What being a paramedic taught me about connection

I remember my first day on placement as a student paramedic more clearly than any other day throughout my career.

It was a nightshift. I’d driven an hour and forty-five minutes to get to station, so I was already exhausted, and yet completely wired at the thought of what awaited me for the next twelve hours. I’d met my mentor, and I was handed a radio to clip to my belt – little did I know that I would feel the phantom buzz of that radio for nearly the next decade of my life. I sat in the crew room, eagerly awaiting my first job ever as a student, my mind whizzing with the things I’d learnt at university and how I would finally get to put them into practice.  

Our first call was for an elderly lady with dementia who’d been found talking to a lamppost a few streets away from her house. A kindly neighbour had taken her home and called 999 as there was a clear concern for her welfare. As we assessed her for infection or anything which could have acutely worsened her dementia, I looked around her flat. Her environment was extremely unkempt; she clearly wasn’t coping at home alone. The fridge was empty, the flat was messy, the bathroom was soiled. This was a real social issue.  

We sat and chatted for a while before deciding this lady was unsafe to remain at home and it was in her best interests to go to hospital for full assessment. Whilst we explained this to her, she put her arm around me and hugged me. She didn’t let go until we’d walked her into the ambulance. 

That was my first real lesson as a paramedic. The job isn’t all about medicine. It’s about people and the way we connect, or sometimes fail to. Though she was unable to articulate how she felt that grip on my arm told me all I needed to know. She was desperate for help, and thankful for it.  

I’ve learnt a lot over the years. I’ve met people from all walks of life and been with them through the worst moments of their lives, and for some, I’ve been with them at the end of their lives. I watched loved ones gather around a family member who passed away peacefully at the end of a terminal illness. I listened to daughters thank their father for being the best dad to them that he could. I watched elderly couples who’d spent their entire lives together say goodbye with a stoic hand squeeze. Friends with relationships spanning decades showing up for each other in the worst moments. I’ve seen people who were unable to show love in life, feel it so deeply in death, and for those people who had no family left and whose friends were too unwell to be with them, we as ambulance crew and carers and nursing staff sat with them instead.  

In each of these moments, no matter what the job or circumstance, human connection was at the core. It reminded me daily how important it is to cultivate love and connection in whatever way that it shows up in our life and how it doesn’t always have to be related to the hard moments. Sometimes it was in the neighbour who stepped in to help and feed the cat whilst the patient was in hospital, or crewmates singing along to Anastasia at the top of their lungs at 3am or laughing hysterically at the comical, random things patients say. A particular highlight was watching my crewmate, now one of my best friends, get trapped behind a toilet whilst the patient jovially opened their bowels.  

Laughter often carried us through.  

Of course, I saw disconnection too. People who had no family or who were isolated or had lost friendships along the way from choices they had made or due to circumstance. Those moments stayed with me just as much, of how life can change when connection is missing. And I hope we provided something for them in those moments.  

Ultimately, connection doesn’t have to be all encompassing in the hard dramatic moments. It’s simple and shows up in the small moments and the tiny touches of love. The whatsapp messages, the voice notes to friends, the smile to a stranger. Being a paramedic taught me connection doesn’t have to be dramatic.

It just has to be real.