I'm too busy to die!
On Friday 15 August 2008, Media Officer Patrick Cantwell, arranged a morning tea at Paddington Ambulance Station for a very special person. A young and vibrant, Ms Rosalind Gray was invited to meet her saviours following her recent cardiac arrest. Rosalind said that all tests had failed to find a cause for her arrest, so for safety sake, a personal defibrillator was implanted.
Responding Paramedic Taz Rundle recollected the incident as a call to a 65 year old woman with chest pain. With his partner, Trainee Paramedic Kara Graham, who only recently completed training at the Ambulance Education Centre, contact was made with the ill woman.
After a full patient assessment, Taz and his partner came to the conclusion that her chest pain was cardiac related and began their treatment. Soon after Taz applied the monitoring dots he realised the seriousness of the situation and quickly changed over to the pads. As he made the switch the patient lost conciousness and began seizing. Luckily Rosalind only required one 150 joule shock before she woke to face Taz with a startled expression and apologised for falling asleep.
Radio stations 2UE and 2GB swooped on the story and interviewed both Rosalind and Taz. Rosalind spoke of her ordeal, how she felt nauseous, her aching arms, diarrhoea and thought, ‘should I call an ambulance?’ Luckily, a Triple Zero call saved her life.
Rosalind went on and stressed the importance of dialing Triple Zero and asking for Ambulance when one does not feel well. I’m very pleased I did. Only for Taz and Kara, I wouldn’t be here now.
In a slightly raised voice, she said, “I have a loving husband, two beautiful daughters, four grand kids I idolise and a business to run.... I’m too busy to die”.
Photograph: Rosalind was presented with a Zoll watch by Paramedic Taz Rundle and Station Officer James Porter.
Ambulance is committed to assisting the community create safer and healthier environments and outcomes by making prevention everyone’s businesses. A number of innovative community education programs have been implemented to assist identify life threatening conditions, understand what to do in an emergency and the importance of adopting illness prevention strategies.