He deals with death and tragedy on a regular basis. He arrives at the scene of an accident where there is human carnage. He is present when children are injured - in shock and possibly near death. He has to help elderly people who are hurt. It's not an easy job. Blood is all around.

And yet Fergal Linehan, who drives an ambulance for the Southern Health Board, loves his job. He goes out each day with a certain eagerness. His job gives him a great sense of satisfaction, he says.

"I loved it from the first day and I've always found it very challenging. It's very taxing on yourself," he says.

"You are taxing yourself all the time - you are putting yourself in situations that demand a lot of tact, common sense, patience and caring for people. "You need a sense of caring for people. You have to be a compassionate person. It's nice to go out and feel you've made a difference. It's the level of satisfaction, of making a difference, no matter how small. It's an extremely challenging job," he says.

"You never know. A routine hospital transfer of an elderly patient from a hospital ward to a long-stay nursing home can be as challenging as an accident scene." It's important to give that patient time to chat, he says. They may sit down for a cup of tea. "They'll tell me things they've seen in their lives and there's a lot of satisfaction to be gained from giving them time as well," he adds.

"I could be going from that situation to somebody who has just fallen from a building site. It's a constant high. It's a natural high. I couldn't see myself doing anything else."

The job demands a high level of dedication, he says. As for dealing with situations that are traumatic and difficult to handle, he says, "I know the patient is depending on me. I have to be professional all the time." After finishing, "I have ways of relaxing. I go fishing. I leave the job at work. You have to develop your own defence mechanism to switch off. It comes with experience. But you don't turn cold. You have to keep a certain level of compassion. If things upset me, I go home and talk to my wife."

The worst days can, he says, "make you take stock of your own life - your vulnerability. It makes me humble. It makes me see the value of life. It also makes you live every day and look forward to what's ahead. Our own mortality is just around the corner."

At school in Cork's Scoil Stiofain Naofa he didn't want to go on to third level. "That wasn't the avenue. I knew in my head what I wanted to do." He joined the Red Cross when he was 11 and he never looked back. He was part of the Cork City Red Cross team that won the President's Trophy in 1987, he recalls.

From the start he loved the idea of helping people. After his Leaving Cert in 1986, he began applying for a job in the ambulance service but it took a while to succeed. "It can be tough, they are looking for a certain type of person. It's up to you to get across how capable you are. I applied to different health boards."

In the meantime, he took a job driving trucks in and around Cork city. He was offered a job in the service in 1995. He and one other, a woman, were taken on that year by the Southern Health Board. After six weeks of basic training at the National Ambulance Training School, he was stationed in Tralee, Co Kerry.

Today he's based in his home-town of Middleton in east Cork, servicing an area that covers a 40-mile radius from the town. He always travels in twos. An emergency medical technician's job is very much about teamwork, he says. He's currently completing a diploma course in emergency medical technologies in Dublin's Phoenix Park. Half way through the course, the trainees are put through their paces in pretend scenarios in which an "actor" is used to play a patient. Linehan must assess, manage and treat this patient, explaining each of his actions to the examining doctor.

As to the future, he'll stay with the ambulance service, he says, adding only that "I would like to progress to advanced training where we could do more invasive techniques to enhance patient recovery".