Jonas Nickel: On a mission against snakebites

Jonas Nickel had barely been born when he embarked on his first journey: From Berlin, he went with his (adoptive) parents to the greater Stuttgart area, more precisely to Remshalden-Grunbach. "Ultimately, I'm just happy and grateful that I grew up in a perfect family." What he owes to his parents above all is his fascination with travel and his openness to new things: "I can still remember how we drove to the North Cape or Greece in our camper van and came into contact with the country and its people there and elsewhere."

Jonas Nickel also proved that he has little fear of contact with people when he chose the neurointensive care unit at Diakonie Stetten for his school social work placement. "It was there that I first experienced what it's like to provide intensive medical care to severely disabled people," remarks Nickel. Something that would put many people off was like an initial spark for him to continue working in the healthcare sector. Immediately after his internship, he joined the school ambulance service run by the German Red Cross (DRK) and treated minor emergencies such as cuts and sports injuries as a first aider.

Fascinated by the medical rescue service, he completed a voluntary year of social service (FSJ) with Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe in Stuttgart after graduating from high school. As part of this, he trained as a paramedic so that he was able to work in the areas of patient transport and home emergency calls. As a paramedic, he was qualified to drive an ambulance and take mainly elderly people to hospital or medical appointments or to ride as an assistant in an ambulance, which primarily responds to life-threatening emergencies.

After working as a paramedic for the Esslingen-Nürtingen DRK rescue service for a year, Jonas Nickel went to the DRK regional school in Sinsheim to complete a three-year training course to become an emergency paramedic. In addition to theory - such as operational tactics, anatomy, pharmacology, law and quality management - he worked for several weeks in general care, in the emergency room, in anesthesia and in the intensive care unit of a hospital and spent many hours at the rescue station, first as a co-driver and later as the driver of an ambulance. "The coronavirus pandemic was particularly drastic, as we had to deliver several seriously ill Covid patients to hospitals every day and regularly pushed ourselves to our limits and even put our lives in danger," reports Nickel. "I became an emergency paramedic because I want to help people in the worst situations of their lives. Improving these situations acutely is challenging and fulfilling at the same time," says Nickel, who has remained associated with the DRK Landesschule as a lecturer to this day.

To supplement his training allowance, Jonas Nickel continued to work for Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe and Diakonie Stetten. He also used the money to pay for the odd trip abroad. One of these took him to Nairobi, where he got to know Arusha Medivac, an air ambulance provider that operates between Tanzania and Kenya. Two years later, he found himself there as a trainee in the seat of a propeller plane and accompanied several air rescue missions. He also helped out in small clinics run by the organization. "That's also when I first heard about the Snake Park Clinic near Arusha," Nickel mentions. "However, as the (vital) tourist income failed to materialize during the corona pandemic, the Snake Park and the Snake Bite Clinic were on the verge of closing - which would have been particularly devastating because it was the only clinic that had an antivenom against snake bites at the time."

To support the clinic financially, Jonas Nickel founded an association together with friends after his return to Germany: This was the birth of Pflaster für Tansania e.V. Since then, the donations collected have not only benefited the Snake Park Clinic, but also Kafika House, where children with reversible disabilities such as clubfoot or hydrocephalus are operated on and rehabilitated. "We have now even taken over the complete operational management of the Snake Bite Clinic, which means that we have trained medical staff on site with whom we work closely," adds Nickel, who himself lives in Tanzania for two to four months a year. "We have also worked with the WHO and NGOs to develop a guideline on how to treat snakebites effectively in a setting with few resources."

But the association's biggest goal remains the same: "We are talking to the WHO and the Tanzanian government about ways in which we can offer free treatment for snakebites throughout Tanzania." This is because antivenom is cost-intensive and is not available in sufficient quantities and sometimes in insufficient quality. "At least in our clinic, we can treat patients free of charge, but large parts of Tanzania remain inaccessible for what we do," notes Nickel. "My dream is and remains that one day the antivenom will be produced synthetically in local production facilities."