It’s Saturday night....a few minutes to midnight. They’ve been working since 7:00am. The shift has been reasonably slow...a couple of minor vehicle crashes...one patient with chest pain...an over dose and a patient transfer...all in all..rather slow for a Saturday but this was about to change.

The call to roll comes in just as they were preparing to eat. The information was sketchy with few details...except that the patient possibly had serious facial injuries. They roll...Code One.

A woman is outside...screaming...running. She isn’t making any sense. The door to the house is wide open. A small child is in the door way standing motionless..his eyes void of any emotions.

They ask the woman a question. They quickly realize that’s she’s beyond the point of being able to give them any details. They enter the house.

As they push a half opened door they see him. He’s on the floor...a double barrel 16 gauge shot gun lies on the floor only a few feet from him. They quickly evaluate the scene...is there a shooter in the house ? The floor...ceiling and a couple of walls are painted in blood. They know that every second counts. They check his vitals...he’s still alive. This time there was no shooter...the patient had attempted to commit suicide but only managed to shot his face off. Now they had to keep him alive...

2:45am. They just finished washing down the inside of their truck The call...a young woman with abdominal pains. As they arrive at the scene they walk in. There...alone is a 15 years old girl...crying...scared and in labour. They examine her and she’s crowning...she’s having her baby. She hadn’t told anyone she was pregnant and was living by herself. There's no time to transport and there...they bring a new life into the world who’s mom is not much more then a child herself...

5:15am. An elderly woman is having difficulty breathing. Arriving at the address they knock then try to open the door. It’s locked. They knock again...this time more aggressively. Still no responds. They look in through the side lite and can see the woman...she's looking towards them...hugging the wall. They call out to her to open the door...that they are Paramedics. She hesitates. They try to talk to her but they can’t make out what she’s saying. Finally they persuaded her to unlock the door. They ask her if she’s still having difficulty breathing as they check her vitals. She then admits that she had heard some noise outside and had gotten scared but for whatever reason she was afraid to call the police. Then she said she realized that it was her cat that had knocked down the lid off the garbage can and she was then afraid and embarrassed to call back. They made certain she was medically fine and sat down with her for a while as they suspected that there may have been a little loneliness in there too...

You will often read in the newspaper or hear on the radio or TV where a Fire Fighter was injured or a Police Officer was also injured or assaulted...but when was the last time you heard or read of a Paramedic being either injured or assaulted in the line of duty ?

It's not very likely you will unless the injuries were fatal. You will not hear about how someone lunged out at a Paramedic with a weapon...be it a steel pipe...a knife or physically. You will not hear about the scenes where Paramedics find themselves with individuals who are armed with concealed weapons. You will not read about how...as they try to save an over dosed junkie...how he grabbed the closes object he could use as a weapon and turned violent. You will not read about how a Paramedic had to crawl inside a mangled and crushed vehicle to work on a patient in a space so tight that it was almost impossible to breath while jamming himself or herself against the other occupant of the vehicle who had not survived the crash and was nearly cut in two.

Paramedics due to the nature of their profession and the confidentiality of that profession cannot discuss publically incidences that occur on duty...therefore they do their job...take the abuse and carry deep within their souls the scares of the terrible situations they have had to deal with hands on along with the life threatening incidents to themselves that have occurred and then go on with their own lives. There’s no medals or citations for bravery...there’s no public recognition...only their own personal knowledge that they did their best...

However if things don’t go as some believe they should have...then you’ll hear or read about it. Unfortunately the “true” facts only come out in the court room and the public rarely gets the opportunity to hears the “other” side of the story...

In Nova Scotia our "ground" Paramedics respond to approximately 95,000 service calls annually..."air" responds to approximately 900 calls...many of which are "critical"...

Welcome to the life of a Paramedic. God bless and protect each and every one of them for they are truly our unsung heros...

In Memory of a Fallen Hero - John Michael Rossiter

An EMS Christmas Eve