Honoring Our Past…Pt.1

Welcome to my first blog post and happy post EMS week. I am writing this on EMS week, but I'm not quite sure that it will make it up to the website by then. It is also fitting that I am writing this while sitting in the ambulance. I have a chart I need to finish but I would rather be writing to you guys! In the future I have lots of cool information about massage, Reiki and Self care that I am excited about, but for my first blog and for first responder week I wanted to take a moment to honor all the EMS workers who came before me and who are working today.

This year the Theme of EMS week is Honoring our past, Forging the future. 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of EMS week. This week was a good reminder to slow down and honor where emergency medicine all began and how far we have come. Take a moment to praise the selfless workers who came before us and had a dream to save lives and reduce the suffering we see in the world. There has been a need for medical services since the dawn of human existence, with lots and lots of unique and sometimes terrifying ways that we tried to help them or get them to the hospital. In fact, some of the first ambulance workers were actually Mortuary workers, driving as fast as they could to the hospital in a hearse! Among those people was my grandpa, as a 16 year old boy just learning how to drive. Obviously, we needed a little more help in the emergency medical world.

It wasn't until 1967 that the first ambulance service was created. Freedom House Ambulance Service was formed in Pittsburg, PA. Dr. Peter Safar and Dr. Nancy Caroline created this service and trained some of the first Paramedics in the US. It is important that we recognize this service and don’t forget its huge impact on history in emergency medical services.

This service faced many challenges including racial injustice. The overwhelmingly white police force saw the work of the overwhelmingly Black paramedics as an incursion onto their turf. The Freedom House was staffed with most black men from the neighborhood. These men were the trailblazers of emergency medicine. They continued to serve proudly, even when people would say they were “unemployable”, and “the last likely to succeed.” Patients refused care because they would not take help from a black man. John Moon, one of the very first trained paramedics in the US stated, "because they're the ones that instilled that motivation and that drive into me that I could do something no matter what it is, no matter what the hurdle, no matter what the barrier." Moon is speaking about Freedom House. That is just one small piece of our history that changed everything. I often have the same thoughts that Moon had, working in EMS has shaped me into the healer I am today.

I am a born healer. I have always had a dream of working on the ambulance since I was a little kid. I have pictures of me as a toddler dressing up in fire gear and ambulance gear. To everyone who came before me and forged the future of EMS that I am living in now, I honor them and I am so grateful. The future I hope to forage for the next generation is one that will honor them, teach them, and show them the value of mental health and caring for yourself. The most important thing to do as a healer, is to heal yourself.

Stay tuned for Part two, I will focus on foraging the future and what that looks like to me.

With Love and light,

Emma

For EMS week last year I wrote this poem to recognize all we do: “Failure to prepare”

“The first thing you learn is failure to prepare is preparing to fail.

That's a bit of oblivious and ignorant advice if you ask me,

No matter how many classes you pass and lessons you memorize

You cant prepare yourself for the feeling each time you get a different partner

It feels like a break up with your old one.

Some sad breakups, who you still text everyday hoping they take you back( You know who you are)

Some awkward breakups

And…some breakups you just couldn't wait for.

They can’t prepare you for the way your heart sinks when you pull up to a car crash and see a car seat.

You pray there is no kid in the car seat, but forget about your heart sinking because you ARE prepared to save this baby's life.

No matter how informed I thought I was on how crazy,weird, oblivious, loud, mean, kind , and diverse everyone is,

I don't think I knew the world was

THIS weird.

I wasn't prepared to be told I was a hero and a life saver

But one hour later

Someone wanted to eat my beautiful eyeballs and punch my face.

It's our duty to see what others won't and never avert our eyes.

And…

Sometimes you can't prepare your eyes or ears…

A suicide…

A mother bellowing for her child…

A puppy trapped in a fire.

Why would people ever do a job where preparing is they key part,

But that's actually all a hoax because nobody knows what we are preparing for.

We do it because you also can't prepare for 12 hours of gossip and secrets and support with your partner while waiting for the next call to drop.

The intimacy of being welcomed into a home to care for a stranger.

Seeing a baby take its first breath.

I will continue to prepare everyday, and pretend I know what I am preparing for.”

-E.C.