AN ambulance chief who was one held at hostage and chased a knifepoint as well being involved in responses to some of Scotland's biggest incidents has been awarded the Queen’s Ambulance Medal (QAM).
A Scottish Ambulance Service's Patrick O’Meara, General Manager of Events, received the accolade in the New Year Honours List 2021.
Mr O'Meara, 57, joined SAS in 1998, after 17 years at the London Ambulance Service.
Read more: New Year Honours 2021: Full Scottish list revealed
Throughout the past four decades, he has been involved in some of the UK’s most significant incidents, including the Clutha Bar crash where he was incident commander, the George Square bin lorry tragedy, and the Stockline Plastics Factory explosion.
Patrick O'Meara with Jason Leitch at COP26
Most recently, he has led the Service’s planning and response to COP26 and in the early stages of the pandemic, led on the development and implementation of the Service’s Mobile Testing Units.
Mr O'Meara, from East Kilbride, said: “I am very humbled and grateful and it’s a great honour to receive the award. In saying that, you never work on your own and any success is always down to being a member of a team.”
He started with the Scottish Ambulance Service as an Operations Room Officer, where he was responsible for control room emergency operations across Glasgow. Over the years at SAS, he has worked as a General Manager for Ambulance Control Centres, Community Resilience, and South East Scotland, which included the responsibility for the visit of Pope Benedict. Mr O'Meara is also the Chief Medical Support Officer of the Army Cadet Force and is a Trustee of the Poppyscotland charity.
Patrick O'Meara has been recognised in the New Year Honours list
The dad-of-one joined the London Ambulance Service in 1981. Growing up wanting to be a policeman, he said: “I learnt first aid as an Army Cadet and had to use those skills with a serious leg wound on a fellow pupil who was pushed from a second floor window and later on another pupil having a fit. I then felt that the ambulance service was a career I should look at.
“The ambulance service was very different to today. The skills were not as advanced as they are now, we did not have defibrillators and there was no such role as a paramedic, only advanced trained ambulance men.”
Read more: New Year Honours List 2021: The full UK recipient list
Speaking on some of his memorable jobs throughout his career - in addition to Clutha and the Glasgow Bin Lorry incident - he said: “A young man aged 15 had been stabbed with a machete and despite my efforts and those of others, he sadly died. I remember him pleading with me not to let him die. I have also attended a bombing, an aircraft crash at Heathrow Airport, I’ve been held hostage and attended an incident where I was chased with a knife!”
SAS Chief Operating Officer Paul Bassett said: “Pat has been an amazing ambassador for the Scottish Ambulance Service over the past 23 years and this award is testament to Pat’s dedication and professionalism. He has been heavily involved in several major incidents, leading as incident commander, and most recently, he successfully led the Service provision to COP26. We are truly grateful for everything he has done for the Service.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here