Paramedic speaks out after Kalgoorlie attack spurs St John safety campaign

A paramedic whose ambulance was badly damaged in a frenzied attack by a naked 25-year-old man in Kalgoorlie last year has spoken publicly for the first time about the trauma the incident caused her – but says she isn’t ready to give up her profession.

Bec Thompson is speaking out as part of a campaign launched by St John Ambulance on Monday urging the community to help bring the rate of violence toward paramedics down, with the service experiencing a 12 per cent surge in incidents this year alone.

Thompson is a patient transport officer in Kalgoorlie and was in the ambulance on December 7 when it was attacked by a man who had been seen wandering the streets naked earlier that day.

Confronting footage from the incident shows the man atop the ambulance bonnet punching and headbutting the windscreen while covered in blood.

Months on, Thompson still finds it difficult to recall what it was like inside the ambulance, but said she was thinking of her children during what she described as “the most traumatic moment in my life”.

“I have three young children at home, and I feared for my life whilst I was on that job, and it shouldn’t be like that,” she said.

Thompson said she and her ambulance partner received ongoing support from St John, but the incident had impacted her job since.

“I’m always just looking over my shoulder,” she said.

“I still have moments where I will obviously get a bit jumpy, but I guess I’m just left with that constant, anxious feeling of something like that happening again.”

Thompson is studying at university to become a fully qualified paramedic, and isn’t ready to throw in the towel yet, but also recounted other times when she had been assaulted at work.

“I was providing care to a patient and a family member come up and started touching me inappropriately,” she said.

Thompson said paramedics needed to be able to feel safe in their workplace.

“For all of us that do this job, we do it because we love caring for people, we love looking after people, and to be put in that type of situation whilst I’m doing a job that I do love, and being left traumatised and fearful for my life,” she said.

“It’s just ridiculous. It shouldn’t be happening.”

Paramedic Tiq Rehman said the Kalgoorlie incident was one of the worst he had seen, but reiterated there were incidents happening every day.

“Every one of us was watching that in fear and terrified and wanting to be there to look after our colleagues,” he said.

“That was caught on film, there’s a terrifying incident happening every day that was pretty severe and probably one of the worst, but we shouldn’t be normalising that.

“We get it. When you’re unwell, when you’re distressed, your loved ones are distressed. It’s an emotional time, but please don’t take that out on us.

“If you call triple zero, we will come, we are your paramedics. We are on your side, and we shouldn’t have to say it, but we need you to be on our side too.”

In 2025, St John crews reported 442 incidents, a 12 per cent jump from previous years. Of those incidents, 35 resulted in an injury to paramedics.

There were 46 incidents were reported in December alone, and there have already been 105 incidents reported this year.

More than one in three required a “code black”, which triggers a police response.

St John Ambulance WA chief executive Kevin Brown said the measure of success of the We Shouldn’t Have To Say It campaign would be when none of his crews were injured.

Brown said about half of the incidents were related to drug and alcohol-affected people, but that was not an excuse.

“That does not mean that all of those individuals have a total loss of rational behaviour, and there’s half that are not relying on that as an excuse. None of this is an excuse for me. It’s not acceptable,” he said.

Brown said he was backing his crews to put their own safety first, which could mean patient care may be delayed.

“We are very proud of our response times, and we will continue to focus on those, but we will not put our team at risk,” he said.

“Our core responsibility is to make sure our teams are safe, and we’re calling on the community to back us with that.”

St John has trialled things like body armour and body cams, but chief emergency officer Wil White said body armour was restrictive.

“Which is why we really want people to just look after our people,” he said.

Internally, St John will also update its training and support for crews to withdraw from unsafe situations.

Responding to questions this morning, Premier Roger Cook said St John had his support.

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