THUNDER BAY — Following five months of employment, Thunder Bay paramedic Samantha Ledoux is increasingly worried by the fact that she hasn’t gotten to ride the search and rescue helicopter yet.
“I don’t understand why I’m being snubbed,” said Ledoux of her workplace, the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, “I understand that rookies get the boring shifts for the first little while, but I’m pretty sure I should have had a chance by now. What does it take to get a few hours of flight time?”
So far Ledoux has been strictly limited to land-based activity, and hasn’t even had a chance to do a tracheotomy. “I’m so excited to get started with the cool stuff! You get to rappel down from the helicopter into the woods, and I bet there’s a cool patch you can sew on your leather jacket.”
Ledoux has even taken to asking her patients if they would prefer that she called in air support. “No luck” she admits, “I try to tell them what a great view it would be, but it’s all ‘but there’s power lines’ and ‘I’m losing consciousness’”.
Temporary disappointment aside, Ledoux is working hard to prepare for her eventual flights by teaching herself semaphore signalling and sewing the superman symbol into her uniform.
