OpCen Report

QAS’s Emergency Medical Dispatcher James Rolleston and Paramedic Paul Spinks recently made news around the state. The pair were key players in a dramatic and successful rescue of grandmother Karryn Dolan from her Wolverton Station in remote Cape York Peninsular.

Karryn had been out hunting with visiting family friend Emma on 30 December 2021, when she suddenly collapsed, suffering a “widow maker” heart attack. Emma managed to get her onto her quadbike and back to the homestead to call for help and where luckily there was a recently installed defibrillator.

Working very much behind the scenes in a support role were OpCen Supervisor Jaala Papworth and Despatcher Chloe Page providing support, guidance and a lot of quick thinking to give EMD James Rolleston and the medical team the best chance of success.

Jaala has been working in the Operations Centre for 21 years, seven of them as Supervisor and in her words, she describes the role she played to support the team.

OpCen Supervisor Jaala Papworth

With around six to seven people on a shift at any time, we call Cairns OpCen a “boutique centre”, due to its size in comparison to other OpCens. As a supervisor, part of my role is to keep an ear tuned in across the room to pick up signs our team members may need support. When James took the call for the Wolverton Station case, I heard him trying to establish the caller’s location and “Coen” was being used.

This, combined with James’ response to the call, indicated the patient clearly wasn’t breathing and was needing urgent assistance, so it meant the earlier we could get things rolling, the better.

When I overhear someone is performing CPR, I always check the EMD is comfortable with what they’re doing. So, in James’ case, I touched his shoulder to let him know I was there, and he looked at me to say he was ok, so I monitored him from my own desk knowing I could drop into the conversation if needed, but he was following the script well and had developed a strong rapport with the people on the other end of the line. Once I knew he was handling that part of the situation comfortably, I then went back into supervisor mode. While James was working closely with the family, Chloe and I were working to see how we could best support our response as our first responder, Coen paramedic Paul Spence, is a solo officer.

At the time Paul was a little dubious about the distance, with an estimated travel time of about 1hour and 20 minutes to get there, but you do what you must do to provide aid.

After letting Paul know the station had a defibrillator in action keeping Karryn alive, we got on the phones to see who was available to provide some extra support locally for Paul. In these cases, we tend to rely on the other local agencies in the area, like Queensland Health’s local clinic for a nurse to go with him and the local QPS for extra support, so I contacted both to see what assistance they could provide. After a few tries, I got through to the Coen clinic’s nurse, and then the police, and was able to tell Paul he’d have local backup. Meanwhile James continued his phone support and CPR instructions while I worked out firstly if this was a viable arrest and secondly, how best to get Karryn out for care. I called Retrieval Services Queensland (Brisbane-based) and we worked out flight options and we were simply lucky the Royal Flying Doctors Service was on its way to Bamaga at the time, so we had a fast response. Once we got that backup for Paul, I then looked to see how we could provide extra support closer to the Station itself. That’s when you start thinking laterally to try to provide extra support for the first responders. I knew there was a roadhouse at Archer River, between Coen and Wolverton Station so called there to see if there were any auxiliary firefighters or holidaying nurses or doctors passing through who we could call on to see if we could get any extra helpers, whether it’s someone to help with the driving, or even just extra sets of hands in case they were needed.

This was all being done early on during James’ call. During the night James continued to receive updates on Karryn’s condition and at around 11pm we finally received a sitrep from Paul saying Karryn was going downhill and was on the verge of rearresting. But at least we knew she was alive, and we had to get her out.

Karryn was 700km from the nearest hospital when she suffered a heart attack .

Image source: The Courier Mail

Paul and QHealth nurse Sandra Higgs who accompanied him from Coen recruited Wolverton Station owner Neville to drive the ambulance back to Coen to meet the rescue flight while they kept working with Karryn. It was a slow drive back to meet the RFDS crew but once the plane had landed and everyone was there, we were able to breathe a big sigh of relief… that’s one 000 call for the state so we still had all the other jobs going on at the same time.

With all this happening, we were doing multiple things at the same time – you’re multiskilling to the absolute max. I don’t think that was a particularly bad shift for work, but that job finishes and there’s another 5-10 on the shift you’re monitoring. RFDS transported Karryn and I debriefed with James. Once he’d disconnected, we gave him a hurrah and a chat and we spent time letting him process how well he’d done.

Then I spent time debriefing with Paul. In all these years he’d never had a job like that. He ended up sending me some photos.

It’s an amazing story that we managed to fly her out and she was still alive. We then closed that job and kept working for the night.

It’s nice to talk to the officers at the end of the shift and let them offload. By all accounts the patient is well.

Paul and I kept in contact for many weeks after this and we’ve now got a closer working relationship as a result. We have never met but have a bond there when you go above and beyond. This is often missed in the hype of the job. I love this role, and while I don’t think I was born to do it, I still have a lot of passion for it and I never tire of it. It was really interesting to be a part of this experience and it will be one I will remember for a long time. Some jobs do stay with you – mostly the bad ones, but this was a great outcome.

The Team preparing Karryn for transport.

Image source: The Courier Mail

These are the entries and calls made and received by OCS Jaala and demonstrates her continual support for Calltakers and Dispatchers – contacting officers, crews, call backs, facilities, etc.

• Checked mapping on location details / supported EMD

• 2017hrs OCS Dispatched Coen paramedic – gave details of location – Officer advised he will take the Nurse Sandy from the clinic – incident over 1hr away – advised AED on-site

• Attached QPS via ICEMS

• 2022hrs Called QH Coen to notify of incident and RN escort requirements

• 2034hrs Contacted RSQ Annette – Requested location of RFDS aircraft who may be able to attend location – RSQ stated 1 helo may get to Archer River Roadhouse based on previous

• 2034hrs NZCC consultant DR Colin conference call – active CPR at Wolverton Station – closest response 1hr away single officer with RN – Call received at 2017hrs CPR with AED (few shocks given) with ETA of + 1hrs (2130hrs) QAS – unknown cause ?trauma or medical. Consultant advised return pt to Coen – weather consideration and R700/R510 or RFDS – Nil aerial resource tasked at this time

• 2052hrs – OCS (2) attempts to call Archer River Roadhouse for assistance and landing strip condition report – nil answer

• 2110hrs SOS update of cases/crews [BAU for area] – notifications to CDS on pending workload – priority review

• 2117hrs Phone call to Officer in Port Douglas for code 1 – supporting Dispatcher

• 2117hrs PTT Sat – update location of incident – confirm kms

• 2120hrs OCS called MOS para personal mobile for code 1 backup

• 2122hrs SOS contacted for crew queries – Risk matrix / PPE / Covid results

• 2135hrs OCS called WEI para – dispatch details

• 2137hrs SOS ramp update – RAMPED 7142

• 2142hrs RSQ called OCS requesting SITREP – 20:51HRS On Scene – PMHX

• 2004hrs OCS made contact with scene Paramedic - update – Tasking aerial – SITREP – 3 shocks VT GCS5 SAT 97 stable but on edge of arrest. Discussion on RFDS landing strip at roadhouse

• 2012hrs RSQ advised Dr has spoken to Paramedic – Approved to divert RFDS Cairns from Bamaga to Coen for pt pickup

• 2249hrs OCS contacted SOS ramped – resources – teams CDS messaging

• 2300hrs RSQ update ETA RFDS meet time 2330hrs

• 2332hrs SOS & OCS cases review – staging and QPS notification for an incident – workload

• 0026hrs OCS called Nursing Home advising QAS crew outside to have someone meet

• 0042hrs OCS call to QAS Coen Paramedic – discussion of case/debrief

• 0049hrs OCS call back to an incident – further details obtained – continuation for remainder of shift