Latest news with #paramedic
National Post
2 hours ago
- Health
- National Post
MEDIA ADVISORY: Fired by York Region for Her Anti-War Facebook Comment, Paramedic and Supporters Share Updates, Issues Around Her Fight for Reinstatement
Article content TORONTO — Thursday morning, paramedic Katherine Grzejszczak – fired last month by York Region for her Facebook comment in support of an anti-war rally – will provide an update and background to her fight to get her job back. Article content She will be joined by a group of supporters who will share insights into what Grzejszczak's termination means for workers' freedom of expression and political interference in the workplace. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Becoming a paramedic changed me. But not in the ways I anticipated
Before I became a paramedic, I didn't expect the job would change how I load a dishwasher. Or eat a sandwich. Or look at trampolines. I knew it would change how I see others – watching people die tends to do that. But nearly 10 years in, I've realised how much it's quietly altered my day-to-day life. Being a paramedic makes you see danger everywhere, so you avoid risks because you're always expecting you'll need to spring into action, even when you're not in uniform. Once you've seen as many stretchers loaded with avoidable disasters as I have, you end up wired differently, and always brace for the next catastrophe. I can't walk into cafes, living rooms, or kids' birthday parties without conducting a risk assessment. I look for the nearest exits and sharp corners and often wonder if that defibrillator sitting on the wall covered in dust still works. At a party I once caught a toddler chewing on a deflated helium balloon. His parents were deep into their fourth round of Aperol spritzes, so I had to gently explain to them that a balloon can block an airway faster than you can sing 'Happy Birthday'. It's from experience more than from anxiety. A loose paver. Stray grapes. A poorly timed bomb into a pool. You stop seeing everyday life as nonthreatening once you've spent 45 minutes tearing apart someone's lounge room on your hands and knees looking for a button battery in the hope it's not halfway down a digestive tract. I will never again get on a motorbike, or on a trampoline. No judgment to the people who ride them. Or bounce on them. But I've been to too many scenes where someone came off second-best to physics. Motorbikes and trampolines both offer the illusion of freedom – right until the moment your femur is split into six parts. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning One of my first traumatic jobs involved a man who was clipped at an intersection. His helmet survived, but his spinal cord didn't. I've seen legs detached, ribcages shattered, and vital organs thrown three metres from where they belonged. Trampolines have morbid minds of their own. I once treated a child who launched clean off the mat and on to a garden stake. Now, every time I see someone weaving through traffic in shorts and thongs – or letting their kid somersault unsupervised on a back yard trampoline – I think: 'that's too much paperwork for my day off'. I guess you could call it pattern recognition. I don't touch recreational drugs – not that I would have anyway – because I've seen what happens when people assume their party cocaine isn't laced with fentanyl. The Pulp Fiction-style overdoses aren't fiction any more. And after watching the ketamine I've administered turn people into catatonic zombies, I've got no desire to try it myself (unless I take up trampolining and end up with a fractured femur). But just as I've learned to fear what others overlook, I've also stopped worrying about some of the things that send everyone else into a panic. I've lost count of the number of people who've called an ambulance because their smartwatch told them their heart rate was 'elevated' or 'irregular'. Some were convinced they were having a heart attack because the little waveform on the screen looks vaguely medical, as if a cheap wrist sensor compares to our $50,000 ECG machines. It's usually anxiety. Or coffee. We also get alerts triggered by watches mistaking burpees for car accidents, or older people dropping their watches on the tiles and the sensor thinking they've fallen. It's becoming the new version of rolling on to your VitalCALL pendant in your sleep. I'm not anti-technology. I think these devices have their uses. But increasingly, people are outsourcing common sense to apps. Algorithms don't do context. Maybe strapping-on and plugging in to these devices is our attempt to control life's inevitable chaos, as if a notification might keep death at bay. But I've seen too much in my time to believe that kind of insurance is possible. Death doesn't scare me any more. I've just learned to see it coming because I've seen it turn up in all the places you don't expect. Like during a jog. Or in a McDonald's toilet. Even halfway through mowing the lawn. I just assume the universe is indifferent. If anything, this has made me calm. Because I'm useful in a crisis, I'm more patient with people who panic over minor things. If someone cuts their hand on a poorly stacked knife in the dishwasher, I don't stress. I grab a tea towel and tell them if they apply some pressure, they'll live. You Went to Emergency For What? by Tim Booth, published by Pan Macmillan Australia, is out today ($36.99)
ABC News
3 days ago
- Health
- ABC News
Ambulance Victoria launches neuro-inclusion toolkit to help paramedics and patients
As a child, Chris Cleghorn was slow at reading. He remembers it being a hidden thing that he did not talk about, but it was always there. Now aged 45 and working as a paramedic, Mr Cleghorn has the words to describe the difficulty he faced: dyslexia. Reading comes with the territory as a paramedic, but thanks to some adjustments at work, he has been able to manage his dyslexia and establish a thriving career. For example, he transferred lists of medications to an audio format that he could listen to on the commute, a format that suits his brain far better than reading and re-reading text. "I was a very good example of how these adjustments could work for someone, and how that person could thrive with those helps along the way," he said. Ambulance Victoria has launched its first neuro-inclusion toolkit, which sets out what sort of adjustments can help in the workplace. The aim is to better support neurodivergent patients and staff like Mr Cleghorn. He said adjustments that could be helpful for neurodivergent staff included allowing decompression time for paramedics in quiet places, or space to do their paperwork in a distraction-free environment after a job. When it comes to making neurodivergent patients comfortable, he said the toolkit suggested questions paramedics could ask, such as "Would you like the lights dimmed?" or "Would you like the noisy devices turned off?" "Now that there's more of a spotlight on neurodiversity and disability, we do see that we don't do a fantastic job all the time in those areas," he said. "Being able to ask questions and make those adjustments to allow people to feel comfortable … enough to be able to answer our questions and allow us to assess them is such a key point." About 11 per cent of Ambulance Victoria's employees identify as neurodivergent, but it is believed this could be higher due to under-reporting. Ambulance Victoria Gippsland Two region area manager Warwick Bone said he hoped the toolkit would provide clear support for managers, employees and patients. "We know around 15 to 20 per cent of people have some sort of neurodivergence, which can include things like autism, ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder, dyslexia and other neurological differences," he said. The toolkit includes a community-facing information sheet on the potential sensory impacts inside an ambulance. "If they're in the back of an ambulance and machines are beeping and buzzing, then we can turn those down if they have sensory overload," Mr Bone said. "We reinforce that if you do feel overcome with the sensory experience … talk to the paramedic that's with you and explain that you are neurodiverse and we can definitely support [you]." Amaze chief executive David Tonge said his organisation co-designed the toolkit for Ambulance Victoria after a survey of patients. "What we heard from the community was they'd had varied experiences in their encounters … but there's often a lot of sensory overload," he said. "Pulling together the expertise of Ambulance Victoria and the paramedics with lived experience … is the strength of this project." Mr Cleghorn said when it came to adjusting for disability needs, lived experience was crucial for getting things right. "I can't think of anything where not getting lived experience hasn't improved the outcome or created a more robust system," he said. "It's the gold standard."
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Paramedic and circus star, 30, is handed a shock diagnosis just weeks before a dream trip - after seeking help for one common niggling symptom
Paramedic and circus performer Paige Footner faces daunting situations every day - but she experienced an entirely new kind of fear when her world was turned upside down in June. She was meant to be jetting off on the trip of a lifetime, a whirlwind international adventure that would take the Adelaide-based star to the glittering stages of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the training halls of Quebec's elite circus schools. Instead, the 30-year-old now finds herself facing a different journey - one of brain scans, hospital beds and the terrifying unknown. Just weeks before she was set to board a plane to Scotland, Paige was dealt a devastating blow after doctors discovered a four-centimetre tumour growing inside her brain. 'I'd paid for everything on my credit card already,' Paige told FEMAIL. 'I have $13,000 to pay off from it - and I hadn't brought my travel insurance yet.' Thinking she had a full bill of health, Paige was beyond excited to jet off on June 27 and participate in paid shows at her favourite performing arts showcase in Scotland. 'I was supposed to be there right now performing, then we found the brain tumour.' Paige had been training hard too, working two shifts per week as a paramedic and honing her talents as one of Australia's best Cyr wheel performers the rest of the time. 'The circus is more than a full-time job,' she said. 'And because I'm 30, I'm considered old in circus, so I'm really trying to make it, and I just give it all I have.' However, after gruelling long hours perfecting her talents, Paige felt something wasn't right. It wasn't physical signs of distress that we're affecting her though. Paige had been living with a persistent sound in her ear, a condition known as tinnitus, for four years. It was frustrating, but not alarming, and in her line of work as both a circus artist and paramedic, a few knocks to the head weren't unusual. 'I had unilateral pulsatile tinnitus in one ear. It wasn't ringing, it was more of a whooshing and pulsing in my ear,' she explained. 'I mentioned it to my GP, because it can be a sinister sign of something, and then they referred me to an ENT. Eventually it showed I had some damage to the nerves on the left side.' Doctors suspected it was linked to a minor head injury during training. But out of caution, Paige finally booked an MRI scan on June 6. That scan revealed something entirely unexpected: a brain tumour, sitting in her posterior right frontal lobe. And what's more unsettling, the tumour had absolutely nothing to do with her ear symptoms. 'It was a completely incidental finding,' she said. 'The tumour was in the wrong spot to cause the tinnitus. 'Both neurosurgeons said I was so lucky, because the tumour isn't causing me any symptoms. So in a way, circus saved my life.' Paige's tumour appears slow-growing, but its atypical structure had doctors concerned. 'Next I had PET scan, and they found no other tumors, but there still is now a question mark over what it is because of these atypical findings,' she said. With some of the features looking irregular, there's a possibility it could be more serious than a standard meningioma. Surgery for Paige is essential, and the full nature of the tumour - whether it's benign or malignant - won't be known until it's removed and biopsied. 'Meningiomas are benign. But there are three different grades of meningiomas, and you don't know the grade until it goes to the lab. That is better than a cancerous tumour though,' she explained. From all if this, Paige's world shifted in an instant. Her shows were cancelled. Her flights, scheduled for Jun 27th, were immediately called off. And her dreams of spinning across a global stage this year vanished overnight. After her impending brain surgery, Paige won't be able to drive for six months, which means that she won't be able to work as a paramedic - a significant portion of her income. 'To lose that for six months is a huge stress, as well as losing my performing income and then having to pay back all of my overseas trip, and medical bills,' she said. Initially, she didn't want anyone to know of her diagnosis. 'I felt vulnerable and scared and weak, and that's so far from how I normally see myself,' she said. 'In circus, I'm known for being incredibly brave. When you're facing scary tricks, you can overcome them with mental grit and determination. But this was different. There was nothing I could do to change the diagnosis, and that left me feeling so powerless.' Paige told only her boss, asking him to keep the real reason for her absence private. However, he knew that sharing it would bring support and he convinced her to open up. Going public with her diagnosis turned out to be a turning point. What began as a deeply isolating experience soon transformed into a moment of overwhelming connection and meaning. 'Before I told anyone, I was crying myself to sleep because I didn't know how I was going to survive the next six months financially. I was so stressed. And I was having really dark thoughts,' she said. One of the most painful, she confessed, was realising how much of life she feared she might never get to experience. 'My first thought when they told me was, "I'm going to die, and I've never been in love". I've never had a boyfriend. Every little girl dreams of finding true love, and I just thought… that might never happen for me,' she said. But the outpouring of love and support from her community helped Paige reframe the journey ahead. 'I didn't know how much of a difference I'd made in people's lives until now,' she said. 'For me, life is about being part of a community and making a positive impact in other people's lives. And I had no idea that I'd done that until I until this. 'I guess I've achieved my purpose in life.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
'Epitome of what you'd want as an employee'; firefighter/paramedic remembered
ST. LUCIE COUNTY – A St. Lucie County Fire District firefighter died after he began feeling poorly while on duty July 21 and ultimately was taken to a hospital, according to the Fire District and Fire Chief Jeff Lee on July 23. Jairus Hodge joined the agency in 2022, and became a firefighter/paramedic shortly thereafter, Lee said. Hodge was 26, according to the Fire District. 'He's the epitome of what you'd want as an employee, what you would want as a firefighter and what you'd want as a community servant,' Lee said. 'He's the kind of guy that came to work happy to be here, happy to serve. It's a huge loss.' Lee said Hodge on July 21 was at Station 10 on duty and began feeling bad, and asked to go home. 'This is not a person who normally does that,' Lee said. 'When he went home, everybody was concerned about him because it's not normal.' Lee said that on July 22, Hodge felt worse and called rescue officials and was taken from his home to the hospital. After his death, his body was escorted by local first responders, including representatives from the Fire District, Port St. Lucie Police and St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office, from Cleveland Clinic Tradition Hospital in Port St. Lucie to the medical examiner's office in Fort Pierce. Lee said they are waiting for the cause of death from the medical examiner's office. Asked whether Hodge could have been exposed to something during a call, Lee said officials don't suspect that, but it's not immediately known. 'He ran several medical calls that day and the M.E. is looking at those. It is possible he came in contact with something that ultimately created his illness,' Lee said. 'We just don't know at this time.' Lee said Hodge's older brother, Austin Hodge, also is a firefighter with the agency. 'He idolizes his older brother from my understanding,' Lee said. 'He followed in his footsteps into the fire service here with the district.' Lee said the siblings were close and did a lot together on their days off. He said both worked out, describing them as 'very fit.' Hodge typically worked out of Station 3, in the 400 block of Southwest Ravenswood Lane in Port St. Lucie, though on July 21 was at Station 10 in the 700 block of Southwest Dalton Circle in Port St. Lucie, according to Lee. Federal incident: 10 suspected undocumented immigrants apprehended in St. Lucie County turned over to feds 'Eye opening': Gunshot wound spurs career decision for St. Lucie County firefighter/EMT 'He was a dedicated son, brother, and brother firefighter who epitomized what it means to be a St. Lucie County firefighter, and we're going to miss him dearly,' Lee said. Lee said he's considering Hodge's passing a line-of-duty death. 'It correlates with his last shift being sick, that's the way I see it,' Lee said. 'I see it as a line of duty death, and we're going to treat it accordingly.' Will Greenlee is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm. Follow Will on X @OffTheBeatTweet or reach him by phone at 772-267-7926. E-mail him at This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: 'A huge loss'; young St. Lucie County firefighter dies Solve the daily Crossword
