canuck

The hardest part about working and living in the same area is hearing about a call you were on and all the armchair critics. A call I did years ago by the time the local experts were done with it we had been lost and incompetent and there were complaints filled by the family because of the length of time it took to finish the call. Never a complaint filed and the family was fully aware of what was going on and the reason the call took so long. It took me a long time to get over being very bitter at "Joe Public" for that one, but knowing that his family was fine with what went down was a good start on the road to being at peace with the call It's a good start to recognize that you are affected by the call and that is a human reaction. It's unfortunate that talking to a councillor didn't help but don't give up on talking to people. I'm lucky, my husband is in the same profession but works at a different service, he's handy to talk to. My Mom doesn't understand EMS but she 'gets' people who are hurting and is an awesome shoulder to cry on (have to leave out the specific details when talking to her so as not to identify local people) Maybe if your family is discussing a call that you've been on and they know you've been on you could ask them not to talk about it when you are there, that you won't be giving them any details even if they try to pry them out of you and they are wasting their time speculating on what happened. If you have friends in surrounding services who were not on the call and you can trust them to keep confidentiality they might be a resource to talk to. Unfortunate that some folks still see emotional responses as a weakness and try to keep others from talking about how things are affecting them. Personally I feel those are the folks who are afraid of their emotions.

Excellent letter Thank you Dr.McNamara He helped us during our fight to keep from being taken over by the Fire Department. I think most services can agree, we do two different jobs that at times complement each other but are not in any way shape or form "the same job". Maybe I missed somthing, but where was this letter published other than here? I know a few people who would be interested in this.

What about your partner who did the defib check.? If you are getting disciplined for not reporting it should they have not gotten the same discipline? Management needs to be consistent or they create hard feelings through the group. I'm not saying you should go running to them to snitch on everyone who does something wrong, but your partner that shift has as much responsibility to report the damage as you do.

“Hey man i hear your crys about someone having to wait. but you know what i can respond to the city as quik as a volunteer can take to show up wait for a crew and be on scene as als in the same time frame.” “dude you are right on the money i did not read the fine print... thanks for heds up. my uncanny knack to type my mental and verbal vomit sometimes overrides the capacity to omit gramatical errors. I get ahead of myself. but i see i'm going to get alot of guidance from folks here. much appreciated.” Sorry, but I have to correct these. Quick, just like the stuff you put in milk “I” is always capitalized when talking about yourself Head, like the thing that is supposed to be on your shoulders. Absolutely no offense intended to the author of these posts, but come on.... volunteer or not, verbal vomit or not, it only takes a moment to go through spell and grammar check. Not even sure what to make of the first sentence.