It was just after midnight on a Saturday in January when Aidrian Oddo, an unemployed 19-year-old from Woonona, approached police at Central Railway Station and told a huge lie.
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He was an on-duty paramedic tasked to patrol the station, he claimed.
‘I normally work in Wollongong but they’ve sent me up here for the night’.
Dressed in a dark blue polo shirt and cargo pants and carrying backpack, torch and white ID tag on his belt, Oddo certainly looked the part and it would seem his words were rather convincing too; the officers – believing they were in the company of a fellow emergency service worker – had him join them as they carried out their patrols.
It didn’t take long for his charade to be put to the test in the form of a man in need of medical assistance.
Despite his lack of medical skills (other than a First Aid certificate), Oddo began to carry out a series of ‘checks’ on the man – shining a small torch in his eyes and squeezing his little finger while speaking to him about his health. He diagnosed him with “mental health issues”.
When real paramedics arrived on the scene a short time later Oddo kept up the pretense, telling them the patient’s apparent blood pressure and heart rate.
It was only after the paramedics had treated the patient that their attention returned to Oddo. It didn’t take long to discover he wasn’t wearing the right uniform, and his story quickly unraveled.
“I’m not a paramedic, I’ve only done my First Aid certificate,” he confessed after no records of him were found on any NSW Ambulance database.
Oddo was charged with impersonating an emergency service worker.
A detailed psychological report presented to Wollongong court on Thursday said Oddo suffered from a range of mental health conditions and illnesses, for which he was not receiving any treatment.
Magistrate Mark Douglass lamented the fact he could only impose fines for the charges. He ordered Oddo to pay a $500 penalty.
However, he put Oddo on a bond for a separate assault matter that included regular counselling as a condition.