Miles 1
Rebekah Miles
Trout
English 101
Just a Normal Day
You suddenly see the bright blue and red lights glistening in your rearview mirror. As the sirens get closer and closer, you ponder whether or not you should pull off to the side of the road so the ambulance can easily pass by. But you do and after it passes, you say a quick prayer in your mind—“I hope they’re alright”—and then resume driving a normal speed to work on a normal day just like any other.
What you do not know is that at some point when the ambulance passed you, you were less than ten feet away from an unconscious child who just got pulled out of a house fire, in lifethreatening condition. With the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) racing to the hospital, the paramedic concentrates on a procedure known as an endotracheal intubation (or when a tube is placed into the trachea by mouth for a patient who cannot breathe on his or her own). The time is ticking and every second is critical. Being a paramedic or an EMT is an intense job. This past year, I was able to shadow a few to help me gain knowledge about their careers. After the first couple of patients, I quickly realized that this was not my calling in life. You will see why.
Back home in Pensacola, FL., I had numerous opportunities to participate in our local
Emergency Medical Services (EMS). My high school, West Florida High School, offered an
EMS academy, which was basically a big club that offered classes during actual school hours. I was a member all four years, and my senior year I was the president. My teacher’s name was
Mr. Thomas, a former paramedic, and he taught us about most of the procedures he performed, how to react in certain situations, and the anatomy of the body. I loved learning about this field

Miles 2 of work because you never know what to expect. It is fascinating because it is not a field where the focus is on one particular area of study. If you are a paramedic or EMT, you must have a wide range of knowledge because you never know what to expect when you walk into work that day. Your first call could be an old man in cardiac arrest (heart attack) and your second could be a six-year-old child who just fell thirty feet from of a tree resulting in a serious brain injury. The surprise factor appealed to me and I decided my sophomore year of high school that I wanted to be a paramedic.
I had plenty of experience with EMS before going out onto the field. My high school was involved with Health Occupational Students of America (HOSA). In HOSA, there is a series of competitions held each year for students pursuing a medical career. For HOSA, I was apart of EMT Skills. EMT Skills was on of the harder events because there is so much knowledge needed to perform it. In EMT Skills, there are eight different medical tests that a person must practice and you are tested on three random ones. My teacher always made me study extremely hard for these competitions. In my last competition, the scenario was unquestionably insane. The scenario was about a little girl and her family who had gone to
Disney World in Orlando, FL for a summer vacation. While in Animal Kingdom, the little girl was stomped on by an elephant, resulting in serious injuries that the competitor (me) tended to.
While she is bleeding profusely, the little girl’s father panicked and went into cardiac arrest.
During this time, I was to stabilize the daughter’s breathing because she was gasping for air.
Also, I was to put a splint on her leg and use a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. And on top of that, I have to give her father CPR. This was stressful, without a doubt. But it prepared me for what may happen in the EMS field. It was a requirement in my senior EMS class to go on two twelve-hour shifts with the local EMS. I volunteered for two 8 a.m.-8 p.m. shifts. During these

Miles 3 shifts, you are with an EMT and a paramedic whom you have never met. You are with them on the ambulance all day and are not supposed to leave their side, like a new puppy. There are also rules while on the ambulance for safety purposes: no phones, gloves on 24/7 unless taking a break, and do not touch anything sharp. These rules were enforced the minute we stepped on the ambulance.
On my first ride, my paramedic was around twenty-six years old. His name was Joseph and he was a former fire fighter, EMT, and by the looks of him, he could have told me he modeled and I would have believed him. He was six feet tall, had crystal blue eyes, and his muscles looked like Hercules’s muscles on steroids. I could not even hear what he was saying half of the time because his muscles were so loud. My EMT, Tink (short for Tinkerbelle), was also in her mid-twenties and she was gorgeous. She had natural blonde hair, was petite, and she was so nice that I wanted her to be mean sometimes because the friendliness was overwhelming.
These two were made for each other and I was the awkward third wheel student killing the romance. Beyond the job titles, I figured they were secretly in love with each other. Now I thought to myself “Wouldn’t a relationship hinder their ability to perform professionally?” I immediately began investigating for wedding rings, and to my surprise he had one, yet she did not. This answered my previous assumption: they are not a couple. However, beyond this, they were passionate about their jobs. They both loved people and knew how to take care of them.
Also, they responded well under pressure. And with a job like this, staying calm in chaotic situations is essential.
Before every shift, the EMT goes out to the ambulance and checks all of the equipment to make sure it is working properly. I walked outside with Tink so she could introduce me to where
I would be living the next twelve hours. Have you ever been told to not press the big red button?

Miles 4
Yeah, there were at least three thousand big red buttons. I was surrounded and the urge to press them was overwhelming. I felt like a five year old at Chucky Cheese for the first time. I tried looking past them and more at the equipment on the ambulance. There was a bag full of regular size equipment such as blood pressure cuffs and medicines used for IV’s and a bag for children with the same equipment, but in a miniature form. We took a majority of the equipment out of the bags to test it. We also checked the dates on the medications and the pressure in the oxygen tanks. To check the pressure, we used an oxygen tank cylinder and an oxygen tank wrench. It was extremely easy, so easy that she let me do it. I stuck both the cylinder and the wrench into the tank, held them there for about ten seconds, and the digital screen told me the psi. A normal oxygen tank will have 1500 to 2000 psi, which stands for pounds per square inch. If something was wrong, we would go back into the EMS station and replace it but everything was working properly.
Throughout the day, we went to a few minor car accidents and a couple of elderly people who had fallen. I was so excited to ride with them because I loved listening to their crazy stories and watching how they took care of patients. The first scene I ever went to was a minor car accident. An elderly lady had run a yellow light, which turned red before she was under it.
Because she was driving so slow, a man went through the intersection and T-boned her. It was an intense and powerful impact, but fortunately both victims had non-life threatening injuries. It was my job to stabilize the old lady’s head in case of a spinal cord or neck injury. As we are carefully pulling her out of her small Honda civic, I am holding the most important part on her body. It is my job—a seventeen-year-old girl in high school who still watches cartoon network and barely has any life experience—to hold this lady’s head straight. If I mess up and somehow drop her head, her entire body could be paralyzed or injured severely. Everyone was looking at

Miles 5 me and I could not figure out why. But it suddenly clicked in my head—“Oh! It’s my call as to when we start moving her.” At the count of three, two paramedics, a firefighter, an EMT, and a terrified EMS student begin to lift her out of the car.
It did not take that many people to lift her because she was heavy, but because she was fragile and we did not want to add to her injuries. We slowly carried her out of her car and onto the stretcher where we placed a C-collar on her neck. A C-collar or cervical collar is used as a neck brace, to support the patient’s head and neck. I talked with her on the entire way to the hospital. We learned about each other’s families and she gave me some great advice about if I should choose to become a paramedic. She told me that she felt safe as I was helping lift her out of the car, because I was smiling at her and holding her head very carefully. Because of this, she said I would do great working in this field. I have always wanted to help others and this helped me realize—what better way to aid others than to help them in their greatest times of need?
These ambulance rides would determine whether or not I wanted to pursue this career.
All emergency calls are important, which is why the ambulance has their lights and sirens on while going to the emergency location. Once EMS arrives, they determine if it is a life-

Miles 6 threatening situation or a minor incident. The elderly lady and the car accident was a minor incident. It could have been worse, but thankfully it was not and she was released from the hospital the next day. Our next patient had severe epilepsy. Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that causes sudden episodes of sensory complications, loss of consciousness, and seizures because of irregular electrical activity in the brain. She was in her fifties and had seizures for most of her life. This seizure was quite serious though because she was seizing for a lengthy amount of time, at least an hour. Whenever we got her on the stretcher and onto the ambulance, she looked at me the entire ride. It scared me a little because I did not know how to react— should I talk to her or not? She was shaking her limbs and trying to talk, but she could not get the words out.
The ride to the hospital took longer than expected and after a while, I eventually just turned away from her. About halfway there, we began to smell a repulsive odor. It smelled like a litter box that had not been cleaned in months. I looked at Joseph who was sitting in the seat next to me, and he just shook his head. We both knew what the smell was but neither of us wanted to look down. He motioned his eyes towards the ground but I was hesitant to look at first. When I did, the urine had already covered the floor. She had straight up peed all over herself. Neither of us were mad because we knew she did not have any control over her bladder in this state of mind. My paramedic yelled at Tink to drive a bit faster because the pee had flooded the back of the ambulance, hence, Tink floored it. We made it to the hospital in no time and Joseph said it would be okay if I stayed outside to get some fresh air. He also said that I had the honor of cleaning up the pee after they were inside. While gasping for a fresh breath every thirty seconds, I scrubbed that floor like my life depended on it.

Miles 7
Our last patient of the day was an older lady with dementia. She lived at a local nursing home, but it was a run-down facility with fewer than fifty residents. As we walked in the building, the lady at the front desk exclaimed “Oh no, you have a student today? She’s never gonna wanna come back after Mrs. Clara!” I cringed a little inside but thought to myself “What could be so scary about a little old lady who forgot where she was?” Oh boy, was I wrong! We knocked on her door and the resident assistant answered and immediately whispered “stay calm, she is armed”. I quickly looked at our patient who was holding a ceramic coffee mug in her right hand and a full bottle of shampoo in her left, ready to fire. I let out a soft yelp and scooted behind Joseph. I could not believe what was happening! However, my paramedic and EMT were as calm as could be. Joseph said in a relaxed tone, “Mrs. Clara, what are you defending yourself from? We’re not going to hurt you”. She did not believe him though and started yelling about how we kidnapped her from America to use her as a stripper in Europe. They had to put her in restraints because she was putting up such a fight and for a moment there, I was convinced she was going to win! I tried helping as much as I could by holding her limbs to the stretcher but it was very upsetting. She had no idea what she was doing. Her mind was not all there and it was tough pulling her away from what she thought was safety. On the way to the hospital, she calmed down a little, probably because she exerted so much energy fighting us off.
Most people would consider a bad first day of work as stubbing their toe on their desk or spilling coffee on the boss’ new shirt. I consider my first day on the ambulance a pretty bad day times one hundred. I was in dismay! I had to hold an elderly lady’s head stable while pulling her out of a motor vehicle, I had someone else’s urine on the bottom of my shoes, and I had to help carry a screaming, confused woman away from her home. Needless to say, it was a bit

Miles 8 chaotic and heartbreaking. However, I thought to myself “maybe it was just a bad day for everyone, surely it will get better.. it has to get better”.
My next twelve-hour shift was, in fact, better. There were not as many emergency calls as my first shift. Plus, I got to meet some new faces. I had a different paramedic and EMT on the next shift. They were two of the funniest guys I have ever encountered. My paramedic’s nickname was Beaver and my EMT’s name was Jonathon. For a moment, I contemplated asking him why his nickname was Beaver, but then I thought: better not. Beaver was probably in his fifties, bald, and with a grey beard. He was at least six feet tall and had a beer belly. At first, I thought he was going to be a grumpy old man but when he introduced himself as “Beaver”, it changed my mind. At the beginning of the shift, I helped Jonathan check all of the equipment on the ambulance. Jonathon was very handsome. He had blonde hair with a tint of red in it. But with every rose, there is a thorn. Jonathon was a couple inches taller than a midget. I am almost six feet tall, so you can imagine how awkward it was walking with him to the ambulance. Also,
I did not have to use the step to climb onto the ambulance, but the poor guy had to use a stool and the step. When we got on the ambulance to check the equipment, he told me a few of their rules. He said “I’m not supposed to allow you to text or eat, but that would make us hypocrites”.
Needless to say, I was thankful I packed my lunch that day so I could munch on it throughout the twelve hours.
For a majority of the day, we parked the ambulance in different EMS stations around town and just sat there. On my first shift with Joseph and Tink, I barely looked at my phone because I was scared I was going to get kicked off. However, with Beaver and Jonathon, my phone battery was dead in the first six hours. We had a few calls involving car accidents but when we would get there, there would already be an ambulance taking care of the patients. At

Miles 9 one point during the day, we went inside an EMS rest stop. There was a television and three couches. All three of us claimed a couch and watched TV for at least an hour and a half. I kept quiet most of the time but Beaver and Jonathon decided to argue about what to watch on the TV.
Jonathon wanted to watch “The Golden Girls” but Beaver wanted to watch wrestling. I was secretly pulling for “The Golden Girls” but I did not tell them that. I fell asleep for the last thirty minutes until we had another call.
This call was considered our “worst” call of the day. I did not know all of the code words that were shared over the radios in the ambulance, but I knew that this one was bad. When we arrived to our destination, I peeped out the window and saw a sign that read “Spank’s Trailer
Park”. I have lived in Pensacola my entire life and I did not recognize where we were. For all I know, we could have been in North Carolina. As we stopped, Beaver turned around and said,
“do not get out of the ambulance yet”. I agreed and watched them walk up to a trailer where there were numerous people lying on the ground outside. One young lady was propped up on the steps yelling for help. Beaver motioned for me to come out and help them. As I walked up, the lady calmed down and started getting up to walk towards me. All of the people on the ground had overdosed on drugs, including her but she was still conscious. We helped her sit back down, asked her a few questions, and then called for backup. An ambulance can only fit one stretcher in the back, and there were at least five people that needed stretchers. We strapped her onto our stretcher and rolled her to the ambulance. Jonathon and I stood outside and waited for the extra help while Beaver was in the ambulance with our patient. I felt bad for these people. They were so drugged up that it knocked them out. I could not imagine living my life like that, not being able to remember yesterday.

Miles 10
She was very unaware and unresponsive on the way to the hospital. While my paramedic was asking her questions, she was telling stories about how her mother wanted to steal her children. It was not fun getting her to focus. She did not know answers to simple questions like
“how old are you?” and “what is your full name?” Beaver was very calm throughout the process, even though he did not get any of the essential information he needed. I have seen shows about people getting caught with illegal drugs and taken to prison but I have never encountered a drug addict. Watching her and talking to her broke my heart. She knew drugs would make her this way, yet she did it anyway. I know that we helped her by getting her to the hospital, but at that moment, I decided that I did not ever want to do this again. I never wanted to go on another ambulance ride.
In the beginning, it never clicked that all of the crazy stories my paramedic and EMT told me were real. I knew they were real people and real situations, but the trauma that some of these people go through is heartbreaking. These rides helped me realize that I did not want to pursue this career because I could not handle the suffering that they see everyday. What I experienced was common for EMS employees. This job is definitely not a walk in the park. It takes an exceptionally strong person to live with seeing these painful sights all the time. This understanding helped me put into perspective how important EMS is. They sacrifice so much of their lives to save others and they are to be admired and honored for their dedication. Every time
I see an ambulance with their lights and sirens on, I do not hesitate to get out of the way for them.