Kalbarri paramedic’s tale of goat screaming emergency featured in new children’s book

A Kalbarri community paramedic’s quirky tale of searching for a patient in pain, only to find a group of goats, has been commemorated by St John WA in a new children’s book, Land of Legends.

The book tells the true stories of volunteers, staff and paramedics such as Nic Chadbourne, who is featured in the story, No Kidding Around.

In 2014, during the Easter break, Mr Chadbourne received a call about sounds of yelling in Kalbarri National Park’s gorges, near Nature’s Window.

Mr Chadbourne scoured the scene for the source of the yelling.

Helping injured people out of the treacherous gorges and cliffs of the region was something he had done multiple times in his career, and he was expecting to do it again.

“We do lots of remote and extended works, and those are always challenging,” he said.

Then, a sigh of relief as he realised the yells were from the type of kids he didn’t usually treat.

“All we could find were some goats yelling,” he chuckled.

The story was just one of many Mr Chadbourne had in his list of anecdotes when St John WA asked for stories for their children’s book.

“Just like any ambulance person, definitely if you’ve been doing it for a while, you have so many stories that it’s like, ‘which one do I choose?’” he explained.

Mr Chadbourne said he hopes the story will capture some of the variety that comes with being a paramedic.

“I thought this story would be a bit different, give everyone a bit of a laugh, to point out our job isn’t always doom and gloom and you really never know what you’re going to find,” he said.

“I just hope some people read these stories and think ‘you know what, my community needs volunteers . . . you know what, I’m going to put my hand up.’”