There is a large population out there who has no idea what services we provide. The sad thing is, even after receiving our services, they still don’t get it. About seven years ago, I was working an overnight with one of my former partners. We were both avid people watchers, so a majority of our time was spent in the Entertainment District of our city. On most Friday and Saturday nights, this section of town lived up to its name. On one particular Saturday night, we were doing our usual “loop” checking out all of the sites, when we turned the corner, and found a group of people standing in the middle of the road flagging us down. When we pulled up, we noticed a woman lying in the middle of the road, and a car parked off to the side with a large “star” to the windshield. The woman’s friends informed us that she was walking across the street when she was struck by the motor vehicle in question. She was now unconcious. My partner and I went to work, assessing her, and starting a quick trauma workup on scene before we headed off to the hospital. As many of you know, part of that trauma assessment involves the concept of “exposing” the patient to assess for injuries. Due to her unconcious nature, our patient’s clothes were cut off. We kept her covered though to preserve her dignity. When we were getting ready to leave for the hospital, she regained conciousness. She asked me what happened, and I explained to her the events that led her to be boarded and collared with an IV in the back of my ambulance. She told me that was impossible. I asked her what the last thing that she remembered was, and she shared with me the events leading up to the accident, stating that the last thing she remembered was walking across the street, and then here she was with me. No matter how much I tried to explain to the woman, she was convinced that she was not hit by a car. Was it the alcohol? Was it just defiance? Was it a head injury?...

As you all know, I got started in EMS at a very young age. The area of New Jersey that I grew up in is rich with a long, distinguished history of Volunteer EMS and Fire personnel. I remember being in my EMT class at the age of 16. It was taught in a large auditorium filled with about 75 people. Every Tuesday and Thursday night, we’d sit there enjoying lectures, or break up into groups and run skills stations, with the ultimate goal of adding all of us to the long, distiguished list of graduates of Community Medical Center’s EMT program. That was where I met a man by the name of “Big John” Glowacki. He was a man whose reputation as a gruff, hard nosed, demanding yet professional person preceded him. John was an EMT Instructor, one of our dispatchers, and Life Member and Captain of the East Dover Volunteer First Aid Squad. It was impressive that had accomplished all of this by the age of 30. When I turned 18, John approached me and asked me if I would be interested in riding with him on his Tuesday Day Duty Crew on his squad. I wasn’t a member, but a lot of us who rode days down in Dover Twp (now known as Toms River) worked together to do what we could to get as many trucks on the road as possible. At some point during my career down there, I rode on a rig from five of the six Township departments. For the next three summers, and starting in the afternoons when I was in high school, I would come home, call John, and let him know I was in service. During that time, I learned a lot from him, not only from a patient care stand point, but also from an attitude and professionalism stand point. John wasn’t as mean as some people made him out to be. Sure, he was demanding and authoritative sometimes, but there are few people who I have encountered in my career who were more dedicated to the field. I never saw John lose his cool on a call. He was always so calm,...

Last night was a big night for me. It started out with the opportunity to participate in a great Podcast hosted by one Kyle David Bates called The First Few Moments. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do so. It’s got some great information about dealing with issues such as triage, treatment, and management of the critical first minutes of a scene. That was followed by the 100th episode of EMS Garage. Not only was I able to listen to the show, but I was actually on it too. Like I told Chris Montera, the show’s host, “Being on the Garage for me was like being a fan that is plucked out of the crowd and put on the court.” It was a great experience, and I am extremely grateful. I finished the night catching up with Ms. Paramedic and Jeramedic over Skype. If you haven’t heard of them, check them out on their many projects: The Gen Med Show, Mutual Aid, and their personal blogs to name a few. I had a great discussion with Jeramedic about some of the recent events here in Massachusetts. As many of you know, my wonderful Commonwealth has been in the news quite a bit over the last few months, first for the more than 200 EMTs who have had their certifications suspended, and more recently, the law that was signed in by Governor Deval Patrick making the minimum staffing for an ALS Ambulance one Paramedic and one EMT. Previously, it was two Paramedics, and if a service wanted to run with anything less, they would have to obtain a waiver from their Region. The President of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts has expressed his concerns for this proposed minimal staffing change by saying that “People are going to die because of this law.” In my opinion, that assessment of the new law is a touch dramatic. There are many, many systems across the country of a variety of sizes that staff with a “one and one” standard. So the question was raised: “Is more less?” Does the presence of more Paramedics mean the deterioration of one single Paramedic’s skills? I was excited to...

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...

I was looking through some old files and articles that I bookmarked, and I found last year’s Career Cast Worst Jobs of 2009. Emergency Medical Technician was ranked as the 6th worst job in the United States using Physical Demands, Stress and Income as criteria. That’s right, everyone, this job that we all love to do, some of us as volunteers, others as our careers, is ranked as one of the worst jobs in the United States. In case you’re curious, Sailor, Taxi Driver (does anyone else find humor here?), Diary Farmer, and Lumberjack were the only jobs that were considered worse then EMT. So, how in the eyes of the folks at Career Cast, can we improve the Emergency Medical Technician position as a job? Let’s take a look at their criteria: 1. Physical Demands — We are already moving in the right direction here. The physical aspect of EMS is greatly diminished thanks to innovations such as tracked stair chairs, hydraulic stretchers, and AutoPulses. Although there is still some wear and tear, and the necessity to lift will always be there, as an industry, we are doing the best that we can for our people. 2. Stress — Stress will be the hardest piece of this puzzle to improve on. Let’s face it, we see things every day that some couldn’t imagine seeing in a lifetime. The best thing that we can do is afford as many outlets for stress relief for our employees. That could come in the form of increasing the availability of Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, or something as simple as giving our people other outlets for their stress by giving them something as simple as gym membership. 3. Income — With the progression of our field, the expansion of our scope of practice, and better understanding of what we do, Income will improve as well. EMS is still a very young field when compared to the other two branches of public safety. We have come a long way in a very short time, but we still have a long way to go. Interestingly enough though, in 2009, USA Today ranked Fire Fighting as one of the best most...

Many of us in the EMS community were shocked this morning when we woke up and read the News Headline about the Bucks County, PA Paramedic who was killed by a Psych Patient he was chasing after. I found out about it from my new friends on Twitter. My thoughts and prayers go out to his wife and children who are now left fatherless. So I went to work today, just like any other day, in my mid-sized far-from-safe American City. It was quite the typical day for the most part: MVA’s, a nice mix of medical, trauma and behavioral calls, busy ERs.. I’m sure many of you know how it goes. But one call stood out to me as soon as I was advised about it. One of my crews had responded to an address for an unknown, which turned out to be a suicidal male. When they arrived, they found a rather irate man in a domestic dispute with is girlfriend. He had taken a handful of pills in an attempt to harm himself. When one of my medics advised him that he had lost any option by his actions of staying at home, and was going to have to take a ride to the ER, he got even more upset, and pulled a knife on my crew. Somehow, the two Medics were able to get it away from him. At this point, they called on the air, and requested that the police department expedite their response. That is when I found out about it. They then stated that the patient was fleeing the scene, and gave out his description. The scenario played over in my head, based on what I had read earlier in the morning. What was going to happen next? My first concern was the safety of my Medics, and making sure they stay safe. I arrived on scene moments before the police department, thankfully to find both medics standing on the front step of the patient’s apartment building, both unharmed. They showed me his weapon of choice: a kitchen knife with a half broken off handle. The patient’s girlfriend then pointed out that he was returning to the...