A team of four Sunshine Coast Queensland Ambulance Service workers have won the Working Together award category in the 2022 QBANK Everyday Heroes Awards on Wednesday 12 October.
QAS workers Brad Stokes, Joshua Lee, Prudence Snedden and Anthony Crompton, worked together for over 17 hours overnight to keep a patient alive after multiple cardiac arrests onboard an international vessel.
Brad Stokes said he was humbled to received the award.
“Obviously I was working in a team environment with three other paramedics and I think we’re all certainly very humbled to receive the award, as there were 29 finalists there across different categories from 160 applicants who were nominated for these awards,“ he said.
“It’s very humbling to receive acknowledgment of the work we put in.“
After reaching the ship by boat initially, deteriorating weather conditions made it too unsafe to airlift the patient off the ship and forced the chopper to leave the hanger.
The combination of a language barrier, incompatible and depleting resources, the defib almost completely running out of battery, exhausted oxygen supply and awful weather conditions contributed to a scenario that was literally life or death.
Managing to bring the patient back from the dead multiple times was the result of incredible skill, determination and unwavering strength of the team who continually resuscitated him and spent the entire night manually ventilating him for four to five-hour periods. Against all odds, the patient survived.
“If we didn’t have the support of each other I don’t think there’s any way that we would’ve had the successful outcome with this gentleman as we did,“ Brad said.
“It’s certainly not something we could’ve done by ourselves that’s for sure. Being stuck on a boat 5km out to see for 17 hours, I don’t think you could ever train for that.“
Brad said every single person at this year’s QBANK Everyday Heroes Awards had an amazing story.
“Rescuing people from floods, rescuing animals from floods, helping people that have had strokes or have been in car accidents, QPS officers helping people in domestic violence situations, the list goes on,“ he said.
“There’s so much admiration for so many of these people that are working in our emergency services that most people wouldn’t even know of.
“None of us do it for the accolades. That’s not what we’re there for.
“We do this job because we love it and we love helping people and we want to try make a difference in this world, in society and in the communities that we live in.
“Sometimes we can’t make changes, but sometimes we can. And there was a lot of people down there today that have made changes to people’s lives.“
