So far, and this is just today, I’ve dealt with the following calls:
-A man threatened to blow up a hospital and was shot by police.
-A pregnant woman was assaulted and went lights-and-sirens to the hospital.
-Another pregnant woman overdosed on illegal drugs.
-A one-year-old was transported to the local pediatric hospital due to burns on his buttocks an genitals. The crew was delayed because the police were taking pictures of the injuries. This was most likely non-accidental.
What the hell is wrong with people?!
I was telling one of the EMTs today, the hardest part of my job isn’t the multitasking. It isn’t keeping track of all the information. It isn’t the boredom. It definitely isn’t the sitting on my ass for 12 hours. The hardest part of my job is the constant bombardment of bad news. I hear five radio channels of shootings, stabbings, fights, child abuse, assaults, drunk drivers, and suicides; with heart attacks, strokes, allergic reactions, and cardiac arrests thrown in for good measure.
We spend a surprising (and somewhat alarming) amount of time not being affected by these bad calls. We laugh at them, pick them apart from a medical standpoint (people shooting each other is bad; gunshot wounds themselves are interesting! and so on), tell jokes that are no doubt going to send us all to hell…but sometimes, the gravity of everything that happens around us catches up with us.
