Victorian paramedic breaks silence after falling asleep at the wheel 18 hours into shift

An experienced Victorian paramedic claims he was hung out to dry by Ambulance Victoria after he rolled his ambulance into an embankment at the end of an 18-hour shift.

Jim Avard started his shift last Wednesday at 7am and finished at 1.30am on Thursday morning, just across the border in Corowa, NSW.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Paramedic slams Ambulance Victoria for response to crash.

He had just dropped off his partner in northeastern Victoria and was continuing home, driving at 90km/h, when he dozed off and veered off the road and down an embankment.

The experienced paramedic of 23 years became trapped and was freed by another ambulance crew before he was flown to hospital.

“I just couldn’t believe it happened to me,” Avard said, admitting it’s possible he fell asleep.

“I was hanging by the seatbelt, so I couldn’t reach the radio.”

He has slammed the lack of support provided by Ambulance Victoria, and the statements made following the incident.

“It appeared to discredit me, and what I’d done and what my partner has done that day and night,” Avard said.

Ambulance Victoria’s initial statement on the matter denied Avard had been rostered on for 18-and-a-half hours, in what Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill labelled “gaslighting”.

“It’s wrong of AV to gaslight him and make out like he chose to do this off his own bat,” Hill said.

“You can’t rely on a fatigued person to identify that they’re fatigued, you have to have parameters around the work that they do.”

An Ambulance Victoria spokesperson apologised “for the framing of the statement” given on Monday. “It was not our intent to cause distress,” the spokesperson said.

The ambulance union claims working 18 hours isn’t rare.

They say paramedics can work a 14-hour night shift, and can easily get called to a final job that required them to ramp at a hospital for hours.

Reminders about fatigue breaks were sent to all paramedics on Tuesday afternoon, though Ambulance Victoria admitted there are “significant pressures” on the health system in Victoria currently that could lead to staff being overtaxed.