Student paramedic punched in the jaw in 'sickening' attack during emergency call-out
A 22-year-old man has been jailed for breaking a student paramedic’s jaw with a punch, leaving him needing metal plates and unable to fully return to work for the last seven months.
Jamie Davies called for an ambulance on 5 April claiming breathing difficulties and paramedics arrived at 9pm but found nothing wrong with him.
He had made six 999 calls in the space of just over an hour and had already been assessed by paramedics earlier that evening.
He demanded to be given an inhaler but as Chris Cooling, a student paramedic, and his colleague walked away, Davies punched the former in the face from behind.
Cooling, 40, had to go onto a liquid-only diet for four weeks after surgery and only recently resumed light duties, West Midlands Police said.
Davies left the scene in his Vauxhall Meriva, crashing into the paramedics’ ambulance as he drove away.
However, West Midlands Police officers found him and his damaged car the next day.
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An investigation found that on 31 March, days before his attack, Davies acted abusively to staff at a doctor’s surgery in East Coventry and smashed a glass door pane.
He admitted wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and was jailed for seven years and two months at Coventry Crown Court on 24 November.
“This incident has had a massive impact on me,” Cooling said.
“I have so far lost seven months of my life to this attack and I am not yet able to resume my career, a career that I love.
“Like my colleagues, I come to work to help people. I suffered particularly severe injuries but many others have also been attacked.
“It is sentences like this that will make people stop and think before they do something similar, yet too often the sentences do not reflect the effect such incidents have on us.”
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Chief Superintendent Mike O’Hara, Coventry Police Commander, said at the time said he was “sickened” by the assault.
He said: “Attacks on any emergency services staff will never be tolerated but this was a particularly sickening incident on an NHS worker who was on the frontline of our national efforts to tackle coronavirus.
“I think I speak for the whole of Coventry in wishing the paramedic well in his continued recovery.”
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