Ask any EMS or other public safety professional what stereotypical trope in conversation they hate the most, and they’ll probably tell you not to ask “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen on a call?” – and for good reason. We don’t like revisiting those calls. We don’t need to trudge them back up into memory for your own personal entertainment. We have our own ways of dealing with the feelings and memories surrounding those calls, and a lot of them are private, sensitive topics and are not for public discussion. Certainly not around the dinner table, or standing at the grill in the backyard over a couple of beers. Not only that, but you, as an outside observer, likely have no idea the amount of trauma you’re about to be subjected to by engaging in experiencing such a traumatic experience in whatever vivid detail we decide to come up with in response to your imposition. Asking a public safety professional to rehash their “worst call ever” is like asking a loved one “what’s your most painful memory and would you mind sharing that with me just for giggles?”
Continue reading “My New “Worst Call Ever” Has Arrived”
It’s EMS WEEK 2020! It sure doesn’t feel like it, though. Usually as we are approaching this week, we’re talking about crew breakfasts, the EMS week banquet, service recognition events, team-building, and other fun events. Instead, our discussions are focused on things like PPE utilization, COVID alert rates, disease spread, and community fatality rates. Much of the work that ACEP and NAEMT have done in preparing for EMS Week this year has basically been to support all of us in EMS in continuing to do the job that we love so much in the face of such a strange and challenging pandemic, rather than their traditional roles of cheer-leading and boosting morale during this week. 
She’s only 20 years old*. 15 years younger than me. Laid out on the ground in front of the house. It’s 40 degrees outside at 1am here in Texas. Her boyfriend woke up and found her not breathing and did CPR on her while waiting for us to show up. The police showed up first and she woke up. They started their investigation before Fire and EMS even made it to the scene, and proudly declared to me that they had discovered heroin and drug paraphernalia inside the house. All around me are public safety employees shouting at this young woman, “what did you take?” and “what are you on?” and “whose drugs are inside the house?” 
I don’t often share much about my personal life through this blog, but I am elated to share with you, my readers, that my wife and I are expecting our first child, a boy, due in January 2018! Admittedly, this is a very happy, hectic, exciting time in our lives, and I can’t help but think back on some of the times that I had the opportunity to share in the beginning of a new life in my EMS career.
Firstly, I’d like to apologize for not posting to the VEB blog for a couple months. The holidays kind of ran away from me and I have been particularly busy at work. Thank you for remaining a reader and subscriber, to those of you who are still with me. This post is a sermon I delivered at my synagogue back in October. Some of the references in this sermon are from the Hebrew Torah, (or the “Old Testament” as many of you may know it) and are easily found using Google if you need a refresher or are unfamiliar. For the most part, it’s not particularly religious, it’s more philosophical, and I talk a bit about EMS in it as well, so I hope you enjoy it. A number of people have requested that I share this online for re-reading or being able to share it elsewhere. If you do share it, please remember to credit back to me at this blog or by 
Ventricular Escape Beats 