By Bronwyn Hastings

Grampians region retiring paramedic Ian Jones feels as though he has not worked a day of his five-decade career with Ambulance Victoria, he has enjoyed it so much.

Starting work at the age of 17 in 1976, Mr Jones joined Victoria’s last group of ambulance cadets, completing a three-year program comprised of on-the-job training, education at the Ambulance Officers Training Centre and hospital placements.

Not yet licensed to drive, he was forced into the back of the ambulance, monitoring patients enroute to hospital while his supervisor drove the vehicle.

“It was very confronting – at the age of 17 I was delivering babies and attending car crashes and all sorts of other ambulance cases,” Mr Jones said.

“I was thrown in the deep end and I saw the world through a very unfiltered lens, while other people my age were still going to school.”

Mr Jones’ family moved to Australia from Wales when he was 15 and through two years of high school, he became interested in a career in emergency services.

Despite his young age, he committed wholeheartedly to a life in ambulance, leaving his family and friends behind in Melbourne and finding his own transport and accommodation to start his cadetship in the Geelong and District Ambulance Service.

“I was drawn to helping people and the excitement of going to work and knowing you’d be making a difference to the community,” Mr Jones said.

In the years that followed, he completed his cadetship and landed a job as a qualified ambulance officer in Werribee. He transferred to several branches across metropolitan Melbourne and spent a few years as an ambulance officer in Mackay, Queensland.

In the late 1990s, Mr Jones returned to Victoria, taking up a position at the then-on-call ambulance branch in Stawell, and has spent the rest of his career working in the Grampians region.

“When I arrived in Stawell we worked as single-responders and it was quite challenging, being dispatched to cases with no back-up nearby,” Mr Jones said.

“We’d get police or SES members to drive the ambulance if we needed to treat the patients.

“When ambulance community officers were introduced, it made a big difference, and now the branch has grown to have about 20 paramedics.”

Mr Jones has witnessed many changes across Victoria’s ambulance service through the decades, one of the most memorable being the introduction of trolley stretchers – revolutionising manual-handling requirements for paramedics.

“The country ambulances used to have four beds in the back, and you’d load two patients ‘upstairs’ and two patients ‘downstairs’ as we called it,” he said. 

“The manual handling was disastrous – it was so physically demanding. There would be two of us lifting the stretcher into the vehicle and then sometimes up onto a top bunk. 

“When they introduced the drop-wheel ambulance stretchers, that was just fantastic – it made the work so much easier on our bodies.”

Mr Jones officially celebrated 50 years in Victoria’s ambulance service in January and will retire in July.

As he prepares to formally farewell his career, he said it is the camaraderie he would miss most.

“Once you put the uniform on, you become part of a fellowship of likeminded people who are all there to do the same thing – to look after your communities and make a difference,” he said.

“The people I’ve worked with have been fantastic and I’ve made lifelong friends.

“Sometimes I look back and think I’ve never really worked a day in my life because it has been such an enjoyable job. I’m very proud of my time with Ambulance Victoria.”

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