I had another post written that was going to go up this morning, but I decided to push it back a day. This story is too good to pass up. . . If you haven’t heard the tale yet of TOTWTYTR and the Ambulance Driver’s CPR save in Edison New Jersey, you need to. Blogger Save So much can be said about this call. The thing that stands out to me more than anything is after saving a life, these two EMS Veterans returned to their table to finish their breakfast. They didn’t wait for recognition. They didn’t demand the ticker tape parade that they deserved. They just washed their hands and moved on. I chuckle at that, actually. Its a true testament to the lives many of us in EMS lead. Its 90% ordinary, 10% action, and when the action is over, life just returns to normal. They might just say they were in the right place at the right time. . . I say they are heroes. Way to go...

My name is Scott, and I suffer from PCDS. What is PCDS? The abbreviation stands for Post Conference Depression Syndrome. Many of us realized this disorder was going to plague us in the last hours of EMS Expo in Dallas, and as we said goodbye in Baltimore, it was clear that I was going to have to battle with it again. Okay, enough of the drama. What a great week! The four days flew by, and there was so much to see, hear and learn about. Here are some of my conference highlights: 1. The EMS 10 Awards — I wrote about them briefly in my EMS Today Eve post from Thursday morning. What a great way to start of the week: attend a dinner that honors some great EMS innovators. As I mentioned previously, it was great to see two members of our own EMS Podcasting and Blogging community walking away with awards that night. Congratulations to Greg Friese, Chris Montera, and all of the other winners, and thank you Erik Denny for including my in the festivities. 2. Firestorm — I ran into Julie Winokur, the Director, Producer and Editor of Firestorm, a great movie about ER overcrowding and the misuse of the Emergency Medical System in general in the City of Los Angeles. I was able to attend the Three-City Premiere last May in Philadelphia, and wrote a review of it on the blog as well. It turned out that Talking Eyes Media was putting on another showing of it, this time on the Exhibit Floor at EMS Today. I was excited to see that the showing resulted in a standing room only crowd. If you haven’t seen Firestorm yet, I urge you to do so. It’s a great “no punches pulled” look at the struggles not only faced by the EMS community, but by modern Health Care. 3. Culture Shock: Transforming the Culture of an Organization – There were a lot of people that I wanted to see, and a lot of things to do in a short time, so I wasn’t able to make as many sessions as I would have liked. This was one that I made it...

Well, night number 1 is in the books, and it wasn’t really a night, it was more of a full day. I was up early today, and on the road at 8am.I picked up my copilot, Patrick, and we were on our way toBaltimore.It was bitter sweet, it was the first time I traveled without a certain special someone, but she’s moved on from my life, and I’m doing the same. Five and a half hours later, we were in Baltimoreand checked into the Days Inn down at the InnerHarbor.We met up with a few Twitter friends for a late lunch, and then it was back to the Hotel to get dressed and ready for the EMS 10 Awards dinner at the M & T Bank Stadium. The EMS 10 Awards was created to recognize ten innovative EMS professionals whose “efforts are an inspiration and a challenge to the rest of theEMScommunity.”I was invited to the dinner as a representative of the Blogging and Social Media community.The more I thought about this, the more I was humbled that I was thought of as someone who was influential enough to be a guest at such an event.I haven’t been at this blogging thing very long, and it makes me happy to know that people are taking notice and enjoying what they read. This was an excellent way to start off the night.Physio Control put on a great event.The accomplishments of those selected for the awards were inspiring, and as RJ Stine commented, “who knows?Any one of us could be up there in the coming years.”A special congratulation goes out to two members of our Social Media community: Greg Friese and Chris Montera who were award recipients this year.We are making waves, and people starting to sit up and listen! From there, we headed over to the Pratt St Ale House for the Zoll sponsored Meetup to kickoff EMS Today. If you’ve been watching the Twitter Feed at all over the last week or so, chances are you saw the #PrattStTweetup hashtag scroll by. The turn out was great.It was tough to get a true head count, but we took over the entire second floor of...

When I sit down to craft a blog entry, I try not to focus on “Me.”I’d rather focus on “Us.” That being said, there comes those occasional times when my inner narcissist takes over.This is one of those times. In May of last year, I made some tough and important decisions about the life I was going to lead.I was overweight, and not leading a healthy life style.It was time for me to change all of that and get myself into a better place physically, mentally and emotionally. I’ve always been what I refer to as a “stress eater.”Food makes me feel better.It has always been therapeutic for me.Let’s face it, we work in a stressful field, and the position I hold has been extremely stressful over the last couple of years, so reaching for an extra helping at dinner, or hitting a McDonald’s drive thru was an easy thing for me to do. I realized that I couldn’t do that anymore.I needed to find better ways to cope, and it was time to start taking better care of myself.I started concentrating on eating better, and downloaded an Application on my iPhone called “Lose It!” and on May 14th of last year, I began recording everything that I ate, and any exercise I did.I’ve continued that religiously each and every day since then.Now, 40 weeks later, I’ve reached my goal. When I started my transformation, I weighed 310 lbs.When I stepped on a scale this past Monday, I was delighted to see that I was down to 235.That’s right, I lost 75 lbs.I haven’t weighed under 240 lbs in at least five or six years.I feel great, I look like a different person, and I fit into clothes that I haven’t worn in years.I’m not completely satisfied yet, but losing 75 lbs is quite a huge step forward, and anything from here on out will be a cake walk (mmmm cake). To those of you who have known about my endeavors, I thank you for your support.For anyone who is looking to do something similar, check out Lose It!It’s a great application, and it changed my...

A year ago today, I made the decision to take the leap into the EMS Blog world.I remember the days leading up.So much was going through my head.What should I write about?Will anyone actually read it?Well, almost 70 posts later, I’m still going strong, and I have you, the readers to thank for that. My first post was quite simple, it was just a little overview of who I was, and what I was hoping to accomplish in the coming posts.I say “who I was” because in the 365 days since that first post went up, I’ve grown and changed quite a bit.What started out as the simple musings of a Paramedic is now viewed over 1,000 times a month, and has over 50 registered followers.#MyEMSDay has been created, and over 200 EMS 2.0 pins are being worn by Paramedics and EMTs fromSpringfield,Massachusetts toMelbourneAustralia. To those of you who have read what I’ve had to say over the last year, I thank you.To any new readers I might have, welcome to year 2!And finally, toEMSin the New Decade, HAPPY...