Local Focus: Taranaki paramedic speaks about the trauma of saving lives

From the mean streets of London to the quirky but equally stressful roads of Taranaki, Mark Belchamber has seen it all.

”You’re consistently surprised by how awful something will be, but you’re also consistently surprised by how miraculous some things can be,” he said.

Like anyone who works in emergency services, Mark has many interesting stories to tell, and some that still haunt him.

”I vividly remember a lady in London, she called us because she was due to give birth and had birthing pains. She was walking out of the front flat with her bags towards the ambulance and then she stopped and pulled her pants down.

“I thought ‘Okay, bizarre but let’s work with it’. There was a splash and I thought her waters have broken and then there was a cry and I thought ‘that’s the baby!’” We had to very quickly bundle up this little thing which had thankfully been caught inside this lady’s pants.”

But Mark’s stories don’t always have a happy ending.

An unfortunate side effect of working in emergency services is being personally hurt by the real-life emergencies.

His friends and family noticed the changes, but he didn’t want to admit his suffering: ”I fell over and succumbed to PTSD.”

Mark and his family moved to Taranaki, where he continued as a paramedic, but the new location was not enough to subdue the trauma he had faced.

He took 18 months off work and wrote a book on his experiences called The Guts of It, in an effort to get his feelings out of him.

”It was part of the healing process,” Mark said.

“I went to a very dark place. It took me 18 months or so, to recover back to a place where I could go back to work helpfully.

”PTSD is nasty. You can recover from it, but it’s always there in the background and you have to learn to live with it.”

Paramedic territory manager for Taranaki, Megan Stewart, didn’t expect Mark to return to work.

”Our job’s a privileged role, but with that comes a toll,” she said. ”We have so many services – collegial support, clinical support, debriefing, defusing, member assistance programme – through to our psychological team and also our health, safety and wellness space.

“But the key is the person needs to put their hand up, and know that it’s okay to say that they’ve got some challenges and they might need a bit of assistance.”

Back on the job in Taranaki, Mark’s work stories have a different flavour to them.

”I had a colleague who was an hour out of town and his closest mode of transport was the horse he was riding on!

“So he rode up the beach and cared for this patient while we were an hour away and got there and handed over.

”You wouldn’t get that in the UK.”

Megan is impressed by Mark’s coming to terms with his trauma and getting himself back to work.

”We all think that we’re six foot tall and a little bit bulletproof but we’re human, you know.”

A big realisation for Mark was knowing that he while desperately wanted to make a difference, sometimes he simply couldn’t.

Mark now applies some of the coping strategies he learned to helping others in his team.

”People call us usually in their hour of need and if I can be some light in that, I guess that’s good for me and I want to do that,” he said.

Additional reporting by Emma Andrews

Public Interest Journalism Fund