Joanne Kerr spent 31 years running towards other people’s nightmares.

Fatal road crashes, suicides, violent assaults, medical emergencies and countless tragedies across northern Victoria.

She was spat on, stabbed with needles, strangled, threatened and traumatised.

And she delivered babies, comforted grieving families and carried the weight of lives she could not save.

But it wasn't the most gruesome job of her career which finally broke her.

It wasn't a bloody murder, a brutal attack or one of the countless horrors she had witnessed as a paramedic.

It was a stillborn baby and a grieving father's heartbreak.

For Joanne, it was the moment decades of accumulated trauma finally caught up and became her own worst fears and dreams.

“I just came home one Monday and I was broken,” she said.

“I couldn't do it anymore.”

That was in 2023.

It has taken more than three years for the veteran paramedic to heal enough to publicly share her experience of post-traumatic stress disorder and the devastating toll it can take on emergency responders.

She is speaking out now in the wake of the death of former Ambulance Victoria paramedic and young father Austen Todd, whose suicide sent shockwaves through the community.

Joanne had mentored Austen during his career and was among many colleagues left heartbroken by his death.

"Unfortunately, suicide is part of PTSD," she said.

“Within two weeks of Austen, we lost another ambo in Geelong.

"When the two suicides happened, I thought, ‘that could have been me’.”

The devastating loss reopened old wounds and reinforced Joanne’s belief more needs to be done to support emergency workers long after they leave the job.

“It’s knowledge. That’s it. People need to know,” she said.

When she joined the Victorian Ambulance Service in 1992, the 21-year-old was full of optimism and ambition, breaking barriers as the first female trainee in the service's North Area.

But decades of trauma, tragedy and human suffering ultimately came at a devastating personal cost.

For years, Joanne ignored the warning signs.

It was around 2016 when she began noticing symptoms of PTSD but convinced herself she could push through.

“I pushed them aside. It’s like, ‘I can’t have PTSD. I can do this’,” she said.

Instead, she moved into management, hoping reduced frontline exposure would ease the pressure.

It didn't.

“You just keep pushing through and pushing through until you break,” she said.

Like many emergency responders, Joanne was trained to suppress emotion and move immediately to the next call.

“You don’t have time to show emotion. You’ve got to be the strong one and the supportive one,” she said.

Her psychologist later explained it using a filing cabinet analogy.

“You just keep pushing it down and putting another file on top until eventually it’s overflowing,” she said.

After more than 30 years of trauma, the cabinet was full.

“It’s just overflowing. I was drowning in files,” she said.

The symptoms gradually took over.

Sleep became difficult. Recurring nightmares replayed traumatic jobs. Smells, sounds and everyday experiences could instantly return her to scenes she thought she had left behind.

“A smell can take me straight back to a job I did in the 1990s,” Joanne said.

She became hypervigilant. Crowded places felt threatening. Social situations became unbearable.

“I was a recluse,” she said.

“I couldn't go to a supermarket. I was always looking for an escape plan.

“I didn't want to go out anywhere because I didn’t want to be triggered.”

Even years later, the impacts remain.

Recently, she was having dinner at a restaurant when a table buzzer went off.

“I just flipped because it sounded like a pager,” she said.

On another occasion, after her daughter was involved in a car accident, she spent weeks feeling a phantom vibration on her hip – a somatic trauma response.

“There was nothing there, but it was my pager going off,” she said.

To cope with the nightmares and anxiety, she self-medicated and her drug of choice was alcohol.

“I was diagnosed with alcohol use disorder because I was using alcohol to dull it,” she said.

“A glass of wine became my coping mechanism.”

The breaking point came during what would become her final shift. A stillborn baby. A devastated family.

When the ambulance crew took the mother and baby to hospital, Joanne stayed behind, only to have the grieving father turn his anger towards her.

Alone and vulnerable, she found herself retreating towards her vehicle.

“I’m alone in this house and he's coming for me, abusing and screaming at me,” she said.

“I’m walking backwards, trying to get to my car and trying to protect myself.”

She drove home shattered.

“That was my very last job. I went home and I'm just like, ‘I can't do this’,” she said.

What hurt almost as much as the incident itself was what followed.

“Not one welfare person checked. They knew I was there,” she said.

“I didn't get any welfare calls, not even an ‘are you okay’?”

For Joanne, it felt as though the organisation knew how to support workers while they were useful, but struggled when they became injured.

“Once you’re broken, that’s it. They don’t know what to do with you and you’re gone,” she said.

Recovery has been slow and hard fought.

Psychologists, psychiatrists, eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, support programs, exercise, cold-water therapy and the unwavering support of her husband Rob have all played a role.

So too has Sammy, her therapy dog who helped her leave the house again after PTSD and social anxiety left her isolated.

“That was the start of me getting out of the house,” she said.

“He knew when I was upset. He’d come and sit with me while I cried.”

Today, Joanne says she is in a far better place. But recovery does not mean being cured.

“You'll never get rid of PTSD. It’s always there,” she said.

“Most days are good days now, but it’s always there.”

That reality is why she has chosen to tell her story.

She wants people to understand PTSD is often invisible, cumulative and potentially deadly.

She wants struggling emergency workers to know they are not alone.

And she wants the public to remember behind every uniform is a human being carrying the weight of things most people will never see.

“Just be kind to the police, ambulance and firies,” she said.

“They're just doing a job. Trying to help you, to protect you.”

Riverine Herald Google News Panels

Saturday, 14th October 2028

Your Afternoon Headlines

Select Stories

Publish Panels