Saving Lives in Sierra Leone

For the past few weeks, EMS World has been documenting the journey of British paramedic Peter Simpson, who traveled to the front lines of the Ebola response in Sierra Leone. Pete is one of the first paramedics from the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust to join the fight in West Africa, working as an ambulance coordinator in Freetown’s Ebola Command and Control Center.

King’s College London is at the heart of the UK government’s Ebola response package for Sierra Leone, and Pete traveled to Africa as part of the King’s Sierra Leone Partnership.

In his journal—available at EMSWorld.com/12013301—Pete writes about meeting British volunteer nurse Will Pooley at Connaught Hospital in Freetown. Pooley was the first U.K. citizen known to be infected in the current outbreak, but made a full recovery after he was flown to London and treated in isolation with the experimental drug ZMapp. He soon returned to Sierra Leone to continue the first against Ebola. “This guy is a legend back home, and here I am standing next to him,” writes Pete. “Then a thought strikes me: He’s going to show me how to put on my PPE and, more important, how to take it off and decontaminate, but isn’t he the guy who got infected and had to be flown home?”

As Pete quickly learns, the intense heat inside a PPE suit leads to profound user dehydration that can contribute to mistakes going through the disrobing process. Pete also describes his experiences in the latest episode of our Word on the Street podcast, where he chats with EMS World Editorial Advisory Board member (and Pete’s former boss in the U.K.) Rob Lawrence. See EMSWorld.com/12017263.