Agony and joy of an ambo
Veteran’s life of help to others
THIRTY-FIVE years on, the death of a six-week-old baby still plays on former paramedic John Tesoriero’s mind.
Now a patient transport officer with the Queensland Ambulance Service, the 63-yearold leads a slightly slower life taking regular patients to hospital for health monitoring.
But the memories as a paramedic – good and bad – remain.
“We were turned out to a query of a child in distress,” Mr Tesoriero told the Bulletin of his most distinct at-work memory in September 1982.
“There was a six-week-old baby. It was a cot death. The baby was already deceased (when we got there).
“What really brought it home for me (was) my son at the time was six weeks old.
“I spent half an hour when I got home checking my son was breathing and OK. It always sticks in my mind. Tragic.”
Mr Tesoriero began as a paramedic in 1978 and things happened a little differently as a Queensland Ambulance Transport Brigade officer, before QAS took over as a statewide initiative.
“Back then there was the thought that parents shouldn’t hold their (dead) baby ... because it would cause more distress,” he said. “(But) I let the mum and dad nurse their baby.”
But Mr Tesoriero also recounted the joy he felt the first time he saved a life with a semiautomatic defibrillator in 1989.
“We were turned out to a cardiac arrest to a man in his 50s. We’d just gotten a semiautomatic defibrillator in the ambulance. Prior to that we didn’t really carry them.
“We were able to use the defibrillator and his pulse returned. Two or three days later we visited the hospital and he really thanked us for what we’d done.”
Mr Tesoriero said before QAS took over, paramedics worked alone.
They even had to depend on backup from local areas and neighbours to help carry people from their homes.
After eight years as a paramedic, Mr Tesoriero moved to the communications room, then as an on-road supervisor co-ordinator. He was director for operations for a number of years from 1998, overseeing big events such as Schoolies and the GC600.
In 2010 he became the patient transport manager, driving patients needing regular treatment to hospital.
And while it’s not always as exciting as being a paramedic, Mr Tesoriero said it was rewarding. “You’re seeing (pa- tients) on a regular basis ... and form a friendship with them.
“The most regular are dialysis patients. They have to go into hospital three times a week for four to five hours, it’s a big chunk out of their lives. If we can make it just that bit easier (for them) then we’ve achieved something.”
This week marks Ambulance Week and 125 years of ambulance services in Queensland.