PLEASE APPRECIATE AND SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL EMERGENCY WORKERS
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 wife's horror at 6
in the morning as I check her husband of 40 years for a pulse and find
none.
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I start CPR anyway, hoping to bring him back, knowing intuitively it is too
late. But wanting his wife and family to know everything possible was done
to try and save his 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 and ask
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, knowing she will never go on her first date or say the words,
"I love you Mommy", ever again. I wish you could know the frustration I feel
in the cab of the engine, squad, or my personal vehicle, 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 wife or a
friend? What were her parents reaction going to be when they opened 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 of 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
my 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 they 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.
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PLEASE APPRECIATE AND SUPPORT THE LOCAL EMS WORKERS,
911 DISPATCHERS, FIREFIGHTERS, and LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS IN YOUR AREA.
ONE DAY THEY'LL PROBABLY BE SAVING YOUR PROPERTY OR YOUR OWN LIFE.
WHEN YOU SEE THEM COMING WITH LIGHTS FLASHING, MOVE TO THE RIGHT
QUICKLY, and THEN PRAY FOR THEM!
