Honored

March 2, 2014
23:22- I say to my roommate, “It’s eleven twenty-two and believe it or not I’m tired enough to go to bed.” I walk into my bedroom and begin getting ready for bed.
23:25- As I place my pager in it’s charger it goes off: Respond for a forty-seven year old male, C/B/A with difficulty breathing and a history of COPD.
23:28- I arrive on scene in my personal car. I find the patient in tripod position on the bathroom floor gasping for air. Upon evaluation I discover his oxygen stats are at 72%. That’s not good. While I awaited the ambulance’s arrival Igathered patient information: name, d.o.b., medications, allergies, medical history, etc.
23:35- The ambulance finally arrives on scene with a Paramedic on board. I assisted the medic with administering her drugs to the patient and we got the patient on a stretcher and into the ambulance.
23:39- We no sooner load our patient into the ambo and he starts taking a turn for the wors
e. At that point the medic pulled me into the ambo and told her partner to drive. Whether I wanted to or not I was going for a little field trip. While enroute to the hospital I assisted the medic and between the two of us we got his o2 stats up to 96% before we reached the hospital.
There were two other older EMTs on scene with us but the Medic chose me. I feel honored that she chose me. I’ve worked with her on scenes before but I’d never teched with her in the ambo. The fact that she chose me to assist her tonight showed that she trusts me and is comfortable sharing her ambulance with me. I know many Medics who refuse to share their ambulances with EMTs (mostly because they believe they’re paragods).
02:14- I finally got dropped back off at my car.
02:16- I signed off at the Fire Station.
02:20- After writing up my report and closing the call out, I punched out and went home.

I can honestly say that I love my job. I make a difference in people’s lives every day.The reality is that I can’t save the life of every patient. But I can say that I will do my best to help and comfort every one of my patients and I will treat each and every one of them with respect, regardless of who they are- friend, enemy, black, white, purple, gay, straight, drug addict… everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and respect.