The Medic Dad Chronicles

Why EMS Providers Are Struggling – My Take I recently read an article in JEMS titled “Why Are EMS Providers Struggling?” A lot of what was said hit close to home, but there were a few things I felt needed to be said from the perspective of someone who’s lived this job for a long time. First off, I had a good childhood. A solid one. I wasn’t abused, neglected, or raised in chaos. I don’t carry some hidden childhood trauma that EMS somehow unlocked later in life. That matters, because a lot of discussions about mental health in this field tend to drift toward “earlier wounds” and “unresolved past experiences.” That may apply to some people, but it does not apply to me. What I’m dealing with didn’t come from my childhood. It came from the job. Over time. Call after call. Deaths. Critically injured and critically sick kids and adults. Destruction. Scenes that don’t leave you once you clear them. That stuff adds up. One thing the JEMS article discusses is how EMS providers hurt one anoth...

  I Wish My Dad Were Here I had a thought the other day that hit me harder than I expected. I wish my dad were here to help me through this. Not because he would have all the answers. He never pretended to. He was a great voice of reason because he listened far more than he spoke. He let people talk themselves into clarity instead of rushing them toward a decision. When he did speak, it mattered. That’s what I miss right now. I’m at a point in my life where things feel heavy in a way that’s hard to explain. I’ve spent decades in EMS. Scene after scene. People on the worst days of their lives. Moments where things go exactly as planned, and moments where they don’t. Responsibility that doesn’t clock out when the shift ends. I showed up. I did my job. I did it well. And for a long time, that was enough. But somewhere along the way, the job stopped being just what I did and quietly became who I was. When that happens, everything gets tangled. Your identity, your sense of purpose, your...

  Gathering info Matters When you’re walking onto a scene, your head needs to be on a swivel. The call doesn’t start when you touch the patient; it starts the moment you step out of the truck. Everything on the way in matters, and you should be looking at all of it at the same time. Start with safety. Look for hazards, escape routes, and who is on scene and where they’re positioned. At the same time, let the environment tell you why you’re there. A fall call might show you obstacles, clutter, stairs, or poor lighting. An overdose might already be explaining itself with pill bottles, syringes, or drug paraphernalia. A breathing problem might have oxygen tubing on the floor, a concentrator running in the corner, or empty inhalers sitting nearby. While you’re taking all of that in, you should also be listening to everything and everyone within earshot. Listen to how family members are talking about the patient, what they’re saying to each other, and what sounds are coming from the roo...

  Treat Every Patient Like Family Nobody ever taught me this. I learned it the hard way. Over time, one thing became clear: if you treat every patient like they’re family, it’s a lot harder to get yourself into trouble. When you approach a patient the same way you would your own family, you slow down just enough. You explain things better, listen more, and don’t brush things off that you wouldn’t brush off if it were someone you cared about. There’s also a simple truth behind it — you can get a lot more with honey than you can with vinegar. When you’re genuinely nice to people, they tend to be more honest with you. They’ll tell you things they wouldn’t otherwise mention and open up about what’s really going on instead of giving short, defensive answers. Compare that to walking in and leading with, “Why’d you call an ambulance today?” That question alone can shut a patient down and make them feel judged for needing help in the first place. That doesn’t mean every patient will be pl...

Going through the motions It was the middle of the night when we were dispatched to a pedestrian struck in the middle of a four-lane road downtown. While we were en route, we were told the person struck had been in a wheelchair. When we arrived, the scene told the story immediately. The person was lying in the roadway, not moving. There was no pulse, no respirations, and the injuries were catastrophic. Parts of the body were positioned in ways they simply aren’t meant to be. It was clear to everyone on scene that this person was not alive. We covered them with a sheet and waited for law enforcement. A second unit arrived shortly after to see if anything else was needed. Around the same time, a local late-night news cameraman arrived and positioned himself along the edge of the scene, his light cutting through the darkness. He was a familiar face on late-night calls — professional, respectful, and always willing to help. That night, as he did for many others, he provided extra light on ...

A Man Among Men Some people make your job easier. A rare few make it better just by being who they are. (The name Charles (and Charlie) has been changed to protect his identity.) We used to go to a higher-end assisted living facility when I was working nights. Anytime I got sent there, I knew I was in for a treat, because I’d get to see the night “manager,” Charles. We’d pull up, and Charles would already be outside waiting for us. He’d greet us like old friends and immediately offer coffee, fruit, or whatever else he happened to have on hand. Whatever you said yes to would magically be ready for you on the way out. But that wasn’t the impressive part. Charles knew everyone in that building. Single residents, widows, married couples — he knew something about each and every one of them. Charles was a retired Marine Corps colonel and a member of the CIA. If the patient we were picking up had been military, he’d tell us their branch and rank. If they were retired law enforcement, fire, a ...

Tragic Not every hard EMS call is loud or dramatic. Sometimes the ones that stick with you are quiet — soft voices, scared eyes, or moments where you’re the only calm thing in the middle of someone’s worst day. Here are three that stayed with me over the years. 1. The Elderly Burn Patient Who Just Wanted Her Daughter One of the saddest calls I ever ran started with a simple dispatch: “Burn victim.” We walked into an older home and found an elderly woman standing in her living room. She had one of those old gas heaters — the kind that should’ve had a grate on it but didn’t. She’d walked past it in her nightgown, and it caught fire. She was burned from her mid-right leg all the way up to her right shoulder. Skin was sloughing off, exposing pink tissue. It was bad — the kind of burn that makes your gut drop. But she wasn’t screaming. She wasn’t panicking. She was calm in a way that didn’t feel real. I told her, gently but firmly, that she needed to go with us now. She needed a hos...

  Lift assists We get called for lift assists all the time. It’s part of the job. Someone falls, can’t get up, and wants to make sure nothing’s broken before trying again. One night, we were sent to a residence for a woman who had fallen in the bathtub. Anytime we hear that, our minds go straight to the worst-case scenario: a naked elderly person stuck in a tub. And sure enough, that’s exactly what we walked into. An older woman was sitting naked in a bathtub that was still half full of water. Thankfully, a family friend had already given her a towel to cover up, which we all silently appreciated. The real problem wasn’t the patient — it was the tub. It had sliding glass doors that covered half the tub, no matter which way you moved them. I took one look at where she was sitting and immediately realized there was no way to reach the drain to let the water out. So I did what seemed like the only option. I sat down, took off my boots and socks, rolled up my pants, and explained to th...

Building the camp When we got to our first camp in the desert, there was no easing into anything. The place was bare. Wide-open sand, wind, and a whole lot of “figure it out.” Everything had to be built: foxholes, bunkers in case a Scud came screaming in, shower spots, and the crappers — which deserve their own special mention later. Right off the bat, our stick wigglers pulled one of the boldest moves I saw the entire deployment. They reappropriated — politely speaking — about 15 to 18 oversized Air Force pallets. These weren’t little light-duty things; these were the heavy monsters. They used them to build a bunker so stout, so overbuilt, that they parked a HUMVV on top of it like it was no big deal. Solid as a bank vault. And lucky for me, that bunker sat right across the little path from my tent. So when the word came down to get into our bunkers for a possible Scud attack, I didn’t take off sprinting across camp to the bunker I was supposed to go to with my platoon. Nope — I du...

  In the ER I’ve said it before — I can’t stand drunk people. And this call is precisely why. We picked up a person who was passed out in town. Nothing fancy. Breathing fine, vitals good, completely out cold. One of those situations where the best medicine is leaving them the hell alone. I always tell new employees, students, and partners the same thing: Don’t poke the bear . If a drunk person is asleep and their vitals are good, let them sleep. You wake them up, you own whatever comes next. We brought them into the ER, got assigned a room, and offloaded without issue. I explained the situation to the nurse taking over — super sweet, calm, professional. She was also pregnant at the time. As I’m giving the patient care report, she starts hooking the patient up to the monitor. Everything’s fine until the blood pressure cuff starts to inflate. That’s when the bear woke up. The patient exploded off the bed and lunged for the nurse. There’s no time to think in moments like that. You eit...

REAR DETACHMENT – KHOBAR TOWERS When things started winding down for my unit, I volunteered to stay back with the rear detachment. Somebody had to clean, sort, and load all our gear onto the ships, and I figured I could handle that part. The Rear-D crew turned out to be a solid group. The vibe was different — more relaxed, more human, none of the constant edge we had during the main push. We were staying at Khobar Towers. At the time, it was just a place to rack out — big concrete buildings, kind of bland, nothing memorable. But after it got bombed later on, long after I’d left, it hits you different. You don’t forget that you once lived in a place that later became the center of something that tragic. Guard duty had its moments. One night, another guy and I were out there in the middle of the night, everything was dead quiet, and then suddenly, Muslim prayers blasted over a PA system right next to us. We had never heard that before. It scared us for a second — we didn’t know if so...