Cork ambulance worker retires marking the end of 101 years of family service to NAS 

AN ambulance service worker in Cork City retired from the National Ambulance Service (NAS) this week after 29 years, marking the end of 101 years of family service to the NAS.

Shanagarry resident Jas O'Callaghan finished his final shift on Wednesday having worked in the service since 1994.

“I’m looking forward but I’m also looking back today,” Mr O'Callaghan told The Echo before he clocked off for the last time.

“I’m leaving a nice bunch of people,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the next chapter in my life though.” 

During his time in the NAS, Mr O’Callaghan served in several different roles.

“Back in the day, I was an ambulance driver, and I did emergency work for five and a half years in New Ross, my home town," he recalled. 

“Then I got promoted to be a controller in the regional ambulance control room in Wexford, where back then you had regional controls.

“I did that for 16 years and then under redeployment I was retrained and one of my options for redeployment was Cork, so I came to Cork then in September 2016."

Most recently, Mr O'Callaghan worked as a supervisor in the NAS.

“For the last five years I’ve been working on a specialist ambulance," he explained. "It’s called critical care retrieval service. It’s a service we run with CUH.

“I work with a team and the team comprises a consultant, a senior ICU nurse and myself, and we would go get ventilated patients from the likes of Waterford, Clonmel, Bantry, Mallow, Tralee and bring them into Cork into the ICU where they’d be going forward for specialist treatment, or sometimes then we’d move people from Cork to the specialist hospitals.” 

Mr O'Callaghan's decision to enter the ambulance service was partly inspired by family who served before him.

His maternal grandfather, Billy Stafford, first started working as an ambulance driver in Wexford in 1922.

“My grandfather did 42 years in the service.

"He was the only ambulance in the county for most of his career," Mr O'Callaghan explained. 

“That was the only ambulance in Co Wexford and he actually covered parts of south Co Wicklow, Co Carlow and south Co Kilkenny – the parts that would have bordered Wexford, he would have gone into those areas too.” 

Billy’s nephew Jimmy and Jimmy’s brother Frank would later the ambulance service.

“I came into the service then in 1994,” Mr O’Callaghan said. “Out of the four of us, I’m the only one still alive. I mentioned four, the four to be employed to be ambulance drivers, but in my grandad’s time he was an ambulance driver seven days’ a week, 24 hours.

“He was the only one so if he had a hectic run where he had two or three nights and he had no sleep, my uncle Aidan would take the ambulance and go pick up the nurse and do calls."

Reflecting on close to three decades of service, Mr O’Callaghan said one of the best aspects of the job is the people in the service.

“The one thing that amalgamates everyone in the ambulance service is they all have empathy,” he said.

While Mr O’Callaghan is planning some well-earned time to relax in his retirement, he has also signed up with Cancer Connect to do some voluntary driving.

“In the long term, if I find the winters are hard with not a lot to do, I could easily go back and do two days a week with some of the private services or maybe do something completely different altogether after 29 years!”