A New Life: Paramedic Jim Leonard tells Patricia Weston his dread of staring at a retirement clock was motivation enough
Jim Leonard had a fear during his working life that he'd retire with nothing more than a carriage clock.
He had visions of ending up a pensioner regretfully staring at his clock on the mantelpiece and feeling he'd achieved nothing worthwhile.
This dread ticked away in his head until he decided to finally get out of the job he was miserable in and find something more fulfilling.
He became a lithographic printer when he left school. He says, "I slipped into printing when I was only 17 years old. After a few years I knew I wasn't happy and felt very isolated. I'd wake up in bad form having to go to work and I'd be wishing my life away wanting the week to go quickly."
He worked as a printer for 10 years before realising he'd be happier in a job where he could interact with people.
"I felt encased in a print room so I wanted to get out and meet people."
The longer Jim remained a printer the unhappier he became. "I hated being on the factory floor, and hated being surrounded by noisy machines day in, day out.
"I also had this horrible fear that I'd be doing the same job 40 years on. I had visions of being on a factory floor printing corporate magazines and then retiring with just a carriage clock and no sense of achievement," he says.
This fear became so great that he didn't worry about leaving a secure, pensionable job to find a new career. "A few of the printers handed in their notice and that gave me the incentive to think about moving on."
Jim evaluated his options before quitting the print industry. "I knew I wanted to work with people and since I was a child I had a lot of admiration for the great work the ambulance do for people. I also knew I'd gain a sense of achievement with that kind of job, so decided to send in my application and see what came out of it.
"The day I got the letter to say I'd been accepted into the ambulance service was like the key to a whole new life," he says.
He took a huge salary drop in his first year as a paramedic. "Working as a trainee I earned £8,000 less a year. It did make me wonder why I was doing it because I had bills to pay but after the first year my salary increased with shift allowances and extras so I could manage my finances better."
The career change paid off and Jim never finds going to work a chore.
"I'm a much happier person now. There's never a morning when I wake up and dread going to work. Whatever shift I'm on, whether it's morning, noon or night, I put on the uniform and happily go to work knowing when I come home I'll have achieved something."
For Jim, working as a paramedic is exhilarating, satisfying and unpredictable. "When you begin your shift you never know what to expect, you could be called to a very serious traffic accident or have to treat a person with only minor injuries.
"We start every shift by doing a pre-vehicle check to make sure we have all the necessary equipment in any event. Once the vehicle is ready, we await the call."
And he has every confidence in his abilities to deal with any situation because of the excellent training he received.
"We are so well trained for all emergencies that I never feel I wouldn't be able to cope when I come across an accident. We're trained to deal with suicides, sudden deaths and cardiac patients and when you go out on the road all the training kicks in," he says.
Dealing with some incidents can have a traumatic effect on paramedics.
"I work from St James's ambulance station in Dublin so we're very busy.
"Sometimes paramedics can come across accidents that would have a traumatic effect on them. This is especially true if, for example, a paramedic comes across a dead or injured child the same age as their son or daughter. They would be affected by it because they can put an identity on the casualty."
The ambulance service has a critical incident stress management, which is a network of peer support workers available to counsel and deal with disturbing accidents.
"Each ambulance has one or two Peer Support Workers and after an accident we meet and debrief, particularly if it was a bad accident. If it's a high-profile accident, like the bus crash on Wellington Quay, and the media and gardaí are involved, then the accident would definitely need to be discussed."
Although Jim might have his difficult days he never regrets giving up his job as a printer.
"We walk into people's lives at the most horrific times, during an accident or at the most joyous times when a woman is giving birth, and to be able to put a person at their ease and see the relief on their faces when we arrive - that's an achievement. I'd never leave the ambulance service and I no longer have that fear about retiring and having achieved nothing because I know that the day I retire I'll be able to say for certain that I did good."