At the Canberra Hospital, Georgia Gotts has the unenviable title of trauma coordinator.
Key points:
- This year's ACT road death toll is the highest in 12 years
- First responders are calling for safer driving on ACT roads
- Paramedic Pat Meere says seeing the victims stays with you forever
The role includes ensuring there are adequate resources to treat patients following life-threatening incidents, like road crashes — a combination of doctors, nurses, wards people, and administration staff, along with intensive care theatres, and the blood bank.
"We're heads down, concentrating on what we're doing and doing the best job we can," Ms Gotts said.
But the nature of the job sees Ms Gotts navigating her own trauma, too.
"When you're working on a patient, you're focused, and then you'll have that moment where you realise this person's attached to a family and you have to regroup, regather, refocus."
That becomes harder when family members are confronted, on arrival, by the sheer volume of resources — human and machine — working to save their at times "unrecognisable" loved one's life.
These moments are seared on Ms Gotts's memory.
"I can recall one instance of a person, a family member, coming into the intensive care unit and seeing their family member in the ICU bed and just dropping to their knees and screaming in anguish. And that's something that will stay with me forever," she said.
'It never goes away'
ACT Ambulance Service paramedic Pat Meere agreed with Ms Gotts.
"When you see a deceased person in a motor vehicle accident, that's something that you never forget," he said.
"You never forget it because they have sustained significant trauma, they may be losing limbs. Their features will not be normal."
This year, 18 people have so far died on ACT roads, the territory's highest road toll since 2010.
The ACT Government's 2021 Road Safety Report suggests 15 to 20 per cent of road crash casualties are admitted to hospital each year.
"There's still great loss that's experienced by these patients and families even when they survive the injuries," Ms Gotts said.
She is pleading with Canberrans to "be careful", a sentiment echoed by her emergency agency peers.
"That decision that you make has a greater impact on those around you; not just yourself. And it does ripple through emergency services, the community, your family, your friends," ACT Fire and Rescue Commander Guy Cassis said.
"For us, these events are cumulative and they stick with us for years. It sticks with everybody for years. It never goes away."
For ACT Policing Acting Inspector Travis Mills, "there's nothing more confronting than to actually knock on somebody's door to advise them that their loved one has lost their life as the result of a vehicle collision."
First responders calling for education
The ACT's high road toll has led to demands from some in the community and the police union for government intervention, including calls for a review of sentencing and bail laws.
The Australian Federal Police Association has suggested seizing vehicles involved in street racing or even destroying them, to deter offenders.
But the ACT's first responders are advocating a different approach.
"Mums [and] dads need to have these conversations. Kids in cars need to say to mum and dad, 'put down the phone', 'hey slow down'. 'Mum, Dad why did you just go through that yellow or red traffic light?''" Acting Inspector Mills said.
"Education is the key, and we need to have these conversations to stop having these conversations."
"If we all just think about our actions and the way we're going about things, coupled with education, I think we're on the right path," Commander Cassis said.
Despite the personal mental and physical toll, Ms Gotts says she' has "never" considered walking away from what she does.
"We do this job because we love it," she said.
"Working with patients and families … helping them come to terms with what they're confronted with. Personally, I think that's one of the biggest privileges of my job."