What I wish
people knew about EMS, Firefighters, Dispatchers, & Law
Enforcement.
I wish you could know what it is like to search a burning bedroom for trapped
children at 3
AM, flames rolling above your head, your palms and knees burning as you crawl,
the floor sagging under
your weight as the kitchen below you burns.
I wish you could comprehend a husband's horror at 6 in the morning as I check
his wife of 40 years for a
pulse and find none. I start CPR anyway, hoping to bring her back, knowing
intuitively it is too late.
But wanting her husband and family to know everything possible was done to try
to save her life.
I wish you knew the unique smell of burning insulation, the taste of soot-filled
mucus, the
feeling of intense heat through your turnout gear, the sound of flames
crackling, the eeriness of being
able to see absolutely nothing in dense smoke-sensations that I've become too
familiar with.
I wish you could read my mind as I respond to a building fire "Is this a false
alarm or a working
fire? How is the building constructed? What hazards await me? Is anyone
trapped?"
Or to call, "What is wrong with the patient? Is it minor or life-threatening? Is
the caller really in
distress or is he waiting for us with a 2x4 or a gun?"
I wish you could be in the emergency room as a doctor pronounces dead the
beautiful five-year old
girl that I have been trying to save during the past 25 minutes, who will never
go on her first date or
say the words, "I love you Mommy" again.
I wish you could know the frustration I feel in the cab of the engine or unit
the driver with his foot
pressing down hard on the pedal, my arm tugging again and again at the air horn
chain, as you fail to yield
the right-of-way at an intersection or in traffic.
When you need us however, your first comment upon our arrival will be,
"It took you forever to get here!"
I wish you could know my thoughts as I help extricate a girl of teenage years
from the remains
of her automobile. "What if this was my daughter, sister, my girlfriend or a
friend? What is her
parent's reaction going to be when they open the door to find a police officer
with hat in hand?"
I wish you could know how it feels to walk in the back door and greet my parents
and family, not
having the heart to tell them that I nearly did not come back from the last
call.
I wish you could know how it feels dispatching officers, firefighters and EMT's
out and when we
call for them and our heart drops because no one answers back or to here a bone
chilling 911 call of
a child or wife needing assistance.
I wish you could feel the hurt as people verbally, and sometimes physically,
abuse us or belittle what
I do, or as they express their attitudes of "It will never happen to me."
I wish you could realize the physical, emotional and mental drain or missed
meals, lost sleep and forgone
social activities, in addition to all the tragedy my eyes have seen.
I wish you could know the brotherhood and self-satisfaction of helping save a
life or preserving someone's
property, or being able to be there
in time of crisis, or creating order from total chaos.
I wish you could understand what it feels like to have a little boy tugging at
your arm and asking,
"Is Mommy okay?" Not even being able to look in his eyes without tears from your
own and not knowing
what to say. Or to have to hold back a long time friend who watches his buddy
having CPR done on him
as you take him away in the Medic Unit. You know all along he did not have his
seat belt on.
A sensation that I have become too familiar with.
Unless you have lived with this kind of life, you will never truly understand or
appreciate who I am,
we are, or what our job really means to us...I wish you could though.