Experience

Voices

Snapshots of our history through stories, quotes and anecdotes from past or serving ambulance staff.

If we had a patient upstairs in a house or in one of the many blocks of tenaments (quaintly called gardens such as Carl Gardens etc), we would have to leave the back doors of the ambulance open, wrap the patient in a blanket and top and tail the patient from the bedroom to the ambulance. Once you had lifted the patient you could not put them down until you were in the back of the ambulance
Dougie Sutton
Our Chief Mr Guinney used to say; “if the ambulanceman cannot cry at the loss of a child he may as well pack the job in”.
Dougie Sutton
When you are called to help someone never underestimate the healing power when you say "ambulance service" . Say it with confidence, conviction and pride.
Albert Guinney
I recall with great fondness my time spent on the Hatton Gardens Crash vehicle ‘Echo Zero Three’. It gave novice staff like me the opportunity to sample the exciting and intriguing world of emergency ambulance work…”
Mike Buoey
Remember this is how the public see the Ambulance Service.
Sign above the mirrors in the Ambulance Training and Education Centre
Tender loving care and the comfort of a hand to hold was the only pain relief we had to give patients before the arrival of entonox gas in the early 1970's. Being able to administer pain relief in the field was revolutionary in its day
Ian Fitton

THE WALL

The wall is a section in which we publish retired ambulance staff’s writings of their career. It can be a simple sharing of a short experience or a reflection of their whole career.

This is their wall and we hope that their experiences will help and inspire others.
I was teamed up with Brian Peters on Echo One at Anfield. You could feel that something was brewing in Liverpool 8 even before the incident that’s said to have sparked everything off. There wasn’t rioting, just skirmishing, but we were running people backwards and forwards to the Royal. Some were police, some were people that had been assaulted with stones. And then it was Friday and the weekend when it all really started: now that was really scary.
Speaking on his involvement in the 1981 Riots - Dave Sullivan
The banter of mess room humour is something that I have missed since I have retired.
Steve Evans MBE
Albert Guinney was a great advocate of ICAP and ASI training for both cadets and ambulance staff that wanted to better themselves. He often took night classes and I recall one of his influential teachings…. “Nothing great was achieved without enthusiasm. He who learns by his mistakes is educated and he who isn't lives them again and again" ..
Colin Roberts