A fatigued Myrtleford paramedic has rolled his ambulance while driving home more than 18 hours after his shift began, a union representative says.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said the man, a paramedic with 23 years' experience, was "physically OK, but emotionally really quite distressed about what's happened".
"He was heading back home, he has veered off the side of the road and rolled the ambulance down an embankment," Mr Hill told The Border Mail on Monday, July 1.
The crash occurred early Thursday morning, June 27, after the man's rostered 12-hour shift had started at 7am the previous day.
"They're an on-call crew, so they were still out responding to cases until about 1.30 in the morning," Mr Hill said.
"One of those case was across the border in Corowa, NSW, they spent several hours ramped at Wangaratta hospital.
"It's just not safe to have paramedics working that amount of time and driving those sort of distances."
An Ambulance Victoria spokesperson said the man had not been rostered to an 18-hour shift.
"The safety of our people is paramount and we have offered support to our paramedic," the spokesperson said.
"Our initial investigations suggest the paramedic and an ambulance community officer were on call when dispatched to a case in Corowa at 9.30pm on Wednesday, June 26, and were cleared off that case at 11.16pm."
The incident is now being investigated by the Ambulance Victoria driving standards and health and safety teams.
"AV is reviewing the circumstances, including the movement of the ambulance between arriving back in Myrtleford at 12.39am on Thursday, June 27, until the rollover at 1.26am," the spokesperson said.
"However, there is no indication the paramedic was dispatched to a case at that time."
Mr Hill said the rollover highlighted what the union had been advocating for a long time.
"You can't rely on a fatigued person to identify that they're fatigued, you need to have proper control measures in place to ensure that paramedics get breaks, that they finish their shift at a reasonable time and that they have a manageable workload," he said.
"These paramedics didn't get a break, had a huge workload and finished well past the end of their rostered shift and sadly it's resulted in what could have been a fatal accident, it's terrifying."
