't you. You're intruding into people's personal space. It can feel like that, right.
And we're also coming on a day that's high stress for them. It could be the worst day of their life. And everyone responds so differently to trauma and stress, and often for some people them feeling out of control and scared comes out as anger and violence. And you can't always predict who's going to act that way. But you know,
parents with young children are a big one. You know, they panic, they feel out of control, and for some of them, the only coping mechanism they've got is to turn that into fear, you know, and and anger, and we often cop the brunt of that just trying to de escalate that and care for the child or whoever's injured, and for the people that are there having an emotional response.
Yeah, I suppose. And do you know what each day for you, which is literally, well not even each moment for you in the day, is a huge learning curve, right because you're going into the unknown, you know you're going you don't know how the situation is going to unfold, you don't know the outcome. It takes a certain mindset
to be able to do that. How how do you process that when you're when you're at home, when you're off the job, knowing that you're going to get called into a situation that, again you know, you know nothing about. Does it Does it have some kind of effect over time?
I think in the early days it certainly did. I carried a lot of stress on the job. In between the jobs, back at the station, back at home, my mind was always turning with what's next?
Will I be able to manage it? Will I have the skills to cope?
You know? All those types of questions, and they just went on and on and on for the probably the first year of the job. The longer I'm in the job, thankfully, I can sort of turn that off. I can realize if I'm not at work, it's not my job, you know, it's not my job to respond, it's not my job to be on high alert when I'm at home relaxing or doing things with the family. But also there's a flip side to it in that the unknown is oddly addictive, you know.
I love that.
I love that, you know, sense that I don't know what's coming next. I don't know what skills I'm going to have to draw on, but I guess over the years, I feel very confident in my skill set in knowing that whatever I'm shown, I have training, skills, medications, procedures to combat whatever I come across.
Yeah, because I'm I know, you know, you know, when you do put your head down and try to sleep, your mind's just constantly you know, when's the next school going to come in? You know? Am I going to deal with it? Am I going to succeed it? Am I going to save a life? Or and we're going to lose a life or so therefore I'd go on to the next task, onto the next mission. You know, I'd be at ninety percent when I should have been at one hundred percent because my mind's just churning around.
Did that ever happen with yourself? And did you ever feel like that? You know, maybe it was too much.
I really noticed that sort of rumination mindset that you're talking about, where you're turning things over and over when I had a job that hadn't run exactly the way that I'd wanted it to, so sort of on the after side of it, and I'd bring that home with me and I'd carry that and I'd be running through the job over and over again, replaying every step and at every moment, whether I'd made a different decision, there'd be a different outcome in all senses, you know, the
clinical senses, the extrication sensors, the soft skills, the way I spoke to the family, the information I gave them, how I managed the team, all of it, just over and over again. And that can you know, take away your sleep, you know, take away your appetite, take away your desire to want to hang out with your family and be normal you because you're just so preoccupied by that job playing over and over again. Yeah, I know, I know that that state very well.
I've got an extract from your book. You've written a book called Frog, and do you want to explain why it's called frog? First and foremost, I know why, and I find it fascinating because when it when it when it. When I saw the title of the book frog, obviously, I'm a former frogman, you know, so I sort of smiled at it. But you're your description of frog is a bit different to mine.
Yes, I currently work as an intensive care paramedic and intensive care paramedics in my service known as frogs. The nickname came in a long time before I joined the job, and I'm told it was because everything they touched croaks. But if you interrogate that too much, it doesn't really make sense as to who's doing the croaking. But yeah, to this day we're known as frogs. It's our nickname.
I'm just going to read you. Obviously you've written a book, but I found this really interesting. And then this is an extract from the book. It says death plays a leading role in a paramedics work. We respond to people who are long dead, those who die in our presence, those on the brink of dying, and those who wish they were already dead. Wow, those that wish they were already dead. I found that very interesting when I read that, because I suppose it's is it almost like people asking
you to put them out of their misery? Is that what you is that what you mean by that?
Yeah, there's certainly a whole host of people come across for various reasons, that feel like they're ready to die. There's those patients that are suicidal and feel like there's no hope and they've got wishes to die, and we have to meet them in that space, and that obviously demands a lot of care from us in the way that we manage and support those people. And the other cohort is those elderly people that feel like they've done
enough living. You know, their body doesn't feel like there's anymore, they're not capable of doing what they wish they could do, and they're lonely and they're in pain. And so many of them say to me like, oh, can't it just be over? I'm ready to die? Yeah, And I think out of society Honestly, I tell them that I can't disagree with their perspective. You know, they've lived for however many years and they're not enjoying it anymore. They don't
have quality of life. And who am I to tell them that that's you know, not the right thing to wish. And I think as a society we're not really set up to support people into that end of life stage. And we sort of think, because we've got the capacity to give people medications and keep them living, that that's
what we should do. But I meet so many elderly people that just you know, wish that you know, they've had a good life and they'd like to end that chapter and you know, have some peace and some rest from all the pain.
Yeah, I get that. I understand that as well. And how hard is it to tell loved ones that they've lost you know, their husband, their wife, their partner, their child. You know? How is it something that you try and shy away from doing or is it something that you actually find piecing doing? What end of the spectrum do you sit on?
When I started the job, I had that fear of like, this is a huge responsibility and I don't have the words, and I don't have the training, and who am I to waltz into this person's private space and give them the worst.
News of their life.
But as I've been in the job for a few years and the more I've done it, it's a huge privilege and it's almost an honor, i'd say, to be able to do that because I put so much weight on the responsibility of doing it in the best way possible.
You know that if I.
Can do it gently but clearly enough that they get the message in as gentle a way as possible, that I've done my job, and that hopefully they don't remember me in a good way. You know that I'm not
an even worse part of their already terrible day. And if I do a bad job of it, I'm probably going to stand out and they're going to remember not only did my loved one die, but then this insensitive paramedic bluntly told me and didn't offer any support, and I become part of that narrative of the worst day. But if I do it in a gentle way, and I support them, and I read their cues on how I think that it's going to land with them, then hopefully I just blend into that terrible day and they
only feel a sense of being supported by us. You know, we couldn't do everything to bring their relative back, it was out of our can, but we can do everything to support them and the start of their grief journey.
That's really interesting us. But it makes complete sense as well. That's an amazing way to put it. You know, if they don't remember me, then I've done my job. Wow. Does it differ from I suppose telling a loved one that they've lost someone their grandmother for example, to losing a child. Is the process different? You know? Do you just treat each individual case as it presents itself, or is it the same sort of routine for for everyone?
Generally speaking, I follow a similar process in terms of I use clear words like dead. We don't use euphemisms like passed on gone to a better place. When we're delivering this important information. It's really crucial that there's no mixed messages and we're not misunderstood. So I often use
a blunt, quite clear statement. You know, I'm sorry, but your loved one is dead or they have died, just so that we're clear, we're on the same page and I don't have to re explain that horrible thing because they've misunderstood what I've said. I always like to leave space for people to have a response, because they're not going to take on and comprehend that message in an instant. You know, to me, it's just another day at work, but to them, it's probably the worst day of their life,
and they need space to sort of process that. And I don't know how much that's going to affect them or in what way. And then I think I just buckle up for whatever sort of grief response is going to happen, which has a huge range and you can never predict it because some people feel just as strongly about losing their elderly grandmother as they would a child. And I'm not someone to judge what sort of response
you're going to have. I'm just there to sort of hold them in those initial moments and let it play out. You know, some people do get angry, some people do get sad. Some people go into denial or try and argue with me about it, and that's all okay, you know, that's all normal.
Yes, So you almost expect that to happen.
Yeah, expect the unexpected.
It could go either way, it could be anything, But I'm going to allow some space for it because it's their moment, it's not mine, and I don't know anything about these people. I've only just met them. So the least I can do for them is, you know, be clear, be concise, answer any questions, but then give them space, you know, to process that.
Can you remember, you know, was there a particular individual or person that you found it really really hard to They're all tough, obviously, I know they are, But is there is there one that stands out in your mind that was particularly tough to deliver that information?
There's probably not one that comes to mind, or maybe my mind's blocked it out to protect myself.
Yeah.
Absolutely, Yeah, But it's it's the ones that maybe are completely unexpected or a traumatic sort of incident where there was no forewarning. It wasn't like someone had an illness leading up to it. It sort of comes out of the blue. And those completely unexpected ones where I think it's you know that this is very unexpected and that they haven't been eased into it at all and you're about to just completely alter their entire life going forward.
Is there ever a moment, because we call it combat fatigue, where you just go through the same process and combat fatigue or burnout. Was there ever a moment in your career where you felt that, because it's very, very similar to going on the military operation of the unknown and burnout. You know, it just it just comes, doesn't it. A combat fatigue just hits you before you know it. Yeah.
I certainly reached a point in my career where at the start, I jumped in, you know, the whole of me, super passionate, super keen. I'd fallen in love with it, and I wanted to think about nothing else, do nothing else, which meant that self care took a real backseat. I just loved my days on. I wanted to be there all the time.
I wanted to think.
About work, study, work, talk about work, it work all the time. But I reached a point where I wasn't myself, you know, I was treating people at work without the respect that they deserved, without the patience. I wasn't as empathetic as normal, and I kind of just had this descent into someone I didn't even recognize as myself. And I don't even know how it happened. And I found myself at the point where I just thought I can't turn up to work tomorrow and be a good clinician.
I can't do it.
I'm not in the headspace to go and offer my service to other people because I'm actually the one that needs help right now.
And that's what I mean. It just it creeps up on you and you realize it when you're on the job. How old were you when you realized that you're at the stage, because you started really young and it only takes you know, a couple of years to be that intensified for it for it to happen. Were you still young or was it later on in your career now?
I was still in my early twenties. I'd only been in the job a few years, which meant I was in complete denial. That's something I loved so much had the potential to damage me, you know. I was like, no, I love this job. I get so much out of it. I want to be here. But then why am I, you know, transformed into this non functioning human that doesn't feel capable of getting back to work?
And how did you get how did you overcome that? How did you get through that?
It wasn't a linear or a quick process. It was just going back to the basics and I realized I hadn't taken care of myself and the job that I'm in and that I know you can relate to is you have to respect the darkness of the job and do the work in your other time to nourish yourself enough to be in the right space to go there.
And I'd kind of neglected that. So things like getting enough sleep, eating enough you know, good food, exercising, having social connection, having time away from the job to decompress, and I, you know, just ignored all those factors. So I think I got lucky, chatted to my GP, got some professional assistants, and just made small steps that made little differences over a long period of time to get back to to where I knew I was me again, and where the way I describe it is like the
world was colorful again. I hadn't noticed, but everything had sort of been sucked out in terms of the color. And it wasn't until it came back and I was well again that I went, oh, yeah, everything's colored again, like I'm me, I'm me again.
Yeah, because it's so intense, it's so relentless, it's so back to back. How supportive was the organization?
Yeah, So I made a lot of steps in my personal life and decided to keep it sort of separate from the service because I think I had a whole lot of stuff myself going on that I hadn't worked through. I'd gone through my coming of age on the front line, like I hadn't developed as an adult yet and sorted out my own identity before I developed this kind of warped identity inside of a uniform that I hadn't considered
the human underneath that. And so I had a lot of work to do on myself to sort of become an adult in my own right that wasn't just Sally in uniform. And and so I think, yeah, that was a bit of the process for me.
And so after that, that's that that burnout and you started seeing all the colorful things again. I suppose you're it's you're You're a great example. Really be one of them that those people that individuals that people can really come to and get knowledge from. Right.
Yeah, I think when you've been given that experience yourself to sort of reflect and better yourself and develop really good self care sort of toolkit, I guess it's it's my duty to pass that on to the junior staff and people embarking on their career to you know, use those tools preemptively to protect themselves and you know, heading into a job that can have darkness, but yeah, to give them encouragement that if they look after themselves then
they can build the resilience to have a great career.
And how how is your career at the moment? Are you? Where do you find yourself? What's your job tied to? What are you doing?
Yeah?
So I work as an intensive care paramedic, which is one of the highest skill levels of on rown paramedic and I get the pleasure of heading out to usually the sickest people, which sounds horribly insensitive, but keeps me engaged in my job. But I also have the role of supporting the junior crews and attending jobs with them and giving them a hand And I love that. I love seeing you know, people at a position in their career where I once was.
I haven't forgotten it.
I remember what it was like to start, and I think seeing people at the start gives you a renewed sort of excitement about the job, seeing it through their eyes, seeing the greenness, and supporting them to develop themselves as a clinician, So yeah, loving my job still.
Do you know what, having come up through the ranks at such a young age like you have, it's such a great position to be in through life experience, through knowledge, through being there yourself as a young paramedic. How has your job impacted you'll view on life and death? You know? How do you view life and death at where you're at right now?
I think part of it is I've got that dark sense of humor to carry me through the tragic things, but also seeing life cut short so often and how unfair that.
Is and how destructive that is.
I am often filled with just an incredible sense of appreciation that I'm alive and the opportunity that comes with that, and really wanting to to grab that and make the most of it because I see that it can be taken away at a moment's notice.
And do you have a fear for your life? Do you ever do you ever think about you know, because you're exposed to it so often, do you ever think about death yourself?
I think about it, but I don't think I'm afraid of it. I think if you're living each day to the fullest and you're connected to those around you and you're building other people up and you're making the most of every experience, then hopefully you can sort of be content with that that, you know, I like to think that. Of course I don't want to die, but if it was to happen, that I did everything I could with every day I had and made the most of it.
Yeah, I think you don't realize the phenomenal mindset that you have in order to be where you're at, to have gone what you've gone through, and you know, to be at the stage of the job that you're in is it requires well a mindset and a half and ahead game like no other, which is phenomenal. Now, let's finish up on your book. What made you want to write Frog?
It started actually as the journals I kept in that ride along when I was in university.
Yeah, so we had.
A clinical log to keep, which was, you know, what patient, what was their age, what was their presenting complaint? But I also kept a journal that was about, you know, how I felt about it, what I was seeing the paramedics do, and how amazing it was. And I capture every moment of the day in my little journal. After the shift, and when I looked back on that journal.
Even a year later, I thought, Wow, I've come so far and I've grown so much in a short space of time, and I can only imagine what the rest of that trajectory is going to look like. I have to sort of capture it. And then it just reached a point where I was like, I have to turn this into a book. I have to write it down, you know, to celebrate my career and to validate the experience of the other paramedics.
I just had to do it.
And what was it like going back through those notes, because obviously there's a lot that you forget. Was it was it quite a frapeutic experience or was it quite hard to actually go back to some of those moments.
Now, it was exciting because I still remember the jobs, but it was also humbling because there was so much I didn't know, so much that had gone over my head in those first few of shifts that now I was like, oh, of course that's what the paramedics were doing. Of course that's why they did that, and it all makes sense. But at the time I was just completely overwhelmed, and then, you know, blown away by what they were doing.
Listen, I can't wait to have a good read of it. I've ever managed to get some extracts of the book listen. It's been phenomenal speaking with you. You are a life saver. Keep saving lives and I wish you all the best of your book.
Thanks for coming on, Sally, Thanks so much, Ed, Thanks for having me.
Thanks so much for joining me on Headgame. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any of our incredible stories, and leave me a review wherever you're listening. I'm Aunt Middleton. Catch you again next time.