Sinead reaches out to the community
She was 20 years old when she, as a basic ambulance assistant, started her business
A young business woman from Edelweiss is using her business to serve the community.
Sinead Pretorius (23) owns a private ambulance service, but a big chunk of her daily work is helping people in need of medical assistance.
She is also closely connected to the community policing forums of Springs and Brakpan, as well as organisations and individuals where she regularly has the opportunity to give food and clothing to people she meets.
She also provides free medical assistance at events such as last year’s feeding of people in Butler Park, and at Springs Advertiser’s Wheels and Wings event.
It is especially her paramedic experience Sinead uses to help the community, often for free.
She does regular “house visits” and gives advice to many people in the community.
She feels if you help someone more than three times they become family.
It is when something happens to one of these people that it becomes very traumatic for Sinead.
She also has a soft spot for cancer patients, because her uncle died of cancer.
It was during his treatments at the Little Company of St Mary Hospital where she, as 12-year-old, helped the caregiver.
During these visits she realised how wonderful it is to assist patients.
Another incident in her life, during 2010 when her uncle, friend and cousin died in a car accident was a turning point in deciding to become a paramedic.
She woke up one day after writing matric in 2011, and told her mother, Marie, she had chosen to become a paramedic.
Marie left her job and used her pension money to establish Sinead’s business.
She was at first sad that her daughter, after all the trauma she went through, wanted to become a paramedic.
Today Marie is responsible for the dispatching the ambulance and does the administration of the business.
Sinead says she was 20 years old when she, as a basic ambulance assistant started the business in 2012, which today has a staff compliment of six.
She completed her intermediate life support course in May last year and plans to do the advanced life support course soon.
“Every person on earth has a right to medical treatment and every second counts,” she says.
Sinead also believes that on many occasions she “buys back” a life for the sick person’s loved ones.
To work with death and trauma each day is not a problem to her and if it becomes too much she believes in talking to a trusted friend to get it out of her subconscious.
