THE life-saving paramedics who run our ambulance service should be universally admired.

They frequently put their own lives at risk in a role which they are most certainly not in for the money.

Like nurses they are white knights in a society over-dominated by people obsessed purely with their own needs.

And that's why it's quite shocking that someone as dedicated as Wilf Jones should feel the need to issue a public plea for respect to be shown to his colleagues as he retires after almost 40 years in the service.

It seems incomprehensible that he should have to point out that paramedics are there to help "even drunks who fall flat on their faces" and not to be verbally and physically abused.

But they are facing an increasing number of assaults presumably from the same sort of neanderthals who throw stones at firefighters as they risk their lives trying to tackle blazes and attack nurses in hospital casualty departments late at night.

Such behaviour is a long way from being merely stupid or idiotic - it is deeply disturbing.

When an ambulance answers a 999 call, every second lost can literally mean the difference between life and death.

If not directly involved, the normal instinct at an emergency scene should be to approach paramedics not with threats, but with a cup to tea.