This week is Emergency Medical Services week across the nation, and having been retired from Paramedicine, Firefighting, and Critical Care (CCT) work for over 20 years now, I want to take a step back to salute those that remain on those front lines, on the streets, in our communities, every day, running long (up to 48 hour) shifts.
A lot of people really don’t understand what EMS/Fire personnel deal with on a daily basis. They don’t understand that each day carries a real threat of not coming home. They think that’s reserved for law enforcement – and it should be, as law enforcement strap on that side arm every day and stand between bad people, bad actions, and all the rest of us. But the risks within emergency medical responses are enormous, and often overshadowed by other news-worthy professions. Looking back at memories and situations, here are a few things we experienced in the Denver/Boulder area over the years on the streets just during the decades I was active (this is repeated daily across the country by Fire/EMS):
- Running into burning buildings and homes looking, often on hands and knees in bunker gear and an SCBA, for someone who may or may not be trapped inside
- Hiking into a deep forested area, which is on fire, to build fire lines to protect lives and property by cutting down trees, back-burning, etc., in nothing but a Nomex long sleeved shirt, jeans, and a helmet, packing in chain saws, hand tools, and 50+ lbs of water on your back, always keeping your emergency fire shelter handy for deployment
- Rolling back to your downtown station, only to find that “rock hit” sound you heard on the street was really a bullet hole in your rescue, entering within inches of your onboard oxygen tank and system
- Staying away from your family for days after a shift, as you go on “horse pills” to fight off the bacterial meningitis risk (sometimes deadly in mere hours) after the college student you responded on tested positive and almost died
- Rolling on the ground fighting an assailant for a deputy’s weapon, when he emerged from hiding in a home after beating his wife
- Moving to tackle someone wielding a knife that is running for the police officer who is your cover
- Having to leap into the median to prevent being struck by a vehicle that has lost control on the ice and is heading directly for your team as they cut a vehicle apart to extricate a trapped patient safely and quickly
- Standing with a police officer, behind a small pillar, taking gunfire from an active shooter that targets your position and the other 5 positions occupied by your other teams, until the shooter can be neutralized. And then provide top-level care to the gunwomen as rapidly and safely as possible… after she tried to shoot you for almost an hour
- Hiking up a mountain, only to then rappel (with the mountain rescue team providing the equipment and support) half way down a cliff to treat and stabilize a patient while the additional equipment and personnel arrive to safely package and move the victim off the cliff.
These men and women in Fire/EMS do this every day, across the country. They train in fire, under freezing water, in swift water and in other extreme situations and conditions. They train on materials, equipment, best practices, medicines and treatments, and scenarios. They train for hours each week… not in a monthly or quarterly in-service training, often in a cozy classroom. Many do this for free; not all of us were paid.
I am very appreciative of all the front line medical personnel fighting COVID today, as they has a battle with an invisible enemy that is hard to detect, hard to protect against, and not always easy to defeat once infected. But that fight often starts as a medical 911 response that Fire/EMS roll up to; in inner cities these call volumes can be 20 times per shift, per crew. Which one is the hot COVID one? There are no field tests; the environment doesn’t always allow for standard PPE gear to be safely worn; but EMS straps on that Kevlar vest (in the cities, especially), just like law enforcement does, and whatever anti-viral shielding on top of that, and they go in. That’s the job. They don’t get a hand-off report from the previous shift they are taking over patients from; they are the first contact. Every situation is different; every call unique. The call doesn’t come in when you want – it comes in in the middle of trying to shove food in your mouth after the last call or at 2am when you are trying to get some rest after 43 hours into the shift. They don’t have a cleaning custodial team come into their rescue to disinfect for the next call; they do that themselves. They’ve never gotten flyovers until now, in conjunction with the hospital medical personnel. The pay is often half of what the in-hospital staff receive… seriously, half. Look at a hospital today and see how many on the critical care side have field EMS experience, both MDs and Nurses. You’ll be surprised. These people are worth their weight in gold, and this is their week. All of my friends still deep in it after all of these years – you all rock. Period.
