On first responding

First of all, I want to say that I love being a First Responder, I have been one now for a long time...
I was 17 when I took my first course and I haven't looked back yet. I have always thought that if I didn't live in a colony, I would be a Paramedic or at least an EMT.


There is nothing that compares to the rush of adrenaline when my radio goes off, if it's in the middle of the night or during the day, those few minutes until we arrive on scene and until it's over, I can hardly find anything to compare, when my brain takes over and I work on the patient until ALS (advanced life support) arrives, are what only fellow trauma junkies know what it feels like. 


I prefer working on the patients, as to staying and comforting the family members, that is one part of  first responding where I have to say, I am not comfortable. It seems to me my mind goes blank, so when I usually land up with family, I try to distract them from what my fellow FR's are doing and talk about mundane things, sometimes, depending on how serious the call, I usually land up holding and comforting the mother, or whoever, and that is hard, all those courses you take, there is really none where it teaches how to deal with the family, we have had calls where the patient is dead or close to, and those are the hardest ones ever, esp. when there is a baby or child involved, those are absolutely the worst calls in the world. No amount of adrenaline can make up for the feeling of utter helplessness when you have done all you can and it wasn't enough. The rewards are great, and yet sometimes, you come home and just cry and cry.


One of our first fatalities came right after we had finished our CPR course, we got a call for an MVA (motor vehicle accident) when we arrived a passing EMT came out to meet us and told us the lady was deceased, well, we were so gung ho we looked at each other and said: "we know CPR" and she said: "not in this case." To this day I believe if she hadn't been there to stop us, we would have done CPR on her, (she had a serious head injury and had died on scene)


One of the worst calls I have responded to was when a 12 year old boy hung himself, when I arrived on scene, the other FR's were already doing CPR. The Ambulance from the city arrived and took him in all the while continuing with CPR. (But they stopped CPR on the way in) The boy's mother was standing there crying and screaming, so we took her inside, and just held her and comforted her, but she was hysterical and after fainting a few times we called an ambulance for her too. What boggles my mind is why a  12 year old boy would reach the point where he no longer wanted to live. If it was an accident or  a deliberate attempt I guess we will never know. And because of patient confidentiality we cannot follow up on calls, but this being a neighbour, we never heard, also we cannot talk about anything regarding any call. Which is kind of hard, because talking about traumatic experiences are healing in itself, but there are awesome programs out, where when we have had a really 'bad" call, we get together in a group and talk about it, they can get pretty emotional sometimes tho, but it's all part of the program.


I have never assisted at a birth, although there have been a number of close calls, I would love to, after seeing death so often, I think watching life come into this world would be awesome.


People ask me how I can stand the blood, actually it has never really affected me, one of our instructors has gory pictures which he showed to us, He called it desensitizing, and I really think he has a point there, I have come on scenes where there was blood, broken bones, etc. and you swallow and go about doing what you can.


When I took my course we were able to go to the city and take a ride-a-long with the paramedics and EMT's, talk about rushes! Flying through the streets, sirens and flashers on, cars getting out of your way, going through red lights...all the while thinking, 'not wishing anybody harm, but if it's gonna happen, it might as well happen when I'm on a ride-a-long!' the paramedics and EMT's are quite friendly, I think it being that a Hutterite girl is actually doing this, it was quite interesting to them.


In conclusion I must say, it's not for everybody, but for myself, I love it. The only thing that is not so nice or good, is when I come home from a call (and here is where every Hutterite will know exactly what I am talking about) is when I walk out from the car and the questions fly, and I cannot answer them. Legally I can't even say if the call was medical or an accident, but this is where I do say if it was a medical or an accident, I have to give them something, I know for myself I would really like to know what is going on...But through the years I think most of our people understand, but they still ask in hopes of hearing the gory morbid details. :-)