General News
20 January, 2022
Paramedic saves lifeless girl
AN off-duty south west Victorian paramedic has saved a young girl from drowning while on holiday on the Gold Coast.
AN off-duty south west Victorian paramedic has saved a young girl from drowning while on holiday on the Gold Coast.
The incident occurred while Ambulance Victoria Corangamite senior team manager Greg Seiz was spending New Year’s Eve beside the pool with his wife and three children.
His wife was having a massage and Mr Seiz was grabbing ice-cream for his kids when he noticed a man break in to an urgent sprint towards the pool.
“I knew straight away something was up. I looked in the pool and a little girl was floating face down,” he said.
“I raced around the other side of the pool and helped the girl’s dad and a Lifeguard pull her out of the water, and started resuscitation.
“She was unresponsive, not breathing and her lips were a blue colour, so it was pretty dire at that stage.
“The mum sort of ran in from nowhere and she was hysterical seeing her little girl lifeless like that, which added pressure and intensity to it all.”
Mr Seiz said what occurred over a period of around 30 seconds felt like an eternity.
“I provided resuscitation to the girl, and she had a slight pulse. She had a very faint pulse,” he said.
“Then I got a bit of water out of her lungs, and then she coughed. She was breathing.”
Mr Seiz said Queensland Ambulance Service arrived quickly and whisked the young girl off to recover.
“She was fine,” he said.
“She was in hospital for six to eight hours and discharged without any issues.”
He admits it was an emotional moment the following morning when he saw the family back together.
“We saw the family in the breakfast line the next morning, with the little girl there, and it was a pretty special moment,” Mr Seiz said.
“The mum and dad were quite emotional and gave us a big hug.
“It was quite emotional for me too, seeing her there with her family. It was just a really nice outcome.”
While paramedics are typically reluctant to share their accolades when the outcomes are good, Mr Seiz said knowing both how easily these things can happen, and how everyone can help when it does, is vital to reducing the number of drowning incidents Australia experiences each year.
The young girl he saved was a proficient swimmer at a crowded pool which was well staffed with lifeguards. But as a paramedic, he also knows it takes only seconds for a childto drown.
“We grow up in a culture of water, swimming and enjoying our seas, lakes and rivers. But you turn your back for 20 seconds and the little ones can go under,” he said.
“It’s something we’ve all done.
“It can happen very, very quickly so you have to be hyper vigilant when kids arearound water.”
Mr Seiz said the next best thing is knowing how to respond when the worst case scenario unfolds.
Knowing CPR and the location of nearby AEDs can be the difference between life and death.
“Ambulance Victoria initiatives such as Call, Push, Shock and GoodSAM can make the difference when tragic events occur,” Mr Seiz said.
‘Call, Push, Shock’ is a movement to motivate bystander CPR/AED action, and GoodSAM is an app which alerts people who know CPR when there is a nearby cardiacarrest.
“It’s a really good idea for clubs, groups and organisations to have AEDs in the event of a cardiac arrest because CPR and AEDs can save someone’s life,” Mr Seiz said.
“If the person does not get compressions straight away, it reduces their chances of survival by 10 per cent with each passing minute.
“So hands on the chest early, and know what to do. It can make that difference, and these are all things anyone can do.”
To learn more about Ambulance Victoria’s life-saving initiatives visit www.callpushshock.org or www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/goodsam.
