Just Another Day in EMS

Just Another Day in EMS

    I delivered a baby on the ambulance gurney;
    I baptized a newborn whose life ended before it began.

    I hugged a frightened child;
    I was kissed by an intoxicated old man.

    I held the hand of a teenage girl as she delivered a 3-pound baby;
    I listened to the mournful squeak of a stretcher being wheeled to the morgue.

    I gently stroked the fragile hand of a 102-year-old woman;
    I hesitated at the outreached hand of a 300-pound prisoner in handcuffs.

    I trudged for 10-hours in my boots;
    I had a teenager vomit on those same boots.

    I rubbed the feverish body of a 14-year-old cancer patient;
    I cradled the ice-cold hand of a child hit by a car.
    I was referred to as “an angel of mercy”;
    I was called every four-letter word in the book.

    I always see fear in people’s eyes;
    I never see joy or relief.

    I listened to a tormented voice pleading for the preservation of life;
    I heard the threatening words of one bent on self-destruction.

    I spoke with a girl who was hoping she had the flu, not a pregnancy;
    I see innocent people killed or hurt by a drunk driver, and the drunk driver is never hurt.

    I marveled at the genius of a cardiologist;
    I saw a 12-year-old boy who shot himself in the head, and the gun was still loaded at his feet.

    I talked in circles with a schizophrenic person;
    I was horrified at the battered body of a child whose parents were incapable of love.
    I gazed at a horribly burned body;
    I shuddered at a cold water drowning.

    I see women beaten up by their spouses, but they never press charges;
    I walk into houses and do CPR with the family watching over my shoulder in tears.

    I arrive at serious auto accidents and the first words I hear are, “Am I going to die?”
    I found out later they did die.

    I listen to the repeated question, “Why?” from a family devastated by death;
    I search my soul for the answers to their question.


This is just another day in EMS


Derek Perry, EMT-I
Foothill Ambulance Co.
Sacramento, CA