He got both his hands round my neck. I thought: ‘Please, just let me get home to my husband and my son’
WHEN the call-out came through, I had no idea I would end up seriously injured, thousands of pounds out of pocket and furious at the justice system. I arrived at the scene to find a teenager lying on the grass well away from the road, shouting.
Three girls who were with him had dialled 999, saying he had taken LSD.
My colleague and I were walking him to the ambulance when he started to struggle violently and managed to get both his hands around my throat.
Often people on drugs have abnormal strength. My colleague was a big lad and I’m no weakling, but we couldn’t get him off. He was choking me.
I wondered if a knife was about to be plunged into me. It was terrifying. I was thinking: ‘Please don’t let him have a knife, please let me get back home to my husband and my son’. It’s not how it should be. Eventually, we managed to loosen his grip and force him towards the vehicle, and he attacked my colleague too.
We were just trying to get him the medical care he needed quite urgently.
My colleague was holding on to his arms and upper body and I was trying to keep his legs still by sitting on them so we could strap him into the ambulance.
He managed to swivel his hips and throw me off several times.
Then he threw me again and I heard a snap and felt pain like I’d never known before.
My leg had somehow got entangled with his so that when he swivelled to throw me, one leg was caught between his and the ligament snapped.
We needed help from three police officers to get him under control and to hospital, where he took up a bed that should have been available for someone who was ill, not out of their mind on drugs.
For three or four months after, I had repeated nightmares, waking up every night initially. Many of them merged what had happened with the fears I had that night.
In some of the dreams he did plunge a knife into me, and in others we could not get his hands away from my throat and he was choking me. I stopped breathing in many of those dreams. There was a severe psychological cost, on top of the physical damage, and there was a big cost to my family.
I insisted on going on a short break I’d booked to celebrate my mother’s 70th birthday the week after the attack, but I was unable to do most of what we’d planned, so the trip was spoiled.
I was unable to take my son on outings over the summer holidays, having to rely on the kindness of friends to take him on days out.
I also had to tell him that plans to take a special holiday to New Zealand to see relatives of my husband had been cancelled, as my loss of earnings had hit us too hard. He asked me: ‘Mummy, why did the bad man hurt you?’ I had no answer.
I was off work for almost a year and I really expected the law to hammer the thug who did this to me. But for an attack that threatened to destroy my career, and left me with injuries that the sheriff classed as ‘catastrophic’, he was sentenced to just eight months. It’s ridiculous.
I started in 1996 and worked in London until 2002 when I joined the Scottish Ambulance Service. Until July last year, I had suffered the odd push and shove, some people lashing out – which sadly has become part of our job.
But why should hundreds of us every year, on top of the stress of trying to save lives, endure being kicked or punched? It has to be stopped.
What message does this sentence send to others who want to attack 999 workers and what message does it send to those of us doing the job about how much we’re valued?
If the law is not changed to protect us, I believe it could be the death of someone.