THE NIGHT WATCH
AMBULANCE paramedic Joe Ibrahim had never been to a crash scene like it. Emergency crews were unable to tell if some victims were male or female and four people died, including a pregnant woman and her unborn twins. But it’s trying to cope afterwards still haunts Ibrahim.
It’s an image, broken in the darkness by flickering blue and red police lights, that literally took paramedic Joe Ibrahim’s breath away.
And it’s one that returns to him when he least expects it – whether he’s walking down the street or attending a family wedding. The devastating image is of heavily-pregnant Katherine Hoang in the back seat of a car.
He knows it will haunt him forever.
On September 27, 2018 the NSW Ambulance intensive care paramedic was on his way home from work about 8pm and looked forward to a couple of days off when his phone began to beep.
It’s a day Mr Ibrahim, 36, remembers so acutely, he says “it aches”. “I pulled over to the side of the road, had a read of it, and went ‘this looks massive’,” he told The Night Watch.
Mr Ibrahim’s journey home would have to wait. He was being sent to The Northern Rd in Orchard Hills in Sydney’s west.
“They reported that it was a two-car accident,” he says.
“It was a head-on accident … that they’ve got two people who are deceased, one of which was pregnant. And we got two people who are still trapped in the cars and in a critical condition.”
As he raced to the scene – so did his heart rate. As he turned off the M4 and rounded a hill he saw the crash scene for the first time.
Mr Ibrahim realised it would test every aspect of his training and ability – “the plethora of red and blue lights, multiple ambulance vehicles, multiple police” just a small hint to the devastation he was about to walk into.
The first car he came to only contained a driver, trapped and seriously injured.
“I then walked over and had a look at the other car, which was when I really had to step back at that point and think ‘oh God, how do we even do this’,” he says.
In the front seat was the driver, who was already dead after sustaining injuries so horrific first responders could not tell if they were a man or a woman. In the front passenger seat was a young man, slipping in and out of consciousness and moaning in pain.
But it was the devastation in the back seat that will haunt Mr Ibrahim forever.
“I looked back in the back seat and saw probably, not probably, literally the worst thing that I have seen which I’ve been out as a paramedic,” he says. “And that was the pregnant lady with the two twins that had died.
“It took my breath away for a moment. And I remember, again, my heart rate stepping up that little bit more and almost looking into the distance going ‘this is tragic, absolutely tragic and heartbreaking for this family’.
“But then immediately you go ‘I have a job to do and I’ve got two people who are still alive and quite critical that need our help’.
“So I had to pull away from this emotional rollercoaster.”
Killed was young expectant mother Katherine Hoang, 23, and the twin boys she was just weeks away from giving birth to.
Seriously injured in the front seat was her husband Bronco, who would survive but suffer critical injuries. Behind the wheel was another 17-year-old passenger.
The Hoang’s Nissan Tiida was struck head on by a Mazda being driven by Richard Moananu, 29, who would be charged with unlicensed driving and two counts of manslaughter.
It was a week later at a wedding when Mr Ibrahim caught sight of a pregnant woman. “And I had to double take and immediately that image from the scene came back,” he admits.
Mr Ibrahim credits his supportive wife and two little boys with helping him get through those traumatic incidents.