We all have those calls that push us to our breaking point.It might not be one type of call, but we will all find that one specific call that gets to us and sticks with us. Last Fall, I was working a busy Friday night.While listening to the police radio, I heard a “shots fired” call come in.This is not anything uncommon for the city I work in, but I noticed the street name was a street where a friend of mine lived.A few minutes later, I heard an officer who is normally very calm, cool and collected, come over the radio screaming (literally) for an ambulance on that street, and stating that they need to expedite. I started down that way, racking my brain for the entire 5 minute ride for my friend’s house number, but I couldn’t remember it.When I pulled up, there were five or six police cars already on scene, their blue light bars lighting up the street.I went up the steps and turned the corner to find my friend, who incidentally is a PA Student and EMT, doing CPR on a 16 year old girl with a gunshot wound to the head.She was kneeling in a pool of this girl’s blood, and had probably ruined her sweatshirt as well already. We found at that point that this girl still had a pulse, so when my ambulance got there a minute or two later, we loaded her up and sent them on their way.At that point, the focus of my care turned to my EMT friend. “Are you okay?”I asked her, as we stood on her front porch, across the street from what had now become a crime scene. “Yeah, I’m good.”She told me, and then relayed the story of what had happened.She was studying for a pretty big test, and had heard the gunshots come from across the street, followed by the girl’s mother screaming that her daughter had been shot.She waited impatiently for the appearance of a police car, and when the first one arrived, she grabbed her bag and headed across the street with little regard for her own safety. I listened to what she had to...

Before I host my edition of The Handover next month, I felt the need to contribute first. Tactical Pants wants to know what we do with our Downtime. You know, Downtime. Those precious few hours (minutes?) we have between each call. In the last 16 years that I’ve been involved in EMS, I’ve used my downtime in a variety of ways. It seems only fitting though that as I sit here writing this blog, I am enjoying some much needed “away time” which is a little different from downtime.Currently, I am sitting on an enclosed porch, full of burgers cooked up on the grill and fresh Jersey White Corn with a nice cool breeze blowing through the window.Boy, times are good right now. If it was six years ago, I’d probably be sitting in an ambulance parked on a street corner waiting for my next call, or more commonly, flying across the city lights and sirens to the next “emergency.”Personally though, I like tonight’s events much more. But I digress. Where were we? Oh yes… Downtime! When I was a volunteer EMT inOcean County,NJone of my more common crew chiefs and I would sit at the station passing the daily crossword puzzle back and forth.It was a great way to kill time and keep our minds sharp.There always seemed like there was lots of work to do during our downtime back then.We had trucks to check, paperwork to enter into our computer system, and supply orders to be tallied and submitted, but we always found time for our Crosswords. Thanks, Joey. When I moved on to Urban EMS, it was time for me to learn about mobile posting. We had a unique group working weekend overnights though. Our trucks would move around the city like a wagon train from common post to common post.We always had toys to keep ourselves occupied: Frisbees, hacky sacks, footballs, and even headrolls that we could play dodgeball with.On one particular night, I remember sitting out in lawn chairs in the darkest spot that we could find trying to get enough time away from the excitement of the city to watch a 3am meteor shower.I miss those days sometimes.It...

Is your service ready for “the big one?”You know what I’m talking about: that big call that we all dread, that MCI to beat all MCIs, the one that no matter how much you train for it, you never will be completely prepared.What can you do though to help make the day that your department is faced with a disaster you never expected?A lot of the steps are simple, but because of that, we might be more apt to overlook them. 1.Review your disaster protocols.If you’re on the streets that day, where will you fall in the chain of command?What will the Fire Department’s responsibility be?How about PD?You don’t need to know every move that everyone is supposed to make all the time, but knowing peoples rolls will let you know who to ask when you need something. 2.Make sure your vehicles start!I know this sounds silly, but imagine getting to that moment when someone tells you to “roll the MCI Truck,” and you go turn that key and . . . NOTHING.In my department, our MCI truck is constantly plugged in to keep it charged, but it’s lets face it, it’s a 12 year old ambulance with close to 200,000 miles on it.Once she gets going, she’ll go forever, but to help make sure that she can run, I try to start her at least once or twice a week. 3.What level of certification do you have in Incident Command?Everyone here is required to have 100 and 200, but because of my position, I have to take extra classes, assuming that I will be wearing a vest and hold some sort of authority if things ever went bad.Some might think of ICS classes as dry content, but if you ever need it, you’ll appreciate having taken the classes. 4.Run through scenarios in your head.At my part time job, we have a jar, and on the outside of it, it says “What if, right now?”When things are slow, we pull two different colored pieces of paper from the jar, and one of them will have a location, and the other a situation.An example would be pulling “Big Roller Coaster’s lift hill” and the other...

As I sit here in my Expedition typing away on my Netbook, I am reminded by the night’s weather of how much I love the City during the summer.13 years ago when I leftNew Jerseyas a naive 19 year old EMT, I figured I was on a “four and out” plan.I would get my EMS Management Degree, get my Paramedic Certification, and bail on out of here and back to my comfort zone: theJerseyShore. Once I graduated College in 2001, I had about 8 months experience as a Paramedic here in the city, and it had gotten its claws into me.At that point in my career, I saw no other option for me than to be an Urban Paramedic, running all of the 911’s I could.In a week at work here, I was personally doing as many 911 responses as my Volunteer Service that I got my start with back in 1993 would do in a month, and I was loving every minute of it. UrbanEMSis definitely unique.Your transport times are commonly shorter, and while per capita, your high acuity patients might be a fewer in number than suburban and rural systems, you still see your share of critically sick and injured people.I’m not just talking about the shootings and stabbings, trust me they’re there, but I’m also talking about the STEMIs, strokes, and generalized respiratory and cardiac patients. Commonly in this busy system, except for a few patient complaints that would also trigger the request for fire to respond, you were on your own with just your partner.On my shift though, we all looked out for each other. We were definitely one big family.If you were going into a bad neighborhood, chances are, someone else would “float” your way for no other reason than to just watch your back.They’d set up your gear, help you stairchair a patient, or just simply make sure that people respect your personal space. This October will mark my 10th anniversary as a Paramedic.Its funny, but I can still remember heading in for my first shift after getting cleared and sitting in the parking lot of my college dorm dry heaving because I was so nervous.(I swear it...