We bid a fond farewell to a dedicated paramedic and first responder manager who is retiring after 34 years in the ambulance service.
Mandy Lowe, 55 from Towcester, Northamptonshire, joined the ambulance service as a patient care assistant for patient transport services at the age of 22. She later qualified as an emergency medical technician and then as a paramedic in 1996.
Mandy is the longest serving female paramedic in Northamptonshire and has had a rewarding career helping the people of Northamptonshire and managing ambulance teams. She recently took on a new role as Community Response Manager and is a familiar face to many of our voluntary community first responders.
She has trained hundreds of community first responder volunteers – providing a valuable resource to support our frontline colleagues. Mandy and her team have also been responsible for training thousands of children, young people and adults across the East Midlands in life-saving skills as well as supporting groups, organisations and communities to install defibrillators in local areas.
For Mandy, her career within the ambulance service has come to a natural end. She said: “My career has been a journey consisting of utter fulfilment, enjoyment and satisfaction. When I turned 55 last year, I started to reflect and look at what I have, where I want to go and what I want do. I worked not only because I needed to, but because I wanted to – but as often is the case for parents, it came at the expense of missing key moments with my family.
“I have two beautiful daughters and two gorgeous fun loving grandchildren. My family are my world and my life and I will hopefully be able to spend more time with them all and create magical memories along the way.”
Michael Barnett-Connolly, Head of Community Response, Collaboration and Engagement at EMAS said: “Mandy has been a vital part of our team for the last 4 years and has been instrumental in transforming the way we train our volunteers, specifically in Northamptonshire and Leicestershire. We all wish her well in her much deserved retirement.”
Although Mandy has retired from her role in the ambulance service, she hopes to be able to use the skills and experience that she has gained over the years in some way in the future.