PARAMEDICS are not reporting vicious assaults because they do not have time, fear losing penalty rates and have come to accept it is just part of the job.

Attacks are up 16 per cent statewide from last year but alarmingly paramedics say that figure would be much higher if they logged serious incidents that fall by the wayside because they are so busy saving lives.

In one example this week a patient tried to bite Mudgeeraba paramedic Brett Fournier on his first job for the day.

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“I managed to push him away and that should be written up as an assault but I just write it up as part of the job,” he said.

media_camera Paramedic Brad Johnson was assaulted while trying to help a man. Picture: Luke Marsden.

“Even though we’ve got the iPads in the cars, trying to get time to sit down to do it – unless you’re taken off the road, you just don’t have the time – and the reporting system is very long winded.”

The United Voice union state councillor said he was used to attacks after 20 years on the job which was the sad reality of how society had become.

“One of the worst cases is going to drunks in median strips, lying in the middle of the Gold Coast Highway,” he said.

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“Bystanders don’t stop, police palm it off to us and we’re putting ourselves at risk.”

Paramedics now have panic buttons on their uniforms and in their vans but there are calls to have them armed with tasers, capsicum spray, security cameras and have more police back-up.

United Voice is calling for a task force to be set up to urgently tackle the assault issue, following Friday’s vicious attack on Brad Johnson as he was taking a patient to Gold Coast University Hospital.

Paramedic sources say they fear reporting incidents because nothing comes of it and they are put on light office duties and lose much-needed penalties.

“A lot goes unreported because we lose money on light duties and courts do nothing,” said a paramedic.

media_camera Paramedic Nick O'Brien’s teeth. media_camera Paramedic Nick O'Brien’s teeth.

“We work off a base salary, so lose penalties.”

Queensland paramedics made 247 claims of assault for 2014-15, an increase of 40 on the year before.

A Facebook group titled Triple Zero Tolerance has been set up for paramedics to unite in support of Mr Johnson and all emergency service staff being assaulted on the job.

Organiser Kyla Golds, who works as a paramedic in Queensland and NSW, said the movement started out as a statewide initiative but had now gone national.

“Brad is the main driving force behind this but it’s for all the paramedics that have been assaulted in the past who don’t speak up about it,” she said.

“We’ve had enough.

“All we want to do is go to work, do our jobs, make people’s lives a better place and return to our families safely at the end of the day.”

Gold Coaster Nick O’Brien, who also works as an Ambulance Tasmania paramedic, has shared his horrific story on the group to highlight how serious attacks are, having just undergone major surgery to repair damage done to his mouth when four of his teeth were smashed out in an alleged alcohol-fuelled, unprovoked attack in October.

Mr O’Brien was also attacked in the back of an ambulance on the Coast a couple of years ago and left with broken ribs.

QAS Gold Coast assistant commissioner John Hammond said the public needed to be aware attacks would not be tolerated.

“We certainly encourage staff to report an incident of occupational violence and I think the public do need to be aware about violence in the community and attacks on public officers, not just QAS,” he said.