Fatigue - Eb Friedrich

"I came very close to crashing into the trees."

"I just remember waking up and heading into trees on the side of the road. I managed to break, probably only metres from impact." 

"I remembered being a bit shaken up, but didn’t worry too much about it because, it was something I had experienced many times.

"Probably about a week after a wave of melancholy came over me.

"I just felt that I didn’t want to do this anymore. I didn’t want to be a paramedic. I didn’t want to go to work. I had no control over these feelings, they just washed over me.

"Whether you want to call that burnout or a meltdown, I sort explain it as a mental meltdown, which is not typical for myself because i’m a very strong person normally. 

"Two near misses in six months. Twice I’ve nearly lost my life because of fatigue. It hit home.”

"I had this overwhelming sense of distress that I could have lost my life.

"As a paramedic you do feel a great deal of responsibility for the people in your town.

"You be may involved in deaths of family members, you may be involved in community members having accidents or their families having accidents.”

"You don’t want to leave the town uncovered if you can avoid it. But you’ve also got to think of yourself and your family. And I guess that’s the dilemma. 

"But why should you be put in that position?

"You should be able to go on a fatigue break knowing there are other paramedics to cover you."

"It absolutely astounds me that we haven’t had more deaths due to fatigue." 

EB FRIEDRICH
Regional Paramedic (Woodend)