Plea for respect as assaults spike during holiday period
Gorman said Tuesday that the frequency of attacks has increased since November, but he is particularly concerned that their severity has also worsened.
“This is the worst I’ve seen in my 30 years of emergency work,” he says. “Physically, I have a broken wrist. I have been spat on, kicked, punched many times throughout my career, but I have never seen it as bad as it is now in terms of the severity of the attacks that have occurred.”
On Dec. 27, a patient fondled a female paramedic’s inner thigh and continued the unwanted touching even after more crew arrived.
Gorman said she was particularly shocked by this sexual assault.
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“We had 10 very serious crimes committed against our paramedics over a three-day period, which has led us as an organization and as regional leaders to say today: Enough is enough.”
He described violence against emergency workers as a global epidemic.
Ambulance Victoria’s west Melbourne operations director Andrew Burns said patients were often the perpetrators of attacks on paramedics, but bystanders and relatives were becoming increasingly aggressive.
“I think rather than talking about specific numbers, what’s really concerning is the trend and severity.” he said.
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“We’ve seen crews being whipped with stethoscopes. We’ve seen crews having to abandon the ambulance while a patient was smashing the back of the ambulance.”
Harrington, meanwhile, has been working as a paramedic for seven years and describes violence against her as part of the reality of her job. He said spitting is not uncommon.
“I wish I could say this is the first time this has happened to me, but an almost identical situation happened about 18 months ago,” he said.
“It was the same thing, a stranger came and rolled down the window and spat in my face again. I got into this business to help people on their worst days… so it’s even more disappointing when things like this happen.”
