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Cardiac arrest survivor Marita Hook (right) with friend Glenn Miles, who helped save her life on the floor of a Cheltenham pub.

Marita knows why Victoria is one of the best places in the world to have a cardiac arrest

A record number of Victorians stepped up to use publicly accessible defibrillators to save others, with some shockingly good results.

  • Grant McArthur

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Paramedic Kathryn McCormack said she felt let down after charges of assaulting an emergency worker with withdrawn in a case against a man alleged to have kicked her during an on-duty attack.

‘An absolute let-down’: Paramedics furious over assault law loophole

A man who attacked a paramedic will not face a mandatory jail term because his victim was not treating a patient, sparking calls to overhaul a law designed to protect first responders.

  • Grant McArthur
Paramedic Luke Harrington was recently assaulted on the job.

Spat on, punched, rammed with a car: The shocking list of paramedic assaults

A spike in the frequency and severity of attacks on paramedics has triggered a plea for people to have greater respect for first responders.

  • Lachlan Abbott
A pothole in Woodend that blew out the transmission of a car, taken in November 2024.

Patients left waiting, unfilled potholes: Department report flurry shows missed targets

Victoria’s underquoting crackdown has tapered off and potholes remain a problem for the government, a glut of annual reports reveal.

  • Aisha Dow, Rachel Eddie, Patrick Hatch, Clay Lucas, Carla Jaeger and Broede Carmody
A young cricketer is fighting for his life in hospital after being injured during cricket training in Melbourne on Tuesday.

Teen fighting for life after being struck on the neck in cricket nets

The boy was treated by specialist paramedics at a Ferntree Gully oval after a cricket ball hit his neck.

  • Angus Delaney, Hannah Hammoud and Daniel Brettig
Current and former Triple Zero Victoria staff current and former staff say they have no confidence that the essential service will be able to weather a future surge in demand.

Millions were spent on a ‘back-up’ Triple Zero system that could have kicked in this week. It was quietly shelved

Insiders liken the Triple Zero system to the unstable building brick game Jenga, but a replacement system has just been pushed out “at least six months”.

  • Aisha Dow and Clay Lucas
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Monash University paramedicine student Prabhjeet Gill says he was left shocked after raising his religious needs for an Ambulance Victoria mask-fitting test ahead of mandatory placement.

A single piece of cloth stands between this student and his lifelong dream of becoming a paramedic

For religious reasons Prabhjeet Gill has a beard and does not cut his hair. He was shocked when he was told this meant he couldn’t do a required mask-fitting test.

  • Broede Carmody
Triple Zero Victoria staff in Ballarat had to make do with a manual “back-up” system like this one during Wednesday’s computer outage. Handwritten job cards were assigned to local ambulance crews for dispatch.

Triple Zero dispatchers forced to use pen and paper during hours-long outage

Victoria’s Triple Zero system was forced offline for several hours overnight, triggering major inefficiencies in the call-taking and dispatch process.

  • Aisha Dow, Clay Lucas, Hannah Hammoud and Rachel Eddie
Peninsula Health’s chief operations officer, Jana Gazarek.

Ambulance ramping is a global problem. This Melbourne hospital thinks it’s solved it

Through simple changes in its emergency department, this hospital has slashed ambulance waiting times by two-thirds.

  • Broede Carmody
Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill.

Paramedic hospitalised after alleged assault in Mornington

Members of the public had to intervene after two female paramedics were allegedly set upon.

  • Angus Delaney