1. Do not enter a dark residence without first announcing yourself, better yet, have the police respond with you. Granted the entry time may be delayed but police are outfitted to handle the unknown.
2. Prior to entering a gated yard shake the fence. If there is a dog loose on the premises the noise should provoke the animal to come running on the opposite side of the fence.
3. Do not allow  a cardiac patient to have a bowel movement prior to transport, I am sure most of us are aware of this, however, it goes without saying that working a code in a hallway or bathroom is very cramped.
4. When a patient tells you that they are fixing to die you should prepare yourself. The fear of impending doom is a very real thing.
5. I got in the habit of carrying a small jar of Vicks while on duty. A small dab on the upper lip works wonders. One can never to what degree of noxious odor may be present.

Our trip was to take about an hour, and heading out, it seemed like just another ordinary inter-hospital transport.  About 10 miles on to the interstate, we started to hear some chatter on the radio. Something about an officer needing assistance, but we could not make out a location, and there was no report of what sort of problem had occurred. Suddenly, we noticed a state trooper along the interstate and he had another vehicle pulled over. As we got closer, we noticed another trooper running through the median to flag us down.

We pulled to the side to see what the problem was, and the trooper advised us that another trooper had been hit by a passing car while writing a ticket to a motorist. I contacted the ER and they advised we could hold their and assist, instead of continuing onward to our destination.

I stayed in the ambulance with my patient, and my EMT driver/partner hopped out to assist the officer. A couple of minutes later, my partner returned and asked for me to send more help, and advised the officer was critical. I sent word to dispatch and my partner returned to his patient with supplies. It would be about 5-10 minutes before another ambulance would be able to arrive.

While looking out the rear doors of the ambulance toward my partner to try and get an idea of the patient condition, it becomes apparent to me that my patient is tapping my leg with his foot. I turned to look and noticed my patient struggling to breathe. A quick glance to the heart monitor and I see the patient is in Ventricular Tachycardia. Emotions and desperation suddenly took a while new direction. I am sitting on the edge of the interstate, my patient is about to arrest, and my partner is too busy with the injured officer to be of any assistance.

I began to treat my patient, and he did go into cardiac arrest. About the same time, my partner sent the other officer to my truck to ask for my assistance. I notified the officer of the happenings and he quickly turned away and returned to my partner to deliver the bad news.

Three shocks, and 30 seconds of compressions later, my patient has a pulse return. I hung appropriate meds, and started on the phone to the ER. Meanwhile, a second ambulance arrived and we now have help. I quickly grabbed a new driver, and we returned toward the original hospital. While enroute, I hear a helicopter is arriving to help with the trooper and a second helicopter being called to meet at the ER with myself to pick up my patient.

Later that evening, like all emergency workers, we all sat around to reminisce about what had occurred. A normal inter-hospital transport, something we had done a thousand times a year, suddenly became a life or death manner for my patient and a police officer.

Reports on both patients came back that evening. Both patients would survive, and neither was expected to suffer any long term consequences. It was a run I would not soon forget.

My partner was a female approx 40 years old. She was originally from Minnesota, but had lived and worked in Indiana with me for about 5 years. Certainly long enough for her to know that alligators were not indigenous to the area.

While enroute back to station, we were traveling down a pretty long gravel road. We were both very tired, and the rain was not helping visibility much. I was sort of half sleeping in the passenger seat on our way back, when all the sudden, my partner locks up the breaks. I immediately woke and started to panic, thinking we were in the midst of a MVA ourselves. Just as the tires came to a stop, my partner gasped and with her last bit of air says “Alligator”. I had to just take a second and process what she had just said. So, I told her to back up.

As we pulled backwards, we found the alligator sitting half in and out of the road, soaking up all of the water from the night’s rain. It was a LOG!! I looked at my partner with a sort of condescending look and immediately started to laugh hysterically. Of course she was embarrassed, and starts to try and defend herself. Well…Let’s just say that trying to defend herself was doing no good at all. My evil side and I took over, and my partner was now in for a lifetime of alligator stories.

During our trip back, we encountered many more animals that did not belong in Indiana. I pointed out the herd of black and white hippos grazing in the fields, and I also pointed out all of the giraffes we passed, and how in Indiana we put saddles on them. I also made a few phone calls, and by the time we arrived back on station, my partner now owned a whole collection of alligator stuffed animals, wallets, and whatever else our crews could find lying around their homes.

Later that year, my partner even received an award from our director at the annual banquet. It was a very nice pet alligator on a leash. Actually, it was a tree branch the director found outside, but it did have a leash. It has now been over 10 years since this event, but even today, stories of our little safari circulate around the station.

In a business as stressful as EMS, Fire, or Criminal Justice services, it helps to make light of some situations. The family type bonds that form between co-workers. Along with these bonds come all of the interactions that most close families share. Me and that partner are still close friends to this day, and situations like these only serve to strengthen the lifelong bonds that all of us in public service share.

Thanks to Jenny for the memory, and I wish many great memories to today’s servants in public safety.

By Jamey

The same goes for many interdepartmental relationships. Ambulance services, fire departments, policing agencies, and other rescue agencies all become closely related, just by the mere fact of the interactions we hold together. I think it is partly because of the time spent together, but I also believe that a large part of what forces us to become more like a family than co-workers is that after a difficult run or rescue call, we only have each other to console, and a bond forms during those stressful times.

I can recall numerous times walking out of the hospital and looking for a fellow co-worker to just sit and talk with after just dropping off a patient of some sort of tragic or stressful event. Although the families of those injured or in trouble surely endure more pain, stress, and depression than those of us rescuers go through, they will also usually have a large support group to turn to. That is not necessarily the case for the rescuer. Rescuers will usually only have each other to turn to, and to vent or cry on.

From dispatchers to Police offers, volunteer firemen to full time firemen, EMTs to Paramedics, and a Paramedic to RN, they all go through extreme stress when alarms sound and the time to react occurs. Much of the problem happens because the event usually only lasts a short time, and then the rescuers are left to wind down on his own.

In 1994 I was dispatched to a call of an auto accident. I remember stepping out of the ambulance and seeing several teenagers still in the cars, and what looked like a “staged” accident. The sun was shining, the cars looked neatly placed in the grass, and there was not yet a crowd around the scene. As I walked up, I realized that this was definitely not some staged mock scenario that we practice with. This was the real thing, and as the highest authority on the scene, children’s lives were left in my hands.

As I maneuvered around the scene to triage and do what I needed to do, I noticed something else. I was suddenly unable to swallow, my mouth had dried up, and I was near gagging, simply because my throat was so dry. I was even struggling to breath, and whether I felt like I could continue or not, I had no choice. I had to help those kids, and regardless if I were going through some sort of reaction to stress, or even a heart attack of my own, my job had to come first.

Since the accident happened only a mile from the hospital, it didn’t take long for us to have the patients as stable as possible and then delivered to the hospital. However, it also meant that in a matter of minutes, we as rescuers went from a normal work day afternoon, to such a high stress situation that medical problems began to impede even us, to having the patients at the hospital and finding ourselves lingering outside the ER doors with nothing left to do but clean up the trucks, all in a matter of about 30 minutes.

It took the rest of the afternoon before I felt like I was even thinking clearly. In fact, the accident made such an impact on all of the county rescuers involved that a stress debriefing was held a week later.

I continued to work in EMS and in other capacities of Emergency Services for many more years. I finally left the career behind me, but it would take about another two years before I could sleep a full night. I would awaken many times during the night, simply from the habit of being woken up to take runs at all hours of the night for so long. It was part of the job, and I truly loved the “Job”, but I also can reflect back now and see just how the stress of the job had impacted my life for so long.

My heart goes out to every emergency worker. Having lived, and walked in your shoes for so long, I can truly understand what an average day in your life is. I think so many Americans take emergency workers jobs for granted, and that is ok. It is what we chose to do with our lives, and it is also what helped mold us into the people we are.

By Jamey P.