“YOU’RE always battling against the tide and everything is run to the absolute limit.”

That is how Dean Jay, a Halstead paramedic, describes his typical full-on “day”.

A shift can sometimes last up to 14 hours and he may travel as many as 250 miles in a day.

The father-of-two has been a paramedic for 14 years and it keeps him on his toes.

The 39-year-old, based at the Fenn Road ambulance station, Halstead, is working nights at the moment, from 7pm-7am.

He said: “People don’t realise the distance we cover. We do a lot of miles.

“You’re just on the go all the time and very often you only get the bare minimum 45 minutes of stand-down time. On a bad day, you don’t get that until your tenth hour.”

After collecting a patient, Dean might take them to Colchester General Hospital, where he will hand them over to a member of hospital staff.

The hospital is sometimes very busy and paramedics can wait one or two hours to hand over. As soon as he has done that, there will be another job waiting.

If a patient has been stabilised in accident and emergency and the hospital does not have any intensive care beds available, Dean may have to transfer the person to another hospital – as far away as Sheffield.

The most common incidents Dean attends involve people with social or psychiatric problems. In some cases, the person may have self-harmed or taken an overdose. He said: “You do have blood and guts jobs, but you can go for a while without anything serious like that.

“A few years ago, I was going out to lots of hangings. It’s just the way it goes sometimes.

“Sometimes you can predict what sort of weekend it might be. On a sunny day, you can get lots of motorcycle injuries because these guys have been itching to get out on their bikes.

“Very often accident and emergency is at the mercy of what’s happening in society. But when I go home, I can usually switch off.”

Dean added: “I think the public forget we’re people. Some think we’re superheroes and some think we’re machines, but we can get upset.”

Dean is a trained critical incident debriefer, which means he helps colleagues who have found it difficult attending a particular incident.

He said: “We’re just guys with a good set of kit and most of this job is about common sense and remaining calm. We’re there to promote the first line of recovery.

“It’s about having that nice manner about you and trying to make people feel safe.

“I love my job – having good colleagues and being able to do something constructive for a patient in my care.”