Giving Them Paramedical Attention

(I’m a fifteen-year veteran paramedic. I’ve just come into work to pick up my ambulance and start my shift when my supervisor informs me that I have been scheduled for a meeting with both Human Resources and Quality Assurance the next morning. These meetings are usually a very big deal, meaning that somewhere a policy or procedure in treatment wasn’t followed, and disciplinary action is usually involved. So, not the best news. I spend my shift talking to my paramedic partner about every call we’d run in the month prior, trying to figure out what might have happened, but nothing pops on our radar. Skip to the next morning. I show up for the meeting and everyone is pleasant and there are some people there, with a small infant, that I don’t know.)

Quality Assurance Manager: “[My Name], do you recognize any of these folks?”

Me: “No, sir. I’m afraid I don’t.”

Woman: *holding baby* “My husband and I were involved in a very serious accident three months ago while I was pregnant… a week away from my due date. You and your partner were the first people on scene; they told us later that you drove up, and dove right in without any hesitation whatsoever. You put me onto a helicopter because I was pregnant and sent my husband by ground ambulance to the same hospital so we wouldn’t be separated. After my surgery and emergency C-section I have a healthy me and a healthy, happy child. The trauma doc told us that your decisions on the side of that road saved both me and the baby. Would you like to meet her? I can’t think of any better way to say thank you.”

(I held that darling little girl for the better part of an hour, cooing and feeding her and getting to know her amazing parents. After a round of hugs and many thanks all around, I was absolutely floored that these people had taken the time to hunt us down to say thank you. It doesn’t happen often in my line of work, but the times it does mean so much.)