UPBEAT PIANO MUSIC Captions by Glenna Casalme. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015 MUSIC BUILDS MUSIC QUIETENS PENSIVE MUSIC A year ago, I fell 5m off this roof. PENSIVE MUSIC CONTINUES I shattered my leg so badly, it had to amputated. I was a paramedic, and I want to go back to work as a paramedic. It's not going to be easy. MUSIC SWELLS We're about three minutes out. Let's get those pre-landings out of port. INDISTINCT RT CONVERSATION Clear to ground. Tail's clear. Have you got the stow on your 12? I've got it. Clear to land. TENSE MUSIC Who have we got here? (RESPONDS INDISTINCTLY) Staff member? Yeah. A patch of wet paint. He's come off the roof approximately 4m, 4.5m. Roof to? Straight to the ground. Hard ground? Hard ground. Yeah. Were you painting, Derek? I was trying to paint the roof. As soon as the impact, I felt a crushing sensation in my back. It had literally felt like someone had driven a spade through my spine. The crew that arrived first on the scene was manned by one of my mentors when I first joined the service. He was face-down. Mm. Um, and complained of not being able to feel his legs, and he's got excruciating pain. There? (GROANS AGONISINGLY, SOBS) BOTH CONVERSE INDISTINCTLY Just seeing them arrive, knowing who they were, knowing how they worked, it really was a huge relief. Around the lower back? Oh! Oh, my back! (SOBS) Derek? Oh, it hurts bad. You've been happy with blood pressure and so on? Basics? All good? OK. He's one of ours. He's also a diving buddy of mine as well. So it does obviously create a little bit of extra stress for our guys when it's somebody you know and you know really really well, but at the end of the day, we still` we've got a job to do, and we just do the job as required. One, two, three. Oh! (GROANS) Where's my sunglasses? I can give them to him. (GROANS CONTINUOUSLY) Derek, have my sunglasses for now, mate. WHIMPERS: Thank you! (GASPS) I want them back, though, OK? Uh, cheers, bro. All right, mate. It's bad enough to break a leg, hitting the hard ground, and that force transfers up off the backbone. It could well be a fractured vertebrae there. COMMS: Copy. Thanks, Westpac Rescue 2. I'm gonna get a crew guard there, Paul. Oh, yes. Everything slowed down. The whole 'your life flashing before your eyes' thing can be quite true. I literally thought that this was it; I wasn't gonna survive. GENTLE MUSIC Ended up with multiple fractures. Um, bone had came out through the skin in a number of places. Uh, and that's ultimately what led to the ongoing problems of infection and what they call osteomyelitis, which is an infection of the bone. Um, it's extremely hard to treat and ultimately led to the amputation. CHILD CHATTERS I made a decision not long after the accident that I wasn't gonna let this rob me of... my... career. I wasn't gonna let it rob me of my life. WISTFUL MUSIC After an accident like this, you can choose to accept it and work hard at reclaiming or getting back to what you had before. Or you can crawl into a hole and live the rest of your life in misery and sorrow. WISTFUL MUSIC CONTINUES Gidday. How's school? Hey, Joe. (GROWLS GENTLY) Mwah! Hey. How are you? SOFTLY: I'm good. Today we had three visitors. Two wapiti was there. I've been a paramedic for 15 years. It's been full on ` three kids, two dogs and my wife Kirsten's career as a midwife. Up... we go. Between me and my wife, you need a spreadsheet for our timetables. Hi, Sarah. It's Kirsten Eady here, the midwife. How are you? Good, good. So you're seeing the obstetric consultant? Um... It was huge, because it took him out of the picture for pretty much a good six months. So it was kind of like being a single parent, really, um, as well as looking after him and getting him to his things. And his mum has been really sick, and she's been living us` with us too, and Derek did a lot of work with her. Being a paramedic, he was the one doing all her care and stuff here, so basically, that made life a lot more difficult for us to juggle ` Sue's care, Derek's care, my kids' care, my work. I was, uh, looking through some of the photos. It's amazing how, uh, much has changed in the last year since, um, the accident. It's amazing how graphic that is of the leg. Forget how intense that first couple of days was. Scary looking at them now. To think that's where it all started. Not easy at all to sit here and go through these. The leg wasn't the big major thing at the time; it was more about` No. They were more worried about my back still. It's kinda hard to remember what normal is again. And so I guess getting back to... Maybe not` normal's not the right word any more, cos it's never gonna be that. We're always gonna have` Cos even since you guys have been seeing Derek, he's had hospital admissions and things like that, so I think that's always gonna be a little bit in the back of my mind with things. It's always a bit nerve-racking, kind of, thinking` I know he's good now, but there are still lots of stuff that can impact... impact him for the future. So I guess for me, it's about making the most of what we've got while he's good and doesn't have any further issues with his leg and things like that, and take the downtimes, when he ends up back in hospital or anything like that, as they come, I suppose. Ha! Ha! (GRUNTS) Ha! Ha! (ROARS) (GROWLS, GRUNTS) (CONTINUES GRUNTING) UPLIFTING MUSIC I suppose the` the more time has gone on, the thing I've come to realise is I don't see myself as being disabled. When I put my leg on in the morning, I'm as able-bodied as the next person. But I have to prove that before I can get back to work. UPLIFTING MUSIC CONTINUES I need to pass the functional evaluation test, so the gym has been my office for three months. I've got no doubt, but I've still got to pass the test. And so how many socks are you up to now? Uh, four thin socks or two of the thick ones. Cool. And you're being` um, going back for casting...? 19th of December, next appointment. Excellent. Great. And so down. OK. OK. One, two, three. Good. (EXHALES SHAKILY) Just bring your hips forward as you come up. Nice. Snap those hips a little bit anteriorly as you come up. That's it. Three. (EXHALES AUDIBLY) This has been my daily grind for the last three months, five days a week. It's really all about getting the` the strength back to be able to manage doing my job. (BREATHES SHAKILY) In my mind, I'm ready to go back to work. It's been a long process for me already. While it's only been 15 weeks since I had the amputation, it's been nearly a year since I had the accident. I've been working really hard over that whole time and maintained a high degree of fitness to be able to continue on in the job. Now we're gonna do a bit of stair work. You have no problems, anyway, but the response kit's 20... 20-odd kilos in the response has come up. Yup. 15, 20 kilos. One at a time. (GRUNTS SOFTLY) Good. BIRD CHEEPS INDISTINCT DIALOGUE I have found a number of paramedics working and practising in the United States as amputees... and have been in contact with them, you know, via Facebook and, um, we've had a few Skype calls, and that's been really really good because it's... gives me something to work on and, sort of, some sort of evidence to suggest that it is possible and can be done. (PANTS SOFTLY) You can feel the` the touch, you know, when you put your foot on the ground. But how far forward? How far back? It` It takes a lot of practice to get that right in your mind. There's a lot of stair work in the job, you know ` accessing patients, carrying our gear, carrying patients up and down stairs. Absolutely. He needs to be able to not only carry the rescue kits and the monitors up and down stairs in people's homes, but he also has to be able to help carry people out on stretchers up and down stairs. But he could do half of the testing without his leg on. And he's just starting to run. So that's good. He might be faster than me one day. (CHUCKLES) RHYTHMIC CLACKING I've been working so hard with my rehabilitation for so long that I` I really want it to come to an end... for me to be able to move on and reclaim my life and move into the next stage of returning to an operational role. The` The longer it takes, the less likely a good outcome would be. It is raising eyebrows. I often get comments of, you know, 'Do you think maybe you should reconsider what` what you're doing 'or, you know, maybe look at another role within the organisation?' I suppose the thing that scares a lot of people... Is my disability gonna put them at risk? (SIGHS) I suppose the only thing I can really say to that is to` is just that, you know, if I didn't feel comfortable doing a lifting task or if, you know` if I felt un` I was faced in a situation that I couldn't do, I wouldn't push myself into that. I would stop. BIRDS TWITTER Today will be a functional evaluation test which will look at what I'm able to do and look at areas of weakness. FOOTSTEPS FALL SOFTLY Hi, Derek. Liz Coombes. Nice to meet you. Physio, Quality Rehab. You too. So, we're gonna set up some equipment, and obviously, today is about just assessing where you're at at the moment; it's not a pass or a fail. Nah. It is about what needs to be potentially put in place, if anything does, for ongoing rehab and moving you forward. Awesome. OK, Derek, so we'll move on in, and we'll set up what we're gonna test for. BIRDS CHEEP My whole working career has been around ambulance work and my paramedic role. Initially, it was very very hard for me to accept that I would have to, um, move into another field. You know, I love my job with an absolute passion. I couldn't really imagine me doing anything else. It's a lifetime career choice for me. We've done a total of 11 tasks in that three hours. St John's has a specific regime that they use for getting somebody back up into full crew duties, and Derek's at a stage where, in my opinion, from the results of this testing, he has the ability to do that. Well done, Derek. Fantastic job. Wonderful outcome of your tests, and I'd say that you are looking at a graduated return. Fantastic. Excellent results. Thank you so much. All right. Take care. See ya. Quite relieved is probably the first emotion that I've experienced ` just` just having the test over and done with and having been able to demonstrate that I` I am capable of, um, performing those tasks. Good morning! Good morning. It's Derek Eady to see Pip McDonald. Oh, OK, cool. I'll just let her know you're here. ACC have given me all the backing I need to return to work. My case manager has been one of my biggest supporters. So, how do you feel about the results of the functional test? It went really well. Yeah? Really stoked with the results of that, and, um, they're quite happy for me to move forward now and start getting back to triple crewing. Um, so what I'll get on to for you is I'll make the referral for the driving assessment and the occupational therapist to see what your actual return to work is gonna look like, make sure everyone's on the same page with that. Fantastic. Cool. Oh, I'm really looking forward to it. How do you feel about getting back on the road within a week hopefully? Oh, that'd be great. That'd be really good. We've thrown all sorts of assessments, really, at him to show... to help him work through things. Like, we've had pain assessments; we've had occupational therapists; we've had driving assessments; we've had, um, psychologists working with him to help him deal with... Obviou` Initially, it was to deal with the pain that he was having, and then it was to help support him through the amputation of his leg. MELANCHOLY MUSIC My job, for me, it's a lot about who I am. Helping other people is something that I've always` I've always done. It's been instilled in me from my mother, you know, putting others first and, you know, always being there to help somebody out who needs it. Derek fits the mould of` of ambulance officers in general. They're a little bit of a breed apart, in a way, in the emergency services. They're very motivated and caring people, and certainly Derek has been very motivated to return to work. He's been involved with St John for some 12 years, from memory, and is very keen to come back on board. But ultimately, this is a fairly standard vocational rehabilitation. It is just the parameters of the work environment in St John and emergency ambulance work that make it a bit more difficult for us to` to really grasp the risks associated with it and make sure we've covered off all those aspects. It was just the unknown. And sometimes when we don't know, um, how well somebody will cope with these injuries, um, we have to be mindful of safety for everybody. We've never faced anything like this before. It's sort of 'learn as we go'. And obviously there's been a bit more testing that we've done for Derek than we would for somebody else who was just rehabbing from a broken ankle or something like that. Um, so we've had to be mindful of the safety of the public and the safety of Derek and his patients and the other people that he works with. When I first started driving after having the amputation, with the prosthetic, the` the biggest thing to get used to was just... It's a complete change in how you control the accelerator. Whereas before I used my foot a lot to feather the accelerator, now all that action is coming from my knee and thigh. The other sort of challenge is learning whereabouts your foot is in space so you can move it back and forth from the accelerator to the brake without it getting stuck or hitting it on the pedal. (SIGHS) I suppose, you know, the idea of driving a large vehicle, um, under emergency conditions, it can be a bit to... to get, um, your head around. It's just been a matter of practice, you know? Just, over time, it's become second nature. Um, so it doesn't` It doesn't feel any different than driving normally. CRICKETS CHIRP I think because this hasn't shrunk here... Mm-hm. ...as much, so getting` Because of the extra... Cos` Cos of... So I'm getting... I'm putting the extra socks on to` to compensate here. You can feel it's just a hard lump there now. But it's gone down a huge amount. Yup. And you're not getting any of the support around here because you've shrunk so much. So since I had my first cast done, my stump is sinking into the, um, socket too much, which is giving me some issues with, um, pain and` well,... uncomfortableness in my knee. So the plan today is to take a new cast of, um, my stump, and from that, build an` a new leg. TAPE MEASURE CLICKS Because my stump is much better-shaped now, we are able to move from a liner socket, like I've got at that moment, which requires this large frame liner, to a much more active socket which will, essentially, have a similar gel liner to this. So you get a much better fit. You've shrunk quite a lot, but you are still actually bulbous. The Artificial Limb Centre has become a very familiar place to me over the last seven months. My latest prosthetic limb will have a flexible ankle so I can pivot and rotate ` easier for me to lift and carry stretchers. Both hands. SQUEAKING Oh yeah. Easy. CAST SQUEAKS, POPS Perfect. (LAUGHS) Now, that is perfect, and this certainly won't go back on again. No. (LAUGHS) We can take off this, uh... this stocking. Huh. So I'll start by filling this with plaster. I'll then cut it off and create a... a model of your leg, and then I'll rectify that to what the socket's going to actually do rather than just the shape of your leg. Been a year since I've been in the back of an ambulance. I didn't sleep at all well the night before my first shift. Um, I started the shift at, you know, 6 o'clock in the morning, with everyone else. So I was worried about, you know, how well I was gonna manage getting up and going through the process of getting ready. You know, how long was it gonna take me? And then there's, you know... It just plays on your mind. What are you going to encounter that day? All right, guys, I'm off. Great. Have a good day. Thank you. How you feeling? I'm pretty good. I'm excited. I'm looking forward to getting... getting back. You'll be awesome. You have a great day. Bye, Joe! Bye! (GROWLS) That's not gonna work, is it? (CHORTLES) (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) No. See ya later. Mmmwah! Have a good day. Bye. Bye. (IMITATES CAR) AIR CON HUMS ENGINE HUMS, BIRDS TWITTER BIRDS CHEEP INDISTINCT CHATTER It was like I'd never been away. It was better than I imagined ` crewing as a third man, working my way up to longer shifts. I had three good months. SIREN WAILS This really started getting achy about a week and a half, two weeks ago. The last few days, the pain's sort of intensified quite a bit. I have a neuroma, which is a collection of damaged nerve tissue that are just matted and tangled. And the damaged nerves start growing, like, a small tumour. The last two days has been... The pain's just escalated to the` to the point where I'm not coping with it any more, and the pain relief that I had been on wasn't` wasn't cutting it. BOTH CONVERSE SOFTLY So we just need to wait for the registrar to get out of Theatre. This is really really gutting. Everything was going really really well. Mmm. (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) (LAUGHS) It has been a downer of a week, really, and I was so close to being back at work. I'm still staying positive, but it, you know... it's not been a nice week. Especially with the pain ` intense pins and needles and a scalding, burning sensation like my leg was in a bucket of scalding hot water. My orthopaedic surgeon doesn't want to operate. He's not sure what is causing the problem. Um, so, you know, he can go open it up, but then he` he doesn't know what to do to... to fix it. Doesn't know what to cut` cut away. It's` It's, um, you know... It'd just be operating blind, and he's not prepared to do that at all. And I understand it. (CHUCKLES) So when I had the escalation of pain, the only way to deal with that was to nerve blocker. So I've got a catheter tube here, um, which sits on the sciatic nerve. And then I've just got a medication that's being infused. So it feels like a... a very dead leg. What'd you make me run all the way till there for? Incredible the difference a day makes. I went down to the operating theatre, and this time they injected a steroid directly into the neuroma. As soon as he hit the needle in there, the muscle was twitching and vibrating. It just went crazy. Um, so it was quite obvious to him, you know, that it was the right spot. It was the cause of the problem. Um, and then within five to 10 minutes of the injection, all of the twitching that I had had for the 10 days previously just stopped ` just... absolutely just stopped, and along with it went the pain. It was... just... The pain was gone. Um, I went back up to the... my hospital ward after... after the injection, and, uh, I rang my wife. I was in tears and, um` and just said, 'Bring me my leg.' REFLECTIVE MUSIC I was so afraid that` that it was gonna be what I had to get used to for the rest of my life ` having to deal with this pain because there was nothing there that they could fix. That almost certainly meant I would probably be unlikely to carry on driving. You know, I was staring down the barrel of losing my career again, and it was, um` it was scary. It was really scary. You've got the new leg, Derek. How's it going? Oh, it's really great. This one's a real step up from the old one. It's a lot more, um, unstable, a lot more move` movable in the ankle. Yeah. Um, you've got the rotation in the foot, which is... which is great. Makes it a little bit more difficult to walk on, but it, um... it's so much more... makes the job a lot easier. Um, I haven't struggled too much with anything more than what I was expecting. So you're back to the full 12 hours? Full 12 hours. I've just done two blocks of full 12-hour shifts. Yup. And, um, the surgeon's happy for me to go back fully operational. Yeah. So just a normal double crew? Normal double crew. (LAUGHS) That's really exciting. Back to fully operational. It hasn't been a year since you've had your leg taken off. Seven months since the amputation. That's really cool. Yeah. Well done. It's a lot of work. Yeah. It's been a lot of work. UPLIFTING MUSIC Morning, Vince. Morning, Derek. How are you, mate? Oh, pretty good. (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) Oh, bloody` bloody good, mate. He's done his job for 15 years. How many lives would he have saved in that time? He's now back; he's working in the ambulance that attended him. Um, and it's nice for all of us to be on the other side of` of what we do, and how important our job is. I think we forget that` that impact that we have on our patients. So, um, yeah. It's great. It's nice to have him back. It's full circle, really. Hey, Bec. Oh, are you covering TAC first or...? Every time something happens, good or bad, at the moment, it does keep reminding me when we go back to that about how drastically life could've been a whole lot different than even what we've got now. It's just nice to have a future and start making plans that... around me being able-bodied and able to do most things. RT TRILLS, BEEPS RT: Pukekohe Station, Pukekohe 1. On the lights. Mill Rd, Pukekohe. Code 29. SIREN WAILS I get told about how inspirational I am and how amazing what I've achieved is. And so many people tell me they don't think they could've done it. My answer to that is I've done nothing that anybody else couldn't achieve, given the same set of circumstances. There's nothing superhuman here. I've made it back to where I was before the accident. I'm a paramedic. LIVELY CLASSICAL MUSIC Nominations for 8th Annual Attitude Awards are now open. For information and entry forms, go to... It's great to be in an audience where people are talking about ability and not disability. Copyright Able 2015