The Real Difference  Between Police, Firefighters, Sanitation, Nursing and EMS It takes a special person to be a first responder. There is a great deal of real danger involved in a job where a person is asked to drive and run towards an emergency that the majority of people are running away from. We compensate first responders for the readiness for that danger. In the case of EMTs and Paramedics, the city and state have basically refused to. The difference between an EMS provider and a Cop or Firefighter is not the risk involved, as Mayor DeBlasio has claimed. The … Continue reading The Real Difference

EMS Providers Recall 9/11 There was no way to fully plan for what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 because no one could ever have expected the massive loss of life and destruction that occurred simultaneously in New York City, Arlington, Va., and Shanksville, Pa. “It was the unexpected times the unimaginable,” said former Fire Department of New York (FDNY) EMS Chief John Peruggia. Those who responded to 9/11 have not fully survived the event—because what they experienced has not ended. The trauma of that day continues to plague the physical and mental health of many of the responders and, in … Continue reading EMS at 9.11

“Front of the Front Line”: EMS Honors its Covid-19 Dead Whatever the “Front of the Frontline is”, that is where the women and men of EMS always stand. Sometimes people hand you a dead blue baby, and you have to do everything at 10,000 miles an hour. Sometimes you turn up on a huge hysterical crowd where a couple people were shot and are bleeding everywhere. Sometimes you have to deliver a baby in a project stairwell. Sometimes you show up to a tight asthmatic gagging ready to arrest. Or you bring back a junkie, over and over and over … Continue reading The Front of the Frontline