Paramedic threatened at knifepoint inside Kelowna ambulance station, union says

A B.C. ambulance is seen in this undated file photo. (CTV)

The union representing ambulance paramedics in B.C. is calling on the province to beef up security after they say a knife-wielding woman attacked a worker.

Ian Tait, communications director for Ambulance Paramedics of B.C., told CTV News a paramedic was washing an ambulance inside the station in downtown Kelowna with the bay door open in the early hours of Dec. 10, when an agitated woman brandishing a knife confronted him.

“She was clearly in distress, making all sorts of threats of violence and potentially wanted to stab the paramedic,” Tait said.

The union says the paramedic kept his distance from the alleged attacker using a wash brush until more staff arrived to de-escalate the situation.

Nobody was injured during the incident, but it was “definitely a scary situation for everybody involved,” Tait said.

He said paramedics working at the Kelowna station and others nearby have brought forward many safety issues recently including people breaking into cars and setting fires.

“Our paramedics day in and day out are noticing an increase in violence,” said Tait. “We’re dealing with more unhoused, more people suffering from addictions, toxic drug stuff and people really suffering in the community, and we’ve noticed that the safety of our members is more and more in jeopardy every year.”

He said the union is unhappy with the lack of action B.C. Emergency Health Services, run by the provincial government, has taken to address the issue.

“We’ve brought that forward so many times just to say, listen, we’re responding 24/7 to the community, we’re trying to do the best we can to keep everything staffed and respond when people are in need and we’re just not getting a basic level of safety at our own ambulance station,” Tait said.

Ambulance stations across the province, Tait said, are in a state of “absolute horrible disrepair” and the union is urging BCEHS to upgrade them as a security measure.

BCEHS is taking the incident seriously and deployed security guards to patrol the downtown Kelowna station, executive director and chief ambulance officer Leanne Heppel told Castanet.

She said the province is assessing the quality and safety of the roughly 180 ambulance stations across B.C.

“Kelowna would be one of the stations that we're looking into. It is one of our stations that's in a fairly busy downtown core urban area and so at times, the downtown stations certainly have more issues that need to be addressed,” she said.