Peter James rushed to help during the Port Arthur massacre: ‘Some people were falling apart. I would become one of them’
When the paramedic entered the Tasmanian cafe where a gunman had killed scores of people, he was warned he would never be the same again. The warning proved true
When Martin Bryant drove his yellow Volvo to Port Arthur’s historic site, its boot stuffed with high-powered and casually acquired weapons, paramedic Peter James was living in Launceston. It was 28 April 1996.
Peter was on holiday at the time, but when he heard sketchy reports of a shooting on the radio, he called the critical incident stress debriefing team to ask if he was needed. He was – not as a paramedic, but as a debriefer. With two colleagues, Peter drove to Hobart, just over two hours away, where he was briefed at ambulance headquarters. Even there, he said, he doesn’t remember the scale of the crimes being evident yet. He wasn’t “steeling himself” as he drove to the police command post that had been established at a Tasmanian devil sanctuary in Taranna, about 45 minutes from Hobart and close to Port Arthur.