God’s Plan or Purely Coincidence

I’ve never been a fan of the term “calling” as in "receiving your calling from God." I do believe that God has a plan for us. Whether this is any different from receiving a calling I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the same thing with a different name.

Ever since I started as a Patient Transport Officer I have been wrestling with the idea of applying to be a Level 1 Ambulance Officer (A/O). In the past month I have had the application printed on my desk waiting to be filled out. I realised that the closing date for applications March 16 so it was time to get serious or completely forget about it and look for other directions.

I finished filling it out on Monday and sent it Wednesday through internal mail. But ever since I got serious about the application something weird has been going on. For six months I have been in this job and for the most part it has been uneventful, which could be thought of as a good thing, but it can get monotonous. All until the last fortnight. We were called to not 1, not 2 but 3 assist loads for emergency cases. Here are some general details:

1. Man complaining of breathing problems. The house was a mess with clothes, cigarette butts, cans of vodka and rubbish everywhere. To top it all off he had defecated where he was lying. He was a big man and needed six of us to carry him outside onto a stretcher. For some reason this scene didn’t disgust me as much as I thought it would, I didn’t understand why.
2. Woman had fallen over and injured herself. Once again needed six of us to get her outside onto a stretcher.
3. Paint fumes were somehow distributed through the air conditioning of an office building. We were called in to potentially take multiple casualties to hospital. We ended up taking three walking patients to Blacktown Hospital where I had to do my first ever handover with a triage nurse. Meanwhile I had to get 3 sets of details for our paperwork. My partner sat back and watched for this process. I think he did it deliberately as he knew I had just submitted my application to be an A/O.

I was on such a high after these cases. I had a new found confidence of yes I can handle these situations and I may be good at this job after all. Only time will tell. It will probably take till the end of the year before I know anything.