The Medic Dad Chronicles

As you grow older you look back on your life, and you think about memories that stick in your head. You know the memories that pop up at the most random times, make your heart sink and make you regret what that memory is all about. You think to yourself, "If I could only go back" I could change this or I could do that. Unfortunately, I have way too, many of those such memories.  There is one of those that I have played in my head for many many years. When I was in junior high or maybe early in high school our family was not doing great financially. As a kid who was pretty active in the church, skiing, going out with friends, and not having a real job that made me pretty dependent on my parents for money. I will say that I was kind of resentful of my parents when they frequently told me no when I asked for money or something else that I wanted.  One time I was asking for money and again I was told no. I knew that my mom had just got a string of pearls and during a heated discu...

 It takes a little time to "get your numbers" so you can apply and hopefully get a job. When I did get them I applied right away with MedStar EMS. After being hired by an EMS service you have to do several ride-along shifts with training officers, supervisors, or senior staff just to learn the way that service does things. You learn their paperwork, dispatch procedures, how to drive lights and sirens, and how to treat patients within their protocols. As luck would have it, one of the rides I had was with a senior and well-known medic. I would like to say that was a good experience for me, but it was not. I rode in the back all night and learned nothing. That was not a good experience for me, but it taught me what not to do when I have people riding with me.  Once I was cleared to ride by myself I dove in head first. I rode with all kinds of people and took away things from each of them. I watched how each medic talked to patients, assessed them, and treated them. I saw good t...

 After my divorce, I had a lot of extra time on my hands, so I decided to go to EMT school. I enrolled in the EMT program at Ogeechee Technical College in Statesboro with a seasoned medic as my instructor. I have never been a model student and was not looking forward to taking tests and writing papers. I was sure that all the other students were 10 years younger than me and were going to breeze through. I will never forget the first time we had class, we were shown a video of a construction worker who was killed by a large cement wall that fell on him. After the wall fell only his boots could be seen from under the wall. Our instructor told us that if we were not able to stand seeing things like this then we should find another profession.  The class was mostly instruction from the book, there were also videos we watched and practical hands-on tasks that we had to perform. We would learn about different skills and then perform them on each other or sometimes on a dummy. We lea...

 I started this blog with no real direction and no real goals to it. I had so many thoughts in my head, dark spots, and things that I just didn't know how to deal with them. I have talked about my financial woes, my divorce, my family, and my careers, but I haven't really put out there what is happening in my head. There have been so many horrible things that I and others in my life have seen or dealt with and I just keep going like nothing really happened. I have told some of my really close friends that I feel like I am broken. That weight is in my head and I just keep plugging along. When the C-130 from Puerto Rico crashed, that was a very difficult time for me. After we cleared the call I went right back to work and finished my shift, I couldn't tell you how many calls I ran after the crash but there were many. I get a bad feeling in my gut every time I see black smoke on the horizon. I think about the tail of the aircraft sitting there in the road when I pass that stre...

 I started my EMS career as an EMT-Intermediate at MedStar EMS. I worked as a part-timer and I worked as much as I possibly could. I mostly needed the money, but I also loved what I did. After nearly a year I was approached and asked by a paramedic friend if I wanted to come full time and be her partner. Tracy was a seasoned medic, and we got along great so I jumped at the chance. Over the years as an EMT-I I learned so much, got to see so and do so much I went on to get my medic. That was when the real fun started.  As a medic you are in charge of your unit, you make the calls in patient care and you make the choices to keep you and your partner safe. I took what I learned from all my amazing partners and put it into what I did for my patients. We often have students who ride clinicals with us and sometimes they ask us "What is the worst call you've ever had?" or "What is the worst thing that you've ever seen?" My partner Sheila told one of them once, ...

 We were voluntold to go to a local elementary school to do a standby for the kids. There were to be fire trucks, police, and various other groups there. I will be honest I don't normally look forward to doing these events, but it always turns into a fun time. Kids are some of the most inquisitive people, they are blunt and they have little to no filter. We were very surprised at some of the questions asked by some of the kids. Below I will tell you about some of them.  What do you do when people die in there(pointing to the back of the unit)? Answer: People don't die in the back of the ambulance. We pump their heart for them if theirs isn't pumping. We can breathe for them if they can't breathe on their own. We give them medicine if that is what they need. Do you have a defibrillator? (asked by a third grader) Answer: Yes we do, but it does more than defibrillate.  What do you do if the person is on fire? How do you get the people out of a house that is on fire? Answer...

Note: all events talked about below are public knowledge however I have left some information out to not direct attention to some people or units.  I have been in 2 different career fields for over 20 years each, I have enjoyed both of them but after the 20-year mark, it just isn't the same. I was in the military aviation industry for 23 years, starting in the Army and then becoming a contractor. Next is my EMS career which I started while working on aircraft. There have been countless peaks and valleys in both fields, times when I thought I would do this or that forever, and then times when I just wanted to walk away.  I started my military aviation career in 1989, I joined the service, went to Germany, and with a short break thrown in there I remained in Germany until 1998. I came to Hunter Army Airfield in Ga in Dec '98 and stayed until 2013. I worked for a special operations unit and made some great friends along the way. I was working in the hangar on 9/11(my birthday) an...

 Along with the loss of the closeness that you had with your kids, divorce also wrecks you financially. I was not in the best financial situation before my divorce and that was just compounded afterwards. You develop debt from the actual divorce, then the marital debt usually goes to the male half and then there is the child support. I was left with the previous cc debt, an old Oldsmobile(that we called the Hooptie), and then the child support. So here I was at the absolute worst part of my life, I wasn't eating and I was just broken. I lost over forty pounds, and people told me that I looked good and asked me what I was doing to lose the weight. I told them that I was going through a divorce and that I didn't recommend it as a weight loss program.  Shortly after the divorce, I decided that I wanted to go to EMT school, I got involved in that and I was happy again. I really enjoyed being in school and I had a great time with my classmates. Just before I finished school I met m...

For the people who have worked with me or around me, they have heard me say this "Living the dream" over and over. However, the truth is that for some time this has been far from the case. I am not sure if what has been going on in my life is stress, depression, or I am not sure what exactly you could call it.  I have to say that the worst day of my life had to be when my ex said that she wanted a divorce. I knew that this meant the absolute best part of my life, the kids were no longer going to be the center of my life. I lived to do things with the kids, sports, outdoor activities, church, and school functions, it was all going to end.  There was a guy that I worked with at the hanger named "Leg", he was a good guy who was going through a rough time at home. One day as we were talking he started crying and he apologized I said "Don't worry my friend, we all need to cry sometimes". Needless to say less than a month later I would be the one bawling as ...