Divine inspiration

By JANINE OGIER

Faced with eight injured people at an accident site on his way home one summer afternoon, Sean Murray's basic first aid training kicked in and he was able to assist the ambulance officer at the grisly head-on car smash.

That experience inspired Murray, 41, of Waiuku, to switch jobs and now he faces similar scenes every day as a St John employee.

"It was a pretty nasty scene considering it was a 100 km/h road. I assessed the scene, checked if there was anything pouring out, if there was anything that could catch fire, and immediately rang the St John ambulance.

"The ambulance officer turned up and I said there were two people not looking well and one looking extremely unwell and five who don't seem to be injured.

"I asked 'what do you want me to do' and she threw me bags and oxygen and said 'come with me and do as you are told'," Murray says.

A young woman died as a result of that smash, but the calm and professional attitude of the ambulance officer inspired Murray to reassess his career.

"From there I said 'yeah this is what I want to do'. To see someone perform like that, so calm, no worries and she was single crew, with eight patients all by herself."

Murray became a rural volunteer ambulance officer and for two and a half years he was trained by St John. In 2002 he joined St John full-time.

"It is half the salary I was on, but I wake up in the morning enthusiastic about going to work," he says.

Murray did an apprenticeship as an industrial sewing machine mechanic, then worked as a labourer at the Glenbrook steel mill. He was there for 13 years, driving heavy machinery and co-ordinating transport.

"It was incredibly well paid but absolutely and utterly unrewarding," Murray says.

The latest theory from the United States about career choice is called happenstance, where most people get into careers because they are in the right place at the right time.

Career Services' Rapuara CareerCentre manager Jan Crawford says people can make happenstance work for them by talking to others about different careers, networking, training, and building up skills.

Things that people need to take into account when they are thinking about careers are their interests, what makes them feel enthusiastic, and what they can imagine themselves doing for the rest of their lives, she says.

Other career drivers include thinking about what is important - such as not being inside all day, or feeling as if you are making a contribution, or not being told what to do by someone else.

It's crucial that people get as much information as they can about a career before any decision is made so as to prevent disappointment and surprises, Crawford says.

As a 12-year-old, Tamara McGarva heard her mother scream. She ran into the garden to find her mum covered in blood from a facial injury.

"Blood was pouring through her fingers and down her arms. I remember being completely lost as to what to do ... I couldn't even ring an ambulance," McGarva, now 36, says.

"She rang her own ambulance. These two uniformed people took charge of the situation and I just thought they were the most amazing people that did the most amazing job.

"Coupled with the thought that I never wanted to feel so helpless again, I wanted to know how those people knew what to do," she says.

McGarva figured the only way to find out was to ask, so she knocked on the door of the Alexandra ambulance station - and her vocation has taken root.

Because she was too young to become an ambulance officer when she left school, McGarva trained as a registered nurse.

She spent most of her nursing life working in emergency departments.

Eventually her vocational calling to the ambulance service came to fruition.

For six years McGarva has been a paramedic for St John. She was promoted to advanced paramedic after completing the Auckland University of Technology BHSc in Paramedic degree.

Murray sums up his work as doing something to make the day better for a lot of people. "It doesn't matter how good or how bad your day was, you have some feeling of self-reward there."