A day in the life of a Paramedic......

 It's 3 am and with the lights and sirens blaring we race to the dying woman who is entrapped in a vehicle that has no resemblence of a vehicle upon our arrival. Watching this person take their last breath and not being able to do anything for them because the call came in too late gives us a unemotional aftermath of thoughts and with many attempts to  understand why or how this could happen to this person we never got to meet. They are someone's daughter, wife, sister, mother,etc. Now we leave the horrible job of telling the family to those men and women in law enforcement who have just as much of a difficult time dealing with situations as this as paramedics/firefighters! The sounds of emergency rings out yet again just less than an hour apart of yet another unexplained incidence of tragedy but this time it is a child. A child that was given life by parents who have such a loving and caring aspiration to be great parents. Always doing the best for their child who was born with abnormalities and who they saw as a miracle from GOD! This morning however will be there very last time to hold their child this time so lifeless. Then as we arrive you look up and make eye contact with the mother to realize she was a high school friend and the desperation in her eyes for you to save her precious gift of life is so overwhelming. We hurry to save this child when in reality and in the back of your mind you know that GOD had already took him home.  As you grieve in your own way, you get another sound of emergency to a house where a mother to be is expecting and says she knows its time! O my, now you are nervous, excited but cautiously awaiting for the child's arrival as much as mom and dad! Then she is here....seems like hours go by when it actually is just few seconds and this lively child pinks up and begins to cry! The joy both you and the parents have overcome them is breath-taking. Just a few hours ago you were in the pitfall of tradegy and now you are in the bliss of joy! To think, this is just the first 18hrs of your 48 hr shift! This is just a small minute view of the life of a paramedic but I can promise you in my 14 yrs in EMS ....the good outweighs the bad. I have held many hands of the dying along with the lonely, the joyous and the uncertain but the ultimate gratitude I have is the fact that I have a job where I can make a difference maybe not immediate but something as small as saying, "May I help you?"....may be their last memory.  For those I have hand and hand with or around they too are as delightfully gracious! My lesson I have learned throughout my career is it isn't about glory to get recognized its the unrecognized ones that count! I'm not in this for the money or heroism....just to help others! The next time you see an ambulance, fire truck or police racing by think of the one who they are responding to, it may be your family! Take Care!