EMS Week 2014: Dedicated For Life

Happy EMS Week!! This is the week we celebrate those who put their lives on the line every single day. This is the week where we thank them for everything they do. This is a job that requires not only many hours of training and experience but one that requires compassion, dignity and heart. There are a handful of people in this world who are willing to wake up at 3 AM because an infant has stopped breathing, who are willing to put tubes down a stranger's throat to allow them to breathe, who are willing to put their finger(s) in a bullet wound to prevent any more blood loss. These are the people who save lives, yet risk theirs. Instructors are to thank for our medical skills but no instructor can teach us to hold a person's hand as they take their last breathe, or teach us to find dignity in cleaning up a patient who can't control their bowels. Nobody can teach us how to be strong when we have to tell a family that their loved one is no longer with them and nobody can give us the knowledge it requires to love people during their most vulnerable moments. Our lives are forever touched by the patients that we have, our uniforms stained with the blood, sweat and tears of a long shift. The roads we travel everyday become a scrapbook of memories of the calls we have run. This is not simply a job, it is a passion. A passion to help others, to save people.

So yes, while EMS is about saving lives and performing medical tasks, it is also about touching lives and being their for complete strangers. 

Thank you to those who protect and serve. I know it is not easy. The tasks we must perform are often gruesome and bloody and scary at times yet we put all that aside and go on with courage and passion. Our job is not about the medication we give, the money we make, it is about the skills we develop, the memories we collect and the difference that we make. 

I am proud to be an EMT. EMS Week 2014, May 18-24