smurfwhore

Ok..I didn't write this, but I wanted to post this as a reply to this..the author is listed at the end.

Standing in chest deep water,freezing rain falling and stinging as it hits the

exposed parts of my body. Holding her head above water to keep her from drowning until rescue could get there to cut her free---

BUT I'M JUST AN AMBULANCE DRIVER

Comforting a 89 year old woman who just watch me and my partner cover the face of her husband of 64 years as he lay dead in their bathroom floor---

BUT I'M JUST AN AMBULANCE DRIVER

On scene at an mva with mom trapped upside down in her car and her dead sons body laying on top of her without a second thought for my own safety I crawl into the wreckage to take C-spine control and calm the frantic lady---

BUT I'M JUST AN AMBULANCE DRIVER

Called away from my just prepared meal to respond to the middle of B.F.E to a house with no numbers,no porch light on,nobody waiting to signal us in and they bitch because we took too long only to find out the patient left P.O.V ten minutes ago...so we smile and walk away from the verbal lashing only because we are

JUST AMBULANCE DRIVERS

Standing in the middle of the street at midnight on the wrong side of town trying to patch the holes and stop the bleeding of a 19 year old shooting victim with the occasional bullet wizzing past our heads we never break stride because this kids life is in our hands---

BUT I'M JUST AN AMBULNCE DRIVER

Doing chest compressions on a 16 year old girl who decided this life was more than she could take.Her family screaming at us to help as though we are the ones who did this to her. Her lifeless body flailing about as the tube goes in and IV's being started, my arms and back burning from the pain of 30 minutes of CPR never once giving up, hoping she would make it through and over come whatever lead her to this bad decision----

BUT I'M JUST AN AMBULANCE DRIVER

Death is all around me and still I go home to live my life

I get kicked, hit, spit on, bled on, puked on...

I look into the eyes of a lifeless child at 7am and by 8 am I'm holding my child a little tighter and they know nothing about what happened.

I have hundreds of hours of classroom time years of in the field experience

I have challenged death and won

I've helped the helpless

I've neglected my family for yours

I find comfort in complete chaos

I eat cold meals if I eat at all

I work with no sleep for days at a time

I miss birthdays,holidays and school functions

I put myself in harms way for a total stranger on a daily basis

ALL BECAUSE I AM JUST AN AMBULANCE DRIVER

CHRIS INGLE AMBULANCE DRIVER/EMT

That is so tacky. I hate tacky shit like that, esp. EMS tributes, slide shows with enya songs, EMS prayers, the 'if you only knew' poems. If you want everyone to call you a hero, you're going to have to become a fireman or a police officer. This crap just makes me want to hit someone. I don't see the need to romanticize or try to make people shed a tear for what we do.

The American Heart Assoc. offers an online ACLS course, not really geared toward a certification, more so as a practice type course and exam. However, it is nonetheless as challanging an exam, as you would find from a classroom course.

Because that would be an assult upon the American justice system. Allbeit flawed, a teenager with a bag of marijuana certainly does not deserve the death penalty. I believe that every sentence served should be done so in a manner to serve the citizens that were endangered by their acts. Ontop of every prison term, tack on a hundred.. or several hundred hours of guarded community service. I know a lot of city blocks that could have grafitti panted over.

I feel a better public education system geared toward Emergency Services and Public Safety, would greatly improve the image of EMS in the minds of the general public.