BBC WORLD NEWS Europe

Toughest Place to be a...

Documentaries

Factual: Travel

Workers are challenged to do their job under some of the toughest conditions in the world.

Three British workers. Experienced. Qualified. And looking for a challenge. They are on a quest to find out what it would be like to do their job under some of the toughest conditi

Three British workers. Experienced. Qualified. And looking for a challenge. They are on a quest to find out what it would be like to do their job under some of the toughest conditions on the planet.

Simon Watts-Davies

Sam Bagnall

Toughest Place to be a...: Series 1: Paramedic

Factual

Toughest Place to be a... Paramedic

03/08/2013 GMT

Paramedic

Series 1

BBC World News - Toughest Place to be a..., Series 1, Paramedic

A paramedic from Cardiff spends two weeks in Guatemala City.

Angie Dymott, a paramedic from Cardiff, spends two weeks with ambulance workers in Guatemala City - a place with one of the world's highest violent crime rates.

Angie Dymott is leaving her job as a paramedic in Cardiff, South Wales, to join the Bomberos of Guatemala City, capital of Guatemala and one of the most murderous places on earth. For two weeks, she will live and work with the Bomberos, combined paramedics and firemen, as they race to the scenes of gangland killings and drive-by shootings, trying to save lives and to stay alive. She will swap her roomy, high-tech, state-of-the-art ambulance for a cramped minibus. As the drug barons fight it out and innocents are caught in the crossfire, Angie will see more bloodshed and killings in a few days than in all her years on the job in Wales. Decades of civil war and increasing drug-related violence have left this Central American country close to chaos. The murder rate is bucking the global, downward, trend and rising every year. Recently a leading international monitoring organisation described Guatemala as 'a paradise for criminals.' As she contemplates her departure, Angie is scared, not just of the violence but of failing her new colleagues. She knows she's a competent paramedic in the UK, but in Guatemala? Will she cope? Will she be a useful member of the team or merely a hindrance?

Toughest Place to be a...: Series 1

BBC World News

BBC  World News

Three workers. Experienced. And looking for a challenge. They are on a quest to see what it would be like to do their job under some of the toughest conditions on the planet.

BBC WORLD NEWS North America

BBC WORLD NEWS Middle East

BBC WORLD NEWS South Asia

The BBC's international 24-hour news and information channel, as seen by viewers in Africa.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Toughest Place to be a...

Series 1

Paramedic

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

BBC WORLD NEWS Europe

About BBC World News