WARNING: Some of the details in this story are disturbing. Discretion is advised.
He started taking first aid courses in high school and that ignited a lifelong passion to help those in need.
Duncan Pelley is now a paramedic in Metro Vancouver, helping people every day.
“From the day I started this job till today, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world,” he said.
But Pelly, a primary care paramedic said he thinks the public would be stunned to find out about the violence they face on the job every day.
“I’ve been called every name in the book, been shoved by patients, been yelled at that I don’t know how to do my job, that I’m not helping them,” he told Global News.
“An elderly guy almost punched me in the face… We’re on the front line. We show up to people’s residences and everything at the worst times in their lives.”
Pelly said that in the last five years, he feels that violence toward first responders and paramedics has increased.
“I’ve been shoved by a patient before,” he said. “I recently almost got punched in the face by a patient who had dementia. Family told me that he was great with first responders, that he’s had no problems with paramedics. I went to talk to him, and all of a sudden, this snap of the fingers, he raised his fist and wasn’t able to stop his fist before it hit my face.
Pelly said he worries every day that he is going to be seriously injured or even killed.
“I have a family to go home to,” he said.
“I love being a paramedic, but every day in the back of my mind, I think I’ve got to watch out for myself and watch out for my partner.”
On Tuesday, Global News spoke to Greg Stubbs, a paramedic on Vancouver Island who was attacked and seriously injured while responding to a call at an encampment on Pandora Avenue in downtown Victoria.
“We went for a suspected seizure,” Stubbs told Global News.
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When Stubbs and his co-worker arrived they were directed to check out a person inside a tent on the street in front.
“We go in, we find this young man, he’s on all fours inside a tent, still trying to smoke whatever he’s smoking,” Stubbs said. “No idea. He’s not really talking very much.”
They got the man outside the tent, sat him in a chair and were doing vitals on him and Stubbs said the man was nice and compliant.
“At which point this gentleman stands up from the chair and he does like this nonchalant stretch, like you would after a nap, and before you even finish the stretch, he punched me in the face,” Stubbs said.
The situation escalated to the point that extra police officers from different agencies had to be called in to contain those inside the encampment and prevent the threat of further violence.
Pelly said he would like the public to know what paramedics have to face.
“I would like for us to get more violence prevention training,” he added. “How to have more see and telltale signs of violence progressing.”
Jennifer McKnight-Yeates works as a primary care paramedic in the Fraser Valley.
She told Global News they used to be able to go into a house alone but now they don’t consider that without their partner.
“You just never know what you’re walking into,” she added.
“People in distress or in mental health situations can’t necessarily control their emotions and they unfortunately take them out on us even though we’re there to help.”
McKnight-Yeates said a recent incident happened when they were called to a domestic violence call.
“Both of them were severely intoxicated,” she said.
“Everything seemed to be going fairly well until it was time to extricate the injured party. At that point, the husband came at me, went to grab me, started yelling more at his wife.
“Thankfully, I managed to back off a bit and get him to stand down and tell him that was not appropriate and he will not touch me again. He was apologetic at that time, but again, the sexual advances and all that continued on until we got to the hospital.”
Candis Visser works as a primary care paramedic and duty supervisor in Metro Vancouver. She said these stories are all too similar.
“The one that comes to mind for me is my partner and I being locked in a room with a man who literally assaulted his wife, shoved her out of the room, locked the door, and said, ‘OK, now what are you guys going to do?’” she told Global News.
“And it’s my partner, a female partner of the same height and size as me. And we were just thinking like, what are we going to do now?”
She said they called for the police and tried to de-escalate the situation and keep him calm until they arrived.
Visser said it is very scary.
“There are times where if your spidey senses are going and we need to prepare our stretcher for a patient, I will connect with my partner and say, ‘Hey, do you want to come give me a hand?’ Because I’m not comfortable leaving my partner in a room with that person,” she added.
McKnight-Yeates said sometimes the biggest struggle is letting people know they are there to help.
And despite everything they are facing, both women say they love their jobs and they love being paramedics.
“We report to duty every day, coming to help people,” Visser said.
— with files from Rumina Daya
