Spotlight: Military EMS Personnel

To celebrate this 4th of July, EMSResponder.com would like to recognize our country's military emergency medical services providers. In the first installment of what we hope will become on ongoing feature, we are highlighting individual providers: hospital corpsmen Benjamin and Emily Nunez, a married couple serving in Kuwait. If you are a military EMS provider overseas, or the friend/family of one of these personnel and would like to send in your story and photo, please email Heather.Caspi@cygnusb2b.com.

HM3 Benjamin Nunez:
441st Ambulance Det, Camp Virginia, Kuwait
Home station: MCRD Parris Island, Beaufort SC
Hometown: Boulder Creek, CA

Daily Routine

• Wake up at 0600 and get ready for the day, shower, put on uniform, etc.
• Go to muster at 0730, make sure everyone is at work, and information is passed down at this time.
• Call my wife, and tell her I love her.
• Go to breakfast sometimes.
• Go inspect the ambulances, general overview, make sure there are no leaks, check fluid levels, tire pressure, make sure they start, all lights work. Also check all medical supplies in the back.
• Go back inside the office, do a crossword puzzle with coworkers. It seems silly, but for me and my friends it keeps our minds sharp, and it makes us feel like we are someway close to our respective homes.
• Clean the office, and other spaces, also this is the time we do any other work from our Army chain of command, taking inventory of supplies. This is also the time we help in the clinic if they need it, seeing patients, cleaning, and errands for our higher ups.
• Go to lunch with the guys on days I am on call, and then I call my wife afterwards. On days I'm not on call, I go to my room to see if my wife wants to get on webcam, if she doesn't I let her sleep, and I just listen to music until I have to go back to work.
• Return to work; check to see if there are anymore tasks that were decided on while at lunch. See if the clinic needs any help with patients again.
• Check to see if I have any mail, it always makes me smile.
• Clean the office at the end of the work day.
• Go to afternoon muster; see what news is to be passed from the day.
• On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I go to the gym after work, and then I come home and wake my wife up, if she is still sleeping. If I don't go to the gym, I come home to relax and spend time with my wife.
• My wife works nights, so after work, we just talk to each other on the computer, with webcam, until she goes to work or I go to sleep. This is the best part of my day, over here she has been my rock, and she is what keeps me strong.
• Then I wake up and do it all over, counting one less day until my wife and I leave.

GETTING A CALL-----Can happen any time 24/7

There are 3 ways we can get a call for an on base run. We can get a call from MRO (Medical Regulating Office), telling us what happened and where to go. We can get a 911 call that rings on our phone or the phone in the clinic. Or we can hear the fire department being dispatched over the radio, in which case we weren't called, we just overheard. So the call is on base, we run to the ambulance and get to wherever we need to be... if the fire department is there, they will let us know if they need our help or not. If they do we have to wait for them to declare the scene safe, if it were a fire or something. We find out what we are dealing with, chest pain, dislocated knee, whatever, call back to the doctor on call at the TMC and let them know what they have coming in.