My year as a volunteer vaccinator gave me a new strength I might never have had
In January 2021, life had become a waiting game. Jobs, opportunities, and relationships were put on hold as the country locked its doors and waited to be let out again.
So when I saw a Tweet saying that St John Ambulance were looking for volunteers to become vaccinators, it quickly got under my skin. Initially, I didn't feel like the perfect candidate – for a start, I felt queasy around needles. But this wasn't something I could ignore. I couldn't help but imagine people asking me years from now what I'd done to help during the pandemic. And while life was so stagnant, the prospect of embarking on something new and exciting was impossible to walk away from.
The initial stage was quite understandably the hardest. St John Ambulance was on a campaign to recruit 30,000 vaccination volunteers in a race against time to get as many people vaccinated as possible. But it needed to ensure volunteers were up to the task and were vetted in a rigorous recruitment process. And so started the intensive process. I did three days of online training, from how vaccines create antibodies to safeguarding procedure and infection control. After passing an online interview, there was a day of in-person training, with a ridiculously talented array of volunteers there alongside me, including an Olympic swimmer and a bomb disposal officer.
The day covered everything from how to don PPE and spot signs of abuse to recognising signs of anaphylaxis and how to inject EpiPens. First aid is a vital requirement for the job, so CPR was an important part of the day. Performing chest compressions on a haunting dummy to Tragedy by Steps is something I doubt I'll ever forget. The climax of the day was our injection training. We were all given two test injections on a fake arm pad attached to a fellow volunteer. Once I'd passed, I walked out of the building at the end of the day, coursing with adrenaline and feeling braver than I'd ever felt before.
Nothing prepares you for being out there in the field and the first few patients were terrifying. But despite a batch of syringes that needed a ridiculous amount of strength to depress, they went well. Those first few were some of the most nerve-wracking and exhilarating experiences I've ever had and some of the proudest moments of my life. I was playing my part. Walking down the street in my bright green t-shirt gave me a source of pride so strong I couldn't keep the smile off my face.
The role is full of challenges but it's been an amazing journey to get me to the point where it feels like second nature to me and vaccinating has embedded itself into my muscle memory. The hardest shifts were those in the height of summer. Wearing black trousers and full PPE under hot glass was tricky. Finding a portable fan to prop up on the table made me a favourite in the vaccinating clinic. There were also shifts so busy I wouldn't have time to eat or even go to the toilet, and every available seat had a patient. But the rush of the day and the sense of purpose instilled a sense of importance and it was a privilege to complete those shifts, as chaotic as they were.
The joy of the job is of course the people, whether they're staff or patients. Having a patient smile or say they barely felt a thing has you walking on air for the rest of the day. When the age range for booking appointments dropped to 18, we suddenly had a larger number of nervous patients. I frequently had teenagers who really wanted to be vaccinated but were terrified of needles and would take deep breaths or listen to music while I did my job.
Some of my proudest moments happened when I didn't even have a needle in my hand. Once or twice a colleague would have a patient who was visibly scared or would keep jerking away from the needle. Talking someone down from a panic attack was the best feeling in the world. At the heart of it, that's what the job is – caring for people, and making people feel safer and calmer was the most rewarding part of that. Conversations where you bond with patients over your shared vulnerabilities cut to the bone of why the job was so wonderful and so important.
Many of us will think about the life we could have had if not for the pandemic and the type of person we'd now be. We'll mourn what we've lost. But out of the misery of the last few years, St John Ambulance gave me new experiences and forged a new strength in me that I might not have had otherwise –- and I'll always be grateful for that.
