The paramedic team of Dave Moran and Ray Smythe, who work at the Wauchope, New South Wales Ambulance Service, were taking a terminal elderly woman, Mavis, out of her home and onto a palliative care unit.
She was was very ill.
They started chatting away, and Mavis spoke off many things.
Of how she desired to die at home, and hope she could do so.
And she spoke of her meeting her husband of 65 years, Ron, at the beach.
And how they loved the beach.
Ron had recently passed.
Said Ray, "She mentioned her and Ron had met on Clovelly Beach, and Dave piped up from the front seat and said 'do you want to go via the beach?'”
“Well, do you want us to take you down by the esplanade?”
And they did so, as they stopped at Flynns Beach in Port Macquarie, and brought the gurney out facing the water.
They could smell the ocean in the sea breeze.
"So we went off to Flynns Beach and Mavis was quite impressed ... she spotted a whale.
She was becoming quite frail and couldn't get out of the stretcher but her mind was as sharp as a tack and she knew what she wanted".
Dave went down to the waters edge, and collected both wet and dry sand, and a cup of sea water.
Which they put into her hands.
Mavis tasted the water.
They both stood by her gurney for 45 minutes. She had her eyes closed much of the time with the sun on her face and the salt water in the air.
It was a quiet time, with each person thinking their own thoughts.
She mentioned to the pair of all the many moments from her life at the ocean that were flashing in her mind and heart.
When she was a young child playing in the sand. When she was a young woman with a beau strolling at the shore. When she was with her young children as a family on a day outing.
Meeting her husband when they were both so young.
She was asked what she was thinking as she was watching the waves.
“I’m at peace. Everything is right.”
Before they left, they asked if they could take her picture, and she said that would be fine.
As they continued to the care center, said Ray, "She grabbed my hand once back in the van and kept thanking us. We really gelled with her."
20 hours later, Mavis passed.
Alas, she wasn’t able to make it back home.
"She knew she was towards the end of life, but I didn't expect her to pass away the next day … so that was a shock to us.
But she told us in the car she was ready to go."
Dave spoke of what a “humbling experience" is was to have given Mavis the moments of reflection.
"Her last journey was a lovely one. She could enjoy the whales breaching, the breeze and the water.
A couple of years ago, a lady had brain cancer and she wanted for the last time to see the beach again ... so we've done it a few times."
A few years back, the paramedic team of Graeme Cooper and Danielle Kellan who work at the Queensland Ambulance Service did similar... elderly woman, hospice care, beach detour.
In Western Australia…
In Victoria…
In Queensland…
In New South Wales.…
As Graeme said then, and how it applies here as well…
“In special cases where end of life stuff is going on, the contact we have is our last contact. We want to feel good about humans and people and the way they’re treated and managed so they get a good feeling. It’s always someone else’s father, mother, brother. If I lose my compassion I just won’t be in the job.
We’re very fortunate we’re in the role we do. If you’re sensitive to your surroundings, when a window of opportunity opens up, take it.
Sometimes it is not the drugs, training, skills.
Sometimes all you need is empathy to make a difference.
If you're sensitive to your surroundings and what's going on and you can seize a small window of opportunity, take it.”
As stated by one reader to the initial New South Wales Ambulance Service’s post, “Dignity is one of the last things you can give to a person at the end of their life journey. This was dignity personified by the crew.
Thank you.”
Thank you.
