Attacks on North East paramedics expected almost nightly

Every night, paramedics in the North East are starting their shifts, expecting attacks from the people they are trying to help.

Dave Henderson is an ambulance worker; he ended up in hospital after a patient he was trying to help onto a stretcher broke his hand,

“It’s a given really, particularly on night shifts, I can’t remember a night shift where we haven’t had this type of incident.

“This certainly isn’t what any of us signed up for; we didn’t sign up to be policemen or bouncers,

“It’s alcohol predominantly, also substance misuse as well.

“You’re often in situations when people are throwing objects in the residence or wherever you happen to be at the time,

“Obviously you’re having to avoid this – it tends to be more when they’re trying to get their hands on you.”

The North East Ambulance service revealed there were more than 280 verbal and physical attacks on ambulance staff in 2016 alone, a dramatic rise from the previous year.

Vicky Court, from the North East Ambulance service explains this could be down to a rise in victims coming forward and reporting what’s happened.

She tells us the service have a no tolerance policy on attacks to staff members, and should anyone want to press charges, they will back their claims.

Vicky explains they have a support and counselling structure in place to help victims of attacks deal with what happened to them – whether mentally, verbally or physically.

“We want to be in a position to offer them the support because although they may not have been injured, it might have had psychological effects on them – it may have affected the way they feel about their job or going out at night.

“When you call an ambulance, it’s a stressful situation, it’s a frightening situation, emotions are really really high and there will be a tendency for people to behave outside of the way they would normally behave.

“We are there to help you, we are not there to do anything bad, we’re not the police, we’re not interested in the reason behind what happened.”