Ambulance officer David Pang Kai-chiu saved countless lives during his 30-year career on the road, but now he has stepped back from the front line to help train the city's future paramedics
After serving as an ambulance man for almost 30 years, David Pang Kai-chiu knows his profession is 'undesirable' most of the time. 'People prefer to avoid us whenever possible. But they will count every second that they have waited and want us to arrive immediately when they are in need,' revealed the veteran, who is now the acting commandant of the Fire Service Department's Ambulance Command Training School in Ma On Shan.
'Unlike the police or firefighters, we seldom come under the limelight after accidents, possibly because we are always the first to leave to escort the injured to hospitals,' Mr Pang said.
He said ambulance workers had been given more recognition in recent years with the aid of a popular TV series. 'At least some will know we are an arm of the Fire Services Department,' he said with a grin.
Since his career began on the front line in 1978, Mr Pang has saved countless lives. But he never thought his expertise would be required to treat a member of his own family. 'I was on the overnight shift and the call came saying my father was in [cardiac] arrest,' said Mr Pang, recalling the incident seven years ago. 'I arrived and used the defibrillator, a primary first-aid treatment, but it didn't work. I then decided to perform intubation, an advanced life-support measure which had never been applied in Hong Kong for first-aid purposes, and his heart was revived.'
The experience was traumatic, but it lit the torch of ambition in Mr Pang, who hopes to bring the city into line with practices in other cities by providing more highly trained paramedics.
He was sent to Canada twice for training in 1992 and 1999, which equipped him to be the first local ambulance man qualified to perform several advanced first-aid treatments.