Gary’s working to help others at Christmas

Gary Tobin has worked a lot of Christmas Days and wouldn’t have it any other way.

The St John Nelson Bays intensive care paramedic will work a full 12-hour shift on Christmas Day.

“I work with a great bunch of people and we get into the spirit of it and have fun.”

While the number of call-outs on the 25^this similar to other days, the type can be a bit different, and Gary says Christmas also makes a difference to how having to call an ambulance affects people.

“It could be an elderly person needing assistance getting back to their residential care facility after they have deteriorated during Christmas dinner at a family member’s home,” Gary says. “Or it could be an incident resulting from family tensions.”

He says other call outs may be related to preventable incidents with people injuring themselves while playing with a kid’s new toy or having one too many beers. The other people group they commonly are called to are those with mental health related matters.

“A lot of people get lonely at this time of year,” he says. “Christmas just isn’t this big happy time for them.”

Although his family cannot spend the day with him, they tend to celebrate throughout December and Gary has already handed out his presents.

“We celebrate Christmas linear style,” he says. “Christmas is more of a season to us than just a day. We have Christmas Eve together.”

Gary says paramedics will respond as soon as possible to life-threatening and serious incidents, but to remember there may be a delay getting an ambulance for non-urgent conditions.