Student paramedic speaks out about life on the front line. - The Leamington Observer

Student paramedic speaks out about life on the front line.

Leamington Editorial 22nd Jun, 2020   0

A STUDENT paramedic has spoken of life on the front line during the pandemic.

Deborah Calverley, from Stratford, is among a number of students from the University of Worcester out on the road in ambulances across the region.

The 41-year-old said: “I wanted to help, I wanted to be there for people at their most vulnerable times to do what I could for them,”

“You come home from a shift and generally you know that you have made a difference, which is why you go into the job. For me it’s just doing what I do regardless of the situation we’re in.”




The mum-of-two responded to the call to work from the West Midlands Ambulance Service, starting out cleaning and restocking ambulances, and then, after a week’s extra training, she joined a paramedic on the road as an ambulance care assistant on a two-person crew.

The second year paramedic science student is now working indefinitely as bank staff out of the ambulance service’s Coventry and Warwick hubs and has been doing three or four 12 hour shifts a week for nearly a month, working with a qualified paramedic. She practises her skills as students would usually do on placement, still under supervision.


“It’s a big responsibility because there are only two of you,” said Deborah, a former Stratford College student.

“You’re not there as a student learning on placement, you have got to step it up. I spoke to a couple of lecturers about it and my husband and decided it was something I very much wanted to do. It was a brilliant opportunity to continue my training. Everyone I have worked with has been very encouraging and happy to let me get on with it and enhance my training, so it has been a really positive experience.”

Deborah says the crew regularly encounter Covid-19 cases, or suspected cases, usually at least one every shift, although this has calmed more recently.

“The thought of bringing the virus home to my family went through my mind, but the trucks are so well stocked with PPE so we’re very well protected, so it hasn’t been a concern.”

Deborah had been working from home, helping run the family electrical contracting business, but, as her children got older, decided to train as a paramedic.

She said: “It was a conversation I had with my brother-in-law, who’s a nurse. I’ve have known him for 24 years and he said you always wanted to be a paramedic. I know lots of them and you’d be great. It was like a lightbulb had gone off, so I started looking into it.

“I like that every day is different, no two jobs are the same, no two days are the same.”

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