A Paramedic/Firefighter

For awhile now, whenever I think about it, I have been jotting down sayings from out in the field. Some come from my own experiences and some are sayings or comments that I have heard from paramedic/firefighters that are a reflection of their experiences. When compiled, what emerges is a unique perspective of life that few people will ever experience.

I have witnessed the miracle of birth; I have held a baby in my arms as it took it last breath; I sometimes do not eat meals on time; I have laughed with my patients; I have cried with my patients; Patients have vomited on me; I have comforted a father who held his dead son in his arms and grieved with the greatest sorrow I have ever seen.

I administer medications; Sometimes, I work on Christmas; I have compassion for my patients; I control bleeding; I cut my patients out of wrecked cars; I have been called an ambulance driver; I have had people try to beat me through an intersection when I am driving with lights and sirens; I have said a short prayer for a patient I just delivered to an emergency room in critical condition.

I start IVs; I work shift work; I have sat for hours in my ambulance while on a standby; I read EKGs; I have fought fires; I work a second job on my off-days to provide for my children; I have worked past the end of my shift when I had important plans after I was scheduled to get off work; I have intubated patients in dark alleys, windowless basements and cramped bathrooms.

I have had doctors yell at me for taking too long to arrive at the hospital, even though the patient had to be extricated from a third floor; I love my work; I must continually go to school and educate myself; I love my job; I have seen the worst that one human being can do to another; I have ventilated a building; I have seen an elderly lady lie for days with a broken hip because she had nobody to check on her.

I have seen a mother burn to death after running back into a burning building to save her child; I splint broken bones; I cook the meals in my fire station; I laugh with my brother and sister firefighters; I bandage cuts; I have concern for my patients; I sometimes get upset at people who do not get out of my way when I am driving my ambulance; I must use all my senses; I am the godfather to my partner’s first-born child.

I have performed CPR; I work in intense summer heat; I work in severe winter cold; I have seen what a shotgun blast can do to a human body; I have reasoned with a person threatening to jump from a window ledge; I have carried hose up more than 10 stories; I lift and carry patients who weigh more than me; I have helped a doctor crack a chest; I have caught colds from my patients.

I have accidentally stuck myself with a needle; I take blood pressures; I install car seats; I put out car fires; I slide a brass pole; I have been cussed out by a patient; I have resuscitated people who have walked out of the hospital; I have rappelled off the side of a building; I have seen what a bee sting can do to someone who is allergic to bee stings; I have peeled a steering wheel off someone’s chest.

I have not finished many meals; I have fallen through a floor; I sit on the ramp and wave at people who honk their horns; I constantly train on the equipment on my apparatus; I climb ladders; I have treated stab wounds; I’ve had to tell a son that his father died; I have had patients thank me; I have seen the effects of not wearing a helmet when a motorcycle crashes; I have been criticized for showing up late at a call.

I have held a young child’s hand while his mother was loaded onto a stretcher and then into an ambulance; I immobilize neck and back injuries; I have gotten lost in a smoke-filled building; I have driven home after my shift wondering whether a patient survived; I have let a father cut the umbilical cord; I have climbed down dark holes; I have hugged my children after coming home from a shift.