Published on June 9, 2020
You would think that as an Ambulance Transport Attendant, Gabrielle Dawson (2014) would have been heavily impacted by COVID-19. However, it was the personal impact to her pending nuptials which really upended her year.
What have you been up to since leaving HVGS?
In 2018 I graduated from Charles Sturt University in Bathurst with a Bachelor of Clinical Practice (Paramedic) and started working as an Ambulance Transport Attendant with National Patient Transport (NPT).
NPT is a private patient transport company that fills the gap between non-emergency patient transport and emergency ambulances. We help by transporting patients who may not be completely stable to be able to go with non-emergency patient transport but aren’t serious enough to have to go by ambulance. This keeps ambulances on road for the true emergencies.
I love my job and it fits my work-life balance, it also allows me to be able to support my partner Robert’s career to become an airline pilot.
I was also engaged in September 2018, and had planned to marry in April 2020.
How did Coronavirus impact your wedding plans?
With limits set on weddings during the pandemic we’ve had to postpone the wedding for twelve months.
We had around 60 guests coming, including family from overseas. When we first heard about restrictions starting, we planned to move the big wedding to the following year so everyone could still come and go ahead with a small ceremony with just 20 guests. Sadly, we had to cancel those arrangements as just days before the wedding new restrictions came in that stipulated we could only have up to 5 people! That just wouldn’t have been possible for us as our friends and family mean everything and we couldn’t bear the thought of not having them there.
We were utterly devastated when we realised we couldn’t get married as we had planned. We did shed some tears on what would have been our wedding day. I’d glance at the clock throughout the day thinking about how I should be getting into my dress, or driving to the ceremony, or having our first dance.
We want to get through this pandemic with all of our loved ones safe and healthy. We had to make these difficult decisions purely out of love for others.
What are your memories from your school days?
I have so many memories from HVGS as I was there from Kindergarten to Year 12. I don’t think I can pinpoint any couple of memories as my favourite. I do know that I always enjoyed the opportunities that I was given. The staff at the school always helped in any way possible no matter the situation and to them, I will always be grateful.
I do still keep in contact with a small group of friends from HVGS, we often meet up for dinner and have game nights. I keep in contact with a few teachers too! I recently caught up with Mrs Chapman, she no longer works at HVGS but she was a giant influence on my life and she was actually going to be attending my wedding. I hope she can still attend next year.
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