Cape Town - “Retired” paramedic Ivan Koopman and a host of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) veterans have collaborated to bring their decades-long experiences and insights working during apartheid to serve as a resource and literature, particularly for current-day first responders, and to pay homage to those who paved the way forward.
Koopman is a retired paramedic who currently serves as a reverend and is also an author, with the book his 12th publication.
“I’ve been a paramedic since 1981 until I left the ambulance service in 1998 and then I went over to the training department.
“I then worked a number of years for St John’s Ambulance and I’ve trained first aid and also the basic paramedic course for a number of years.
“And that led me to do training in the UAE, in Abu Dhabi and in Dubai, and I worked there as a medical manager until my retirement.
“I returned home at the end of 2013/2014 and then I just started writing, but I’m still part-time training.
“I’m training the first-aid health and safety and firefighting as a freelance facilitator.”
After sharing a comical story at the table with his son, he was further encouraged to write the book, which he would title Waymaker, working with around 14 to 16 veterans sharing their personal stories.
“We were the first, especially of colour. I thought of this as a compilation and reflection of our highly skilled team of paramedics, ambulance, medical instructors, even local station administrators,” Koopman said.
“We started together in this era of the 1980s, working during riots, those experiences we shared.
“We were working with lesser equipment and we still had to respond to emergency cases with what we had and yet we saved lives.”
During apartheid, as people of colour, they were not allowed to work together and partner with their white counterparts.
“It started within the station itself, within the ambulance station and among us all.
“They would not use us and put us together, though there was an emergency.
“We were also not allowed to go into white areas,” Koopman said.
Chatting to the Cape Argus, he shared sweet anecdotes of how patients would serve them tea, and it was a time when it was not odd for patients to ask for their names in order to name their children after them.
The book is currently on sale for R350 but will be available at a discounted price at the launch.
The book launch will take place at the ambulance station in Alexander Road, Pinelands, at 12pm on June 27.
For more information or to place an order, contact Koopman at ivan@ ivankoopman.co.za and RSVP at 083 777 6580.
Cape Argus