What you don’t know about the Ambulance Service

I got bit by a dog yesterday.

Two dachshunds took an unguarded moment on their owner’s part to race out of their gate, across the road, and give me a piece of their minds. I’m not a big fan of dogs. I have loved those we have owned and trained ourselves but I find dogs to be unpredictable, especially little dogs.

At first I couldn’t tell if these two were excited or angry. They were making a lot of noise, barking at me. I bent down a smidge and told them to go home. Before I could think what to do next one had gone behind me and deliberately bitten my ankle. This was no warning nip. It was the real deal. Wearing the 3/4 length stretch pants, my ankles were fair game.

At this point, their owner noticed and called them back. They dashed out onto the road right in front of a little red car. I turned my head away and covered my eyes. No one wants to see an animal be hit by a car.

I heard the car stop. It had managed to avoid both dogs. The owner was distressed as the driver continued on their way. ‘Don’t worry’, he called across the road, ‘they don’t bite’.

I shouted back, ‘Yes, they do! One just bit me’ but I doubt that the owner heard me. He was gathering up his little one’s and putting them safely inside.

I looked at my left ankle. There were three puncture wounds and a tear, and I was beginning to bleed. I phoned Hubby.

A paramedic on day shift, he was clearing a job at our local hospital. ‘Call it through,’ he told me, ‘that way it will go down as an official job.’

I made it clear to the call taker that my husband was a local Ambo currently at the hospital. Even though he knew that I was making the call to 000, I wanted to be sure that it was no surprise to anyone.

What I didn’t know was that, at the same time, Hubby was talking with some key people to decide the best course of action.

Dog bites, aside from the physical injury they inflict, carry a high risk of infection. The wound needs deep cleaning and antibiotics. The decision being made was not whether I would go to hospital but whether I would be taken to our local hospital or to Melbourne. It would all depend on the wound.

The call-taker made sure to check my location and gave me clear instructions on what would happen next. Feeling a little wobbly, I sat down on the path and waited. The dog owner, on his way out on an errand, noticed that I was still there and came to check on me.

He was shaken that his dogs nearly got ran over and disbelieving that either one of them would bite me. Even so, he offered help and said he would stay with me until the ambulance arrived. He had a clean mask that I used to put pressure on the wound.

I chatted with him, worried that he might have an anxiety attack or worse, a stress-induced heart attack. I’m not a medical person so these things seem possible to me, especially watching a sixty year old deal with shock. I know how much people love their dogs. I suggested he might like to sit down, too, but he declined. At least the ambulance was on its way, should he keel over and hit his head.

I was glad to see the ambulance arrive as I had grown tired of reassuring my neighbour/not neighbour. Hubby got out and I could tell he was cross.

Not with me. With the owner.

While my wounds were manageable and could be treated at the local hospital, Hubby, over the course of the next few hours kept saying ‘what if it had been an elderly person or a six year old?’.

Always professional, Hubby simply ignored the Owner, tended to my wounds and bundled me into the truck. I was so relieved to be off the footpath and in a little shock myself, that I responded with great cheerfulness and insisted he take a photo that we could share on the family chat. I look like a crazy-lady, even to me.

Here’s what I didn’t know.

The local Ambulance Service branch that Hubby is a part of were already talking to each other about what was happening. Different people in different roles were organising support. One of Hubby’s colleagues, a dog owner, was organising to come and see us in the hospital.

I can’t speak for metropolitan Melbourne, but in rural Victoria, Ambulance Branches can be close-knit communities. They often attend people they know and have been out to each other’s families. This is a mixed blessing as it brings people comfort to have an Ambo turn up that they know and trust, but it adds to the stress load an Ambo carries and is a specific trauma that must be worked through after the event.

If I was in a terrible condition, Hubby would not have been the one sent. He would have been relieved from duty and allowed to be just Hubby. As it was, Hubby’s partner was fully ready to take over should it be needed. It wasn’t.

In the hospital, the other colleague arrived. She was cheerful and caring and asked about what happened. She understood about dogs and offered helpful insights into their behaviour. In some ways, without detracting from the incident, she normalised what had happened so that we felt comfortable to talk about the last time I had been in an ambulance after breaking my leg in the mountains and needing to be rescued.

The Ambulance Service is made up of people, individual people with lives and families and things going on. Ambo’s wear a uniform which helps in a crisis situation. People know who is in charge, who is there to help them, and who they are to obey. The uniform hides the vulnerability of the person. As it should be.

That vulnerability, however, remains. Stress accumulates over time, especially when it remains unnoticed and unacknowledged. Adverse life experiences build up and take their toll in the form of burnout, fatigue, depression, or even PTSD.

The Ambulance Service knows this. I imagine it also knows that it is better all round to keep an Ambo rather than train a new one. Whatever the motivation, I am yet to see another industry that supports its employees like the Ambulance Service does.

Not only did we receive a visit from a helpful colleague, but Peer Support also called Hubby to see how he was going. Hubby has access to a Service psychologist, as do I as an Ambo’s spouse. More than that, his Team Manager and other people whose titles I have forgotten, know Hubby and care about him. As do the hospital staff he also works with.

Big organisations struggle to see the individual. This is why it is important that people be organised into smaller communities and encouraged to care for each other.

When things go wrong—and they will—it is the people you do life with that help you feel better.