Cameron Edgar: Veteran northern beaches paramedic recognised on NSW Ambulance Appreciation Day
From being a 20-year-old raw recruit to dangling 150m above the ground and running the NSW Ambulance helicopter fleet, northern beaches paramedic Cameron Edgar has spent decades saving countless lives.
Manly
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“I’ve done things that I never thought I’d do.”
These are the words of a senior NSW Ambulance officer, who joined as a raw 20-year-old recruit from the northern beaches and went on to become a decorated three-decade veteran.
Chief Superintendent Cameron Edgar, who grew up at Queenscliff and started as a general duties ambulance officer in 1994, is now the organisation’s director of helicopter operations.
Chief Supt Edgar, who lives at Church Point on the northern beaches, is being recognised for his continued 30 years of service as part of Friday’s Ambulance Appreciation Day, which celebrates the dedication and commitment to excellence of NSW Ambulance staff.
Across his career, he has moved from a general duties ambulance officer to become an intensive care paramedic, a specialist in retrieving and treating patients in dangerous situations, through to overseeing the NSW Ambulance fleet.
Chief Supt Edgar developed an interest in becoming a paramedic after learning advanced first aid while serving in the Australian Army Reserve and having to treat soldiers “in the middle of nowhere”.
He was always drawn to complex outdoor roles, having served in the Australian Army Cadets while at Pittwater House school before signing up for the Army Reserve.
“The chance to combine two of my passions, medicine and the outdoors, has just been amazing.”
After completing the ambulance training course, he spent the first eight years as a primary care paramedic after his first posting to Marrickville ambulance station in 1994.
Chief Supt Edgar then went on to complete the intensive care training course in 2001 and was stationed mostly at Balgowlah.
His career took a different trajectory when he was seconded, for two years, to the CareFlight rapid response emergency service on its head injury retrieval helicopter.
“It was a natural extension to the role of being an intensive care paramedic,” Chief Supt Edgar said.
He went back to Balgowlah but was soon selected to join the service’s special casualty access team, completing an eight-week program that trains officers in how to get to patients stuck in difficult situations.
The course taught him how to abseil to patients stuck on cliffs, stay with people overnight in the bush, get to patients injured in caves and collapsed buildings, use breathing apparatus, and work in toxic environments.
“It was fantastic,” Chief Supt Edgar said.
“It was very hard, but it was one of the best things I’ve done in my life.
“The reality is that our patients are found anywhere and everywhere, and we have to be able to deliver the very best of care to them.
“The ability to be able to deliver paramedicine anywhere is a humbling feeling.”
Chief Supt Edgar recalled one job where he had to abseil 150m down a cliff in the Blue Mountains to treat a climber, who was stuck hanging on his rope with two broken legs.
“We spent the next five hours treating him on the side of the cliff, including putting in drips and giving him pain relief,” he said.
“We used some very technical rope techniques to remove him from his rope and transfer him to ours to take him down the bottom of the cliff, and we splinted his legs before carrying him to a winch site as night was falling.”
Working with CareFlight, Chief Supt Edgar helped treat burns victim Sophie Delezio when she was hit by a car at Seaforth in May 2006.
Chief Supt Edgar also remembered the first job he was called to as a new recruit: a woman who was receiving palliative care for cancer had collapsed.
He treated his first patient just weeks after his mother, who had cancer for several years, had died.
“There was this bizarre serendipity that my first patient was a woman with cancer,” he said.
“That was really hard, but my training clicked in and I did what I needed to do to help her.
“I was able to turn up to that patient having a very direct insight into their world.
“They didn’t know and I didn’t share that, but our life experiences shape the way we treat other people as health professionals.”
Chief Supt Edgar recommended being a paramedic as a great career option for young people on the northern beaches.
“There is so much diversity in this job,” he said.
“We can be delivering a baby on one job, then upside down in a car with a patient the next, or having a cup of tea with someone whose partner of 50 years has just passed away.
“At the end of each call is a human who needed some kind of help.
“Paramedics go, every day, to people in the worst scenario in their lives, to try and pick them up, help them and make the situation better.”
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