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When I was in the Air Force, I had completed assignments as a Medic and Intelligence Specialist. Upon my honorable discharge, I had honed my craft as a Medic through the military training academy. In the military branches, Medics have a wide range of skills that are allowable in the field. As opposed to the constraints of civilian hospitals and professional emergency service operations. The Medics always operate as if they are in wartime operations. If service personnel were injured during war time operations, or on a peace time training mission, there were no distinctions in the military Emergency Services Unit.
I had taken a job on a commercial ambulance as a technician upon my Honorable Discharge. That job proved to be somewhat of a bust. The big commercial ambulance services are companies that are ‘for profit’ businesses. They low bid city contracts for 9-11 coverage and obtain the emergency response component only to maintain communal relationships and ties to their sponsor hospitals. Their money is not made picking up the indigent and homeless with no health care insurance.
The immigrant families and destitute population utilize the 911 system as their personal Uber. The sick calls made by the third-floor apartment dweller become the nemesis of the EMS world. The houses with no numbers, the dangers of the city, navigating the logistics of the cluttered back staircase, the disabled cars, language barriers etc., all of this results in EMS crews getting hurt and taking forever on scene.
The dispatchers and company management utilize Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to track exact locations of crews and their on-scene times. They prod the crews like cattle. Management constantly shuffles the non-paying emergency patients out of their ambulances, so that they can make room for the Medicare transports in and out of facilities. Those government checks come down like rain in the amazon.
Employees like me (Conner Phoenix) and my crew mates don’t seem to last long when we care too much. It’s a system. One that makes money. The exciting, rewarding, and challenging emergency calls are like a flat tire to the giant corporations and their CEO’s. Their motto when a flat occurs - stop and assess. Mind your safety. Change out the tire quick and get the vehicle moving again… NOW!
I sat back and stretched out my arms and took a mental break while I typed my two-week notice. Reflecting on a recent call, I looked off into the distance like a combat veteran with a thousand-yard stare.
It was 0230 hrs in November. It was cold. Myself and my EMS crew mate were trying to finish up an overnight shift. The smell of diesel fumes from the exhaust of the ambulance eminent. We had been at our post for some time now and the knock from the diesel engine groaned as the heat kicked in again. We had spent the day and evening running some of our seniors from one end of God’s creation to the other. A few minor medicals in between. It seemed we were on our way to an uneventful shift, for a change.
My partner and I were leaning against the posts by our respective seat belt retractors. We both had folded arms in an effort to get one minute of comfort before the next call for service. I whispered over to my partner behind the wheel “hey bud, I’m gonna get ten minutes of rack time. I feel likeshit.”
Thankfully this partner on the recent shift bid was more on the normal side of Emergency Services. “Ok Conner, I’ll watch road and the radio. I’m next. I will wake you up in a bit.”
Just when I was about to fade out. The radio chirped and crackled with that annoying dispatcher voice not far behind.
“No
