The station we were operating out of, was getting quite old by the stage I arrived there, and it was in need of some repair and refurbishment. As there was some extensive modification required, we were moved out into temporary quarters up at the local hospital in the nurses’ accommodation block at Auburn.

The quarters were cramped and located some distance from the ambulance which was parked down in the emergency bay at the hospital proper. The phone they contacted us on was located in the corridor of the accommodation block, as the radio did not work very well in the building. As a result of these considerations, we would often stay down in the casualty bay and stay with the ambulance. We would play a game on the bonnet of the vehicle called “pigs”. What it consisted of was a pair of small rubber pigs that you held in your hand and threw onto a surface like a pair of dice. Depending on how they landed, on their feet, back, head etc, you would score points towards a winning number of 100 points. It is based on a relatively similar pub game. We would play the game either on the bonnet, or we would roll the stretcher out of the back of the ambulance, and play it on the floor in the back of the ambulance. This type of passing time leads me into the next story.

Death dumped on us, in the driveway.

One evening, we were down in the casualty bay, playing pigs in the back of the ambulance, when a small vehicle pulled up. Two guys jumped out from the driver and the front passenger seats, and started yelling to us. Initially we stepped back being unsure of their intentions, and working out if they were a threat. Being in the Auburn area, it could have been a possibility.

They beckoned for Chris and myself to come to the back door, yelling at us to help a girl in the back seat.

I walked over to the back seat, where a young girl was slumped on the rear seat. When I called out to her, there was no response. As I moved to give her some physical stimulus, they kept urging me to help her. There was no response to the physical stimulus, so I felt for a pulse.

No Pulse.

Shit!

She was in cardiac arrest.

I immediately told Chris, my partner, to bring the stretcher over next to the car, and I opened her airway. No spontaneous respirations were noted during my rapid checks of the girl.

Chris dropped the stretcher down to half height next to the back door of the car, to allow us to bring the girl out of the back of the car. We immediately manhandled her out of the back of the vehicle onto the stretcher and I started compressions on her chest immediately.

In the meantime, the security guard who noticed the disturbance in the casualty bay, had come out to see what was going on.

When he realised what was going on, he opened the coded door to the casualty for us and alerted the staff we were coming in.

We wheeled her into the resuscitation room and transferred onto the resuscitation bed, where we continued with the CPR. I put a Guedel airway into her mouth to keep her tongue from falling backwards and blocking her airway. One of the nurses grabbed the soft bag resuscitator off the wall to ventilate her, as Chris took over, and continued with the compressions.

The staff asked us what happened to her, to which we replied we didn’t know other than the 2 guys had pulled up and yelled for help.

It was about then we heard them through the open casualty bay door, screech off out of the driveway, into the night.

There was evidence on her arms of injection marks we believed came from Intravenous drug use, and it looked recent. The puncture marks and indication of fresh bruising around those puncture marks were telling us a story already.

We worked on her for a good 20 minutes, even using Naloxone for possible drug overdose, but were unable to get any form of response. In the end, we called the arrest attempt off, as our attempts at resuscitation were going nowhere.

The staff at the hospital had called the local police, and they responded very quickly, within minutes to the hospital, as there were suspicious circumstances surrounding her death.

The police questioned us extensively about the two guys and the car, but we were only able to give them a broad description of the car.

We admitted to them that the focus of our attention was all on the girl, and getting her inside for resuscitation, not the guys themselves or the finer details of the car. The police started a search of the area, using the description we were able to provide, but came up empty. It turned out the girl was known to the local police, and they knew some of the people that she normally associated with. She was allegedly working in the sex industry in the area, and was a known user of drugs such as heroin.

Unfortunately, we were never notified of the Coroners findings relating to her death, although we had a pretty good idea due to the track marks in her arms. It would have been nice to confirm our suspicions though.