A peaceful Saturday afternoon was shattered by a loud bang when a car collided into the rear of a bus at Maritime Square, Habourfront. Within minutes, volunteer medic SGT2 (V) Ou Chun Ju and his team of career SCDF paramedics and medics were activated to respond to this incident.
“When we arrived, we could clearly see that it was a bad road traffic accident,” said Chun Ju. “Some of our firefighting colleagues had already entered the wreckage to assess the gravity of the situation while others were stabilizing the casualty. It was a tacit and automatic team effort with each member of the team knowing precisely what to do. The car driver’s legs were both trapped in his own vehicle and he was bleeding profusely. While my Emergency Medical Services (EMS) team members and I were closely monitoring the driver’s vital signs such as his blood pressure readings, the Fire and Rescue Specialists (FRS) were frantically reaping the trapped car doors with hydraulic tools. This was to allow the FRS to extricate the injured driver, enabling my EMS team to swiftly convey him to the hospital via an SCDF ambulance.”
Incidents like this are not uncommon to a seasoned volunteer medic like Chun Ju who responds to between five and eleven medical cases in each shift duty. Notwithstanding such frequent exposures, the sight of extensive injuries or the intense traumatic experiences encountered by his patients, especially children and the elderly, can at times be emotionally challenging for him and deeply etched in his mind.
Chun Ju joined the Civil Defence Auxiliary Unit (CDAU) in 2015 when he was pursuing his full-time degree in Computer Science at the National Technological University (NTU). Despite being a full-time web developer now, Chun Ju still actively commits two days per week as a volunteer medic at Alexandra Fire Station.
After reporting for duty in the morning, Chun Ju starts his day doing routine ambulance checks to ensure that every medical equipment in the ambulance is functioning and all the medical supplies are sufficient and ready for use in the event of any medical emergency or trauma call.
“Alexandra Fire Station is among the busiest ambulance bases in Singapore where emergency calls and turn outs are very frequent daily. On certain days, we could be activated round the clock with hardly any respite. On numerous occasions, we raced against time to arrive at incident sites but only to encounter individuals who called us for non-emergency situations. Some of my EMS colleagues lamented that people call us for frivolous, non-life-threatening calls such as, believe it or not, toothache or simply being unable to sleep at night!” claimed Chun Ju.
Apart from responding to emergency medical cases, Chun Ju and his team of volunteer medics formed a study group to refresh the knowledge gained from the training they received at the Civil Defence Academy (CDA) and to also exchange notes on their experiences acquired from attending to the ambulance calls.
Volunteer medics have to undergo a 6-week part-time course at CDA before joining the CDAU fraternity. In addition, they are required to have prior experiences either as a medic or any profession that involves the use of lifesaving skills such as a doctor or nurse.
Chun Ju was a medic in his National Service days with SCDF, during which he honed some lifesaving skills. In fact, this had enabled him to render immediate medical intervention on his grandfather when the latter sustained a head injury from a fall.
“These lifesaving skill sets are extremely useful as they not only enable me to save the lives of others but also that of my family members,” said Chun Ju. “To me, it is not just a lifesaving skill but a useful life-long skill in that once you had acquired it, its useful practical values stay with you throughout your life.”