sheets.
We are introduced to a few of the firemen and a few other EMTs who are hanging around. Dave Morris, a tall blond man who is both an EMT and fireman, gives us our pagers and shows us how they work. We are to keep them on our person all day and return them to their electrical housing at night, where they will recharge. These pagers will sound our tone and tell us what and where the emergency is if we are needed.
We are given numbers. I am G-65. Bernice is G-56. I just have to think of myself as Bernice backward: she is tall and slim, I am broad and average in height; she drives a Lexus, I drive a Subaru; she knows what to do in a real emergency, I know what to do on paper, but have not seen anything real yet outside the emergency room. Not a drop of blood, not a car wreck, not a gunshot wound.
I am beginning to realize that while the class was about taking a test and acting like the Dorothy Hamill girl, here at the firehouse it’s about getting your hands on a really sick person and trying to save that person’s life. Suddenly all my fears come back and I think I am way too claustrophobic to ride in the ambulance, to see anything icky, to get up at 3 A.M. from my warm bed. What am I doing here?
Now equipped with a pager, I am on call—two long tones followed by five short beeps means
get up and go
. It is exciting because I love nifty new gadgets and things like patches and badges, and being an EMT is a bonanza of stuff. Here is a short list of the stuff that I have acquired since I passed the test. Some of it was given to me by Georgetown, the rest bought with my own money from catalogs and police supply stores:
A two-way radio with a long antenna for my car
Flashing blue lights installed on the rear windshield ledge and on the front dashboard
Stickers that say EMT stuck on every side of my vehicle
Patches that say EMT sewn onto my clothing
An EMT jacket that says GEORGETOWN on the back
A jumpsuit that says EMT in reflective letters on the back
Two big flashlights
A “jump kit”—a medical supply kit that goes with me in my car to a scene, should I get there before the ambulance
A portable oxygen tank
A fireman’s jacket and pants and a real fire helmet of the old school with a big leather patch on the front
A modern EMT helmet, sort of like a motorcycle helmet to wear on scene in automobile crashes
A box of nonlatex gloves
A handful of protective breathing masks to wear over my nose and mouth
Plastic eye goggles to keep blood and debris out of my eyes
A fabulous switchblade knife with a serrated blade
Scissors to cut clothing off people
A bright orange reflective vest to wear for directing traffic
A huge star of life emblem that signifies EMT and covers nearly the whole hood of my car
A front license plate for the car that says GEORGETOWN FIREHOUSE and EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN
A new, more expensive blood pressure cuff and stethoscope than the ones we were given in class
A silver badge for my wallet that identifies me as a member of the Georgetown Fire Department
There is a line between enough stuff and too much stuff. The big star of life sticker that goes on the hood of my car was my idea, not issued to me by the firehouse. With it I have crossed that line and gone over the edge, from a humble probationary member into the dreaded category known as a “spanker” (as in spanking new): an EMT who flaunts his position by having too much stuff.
Of course, if anyone had asked me, I could have given a good reason for applying the two-foot sticker to the hood of my car. Unlike the good old boys and Bernice, who are known to all the cops in town, I want everyone to know that I belong there when I arrive at an accident scene. My sticker (which I purchased from Galls, a phonebook-thick catalog of stuff for cops and EMTs) looked discreet on the printed page, but when it arrives even I am aghast to see that it is in fact larger than the one on the ambulance—though not so aghast that it
We are introduced to a few of the firemen and a few other EMTs who are hanging around. Dave Morris, a tall blond man who is both an EMT and fireman, gives us our pagers and shows us how they work. We are to keep them on our person all day and return them to their electrical housing at night, where they will recharge. These pagers will sound our tone and tell us what and where the emergency is if we are needed.
We are given numbers. I am G-65. Bernice is G-56. I just have to think of myself as Bernice backward: she is tall and slim, I am broad and average in height; she drives a Lexus, I drive a Subaru; she knows what to do in a real emergency, I know what to do on paper, but have not seen anything real yet outside the emergency room. Not a drop of blood, not a car wreck, not a gunshot wound.
I am beginning to realize that while the class was about taking a test and acting like the Dorothy Hamill girl, here at the firehouse it’s about getting your hands on a really sick person and trying to save that person’s life. Suddenly all my fears come back and I think I am way too claustrophobic to ride in the ambulance, to see anything icky, to get up at 3 A.M. from my warm bed. What am I doing here?
Now equipped with a pager, I am on call—two long tones followed by five short beeps means
get up and go
. It is exciting because I love nifty new gadgets and things like patches and badges, and being an EMT is a bonanza of stuff. Here is a short list of the stuff that I have acquired since I passed the test. Some of it was given to me by Georgetown, the rest bought with my own money from catalogs and police supply stores:
A two-way radio with a long antenna for my car
Flashing blue lights installed on the rear windshield ledge and on the front dashboard
Stickers that say EMT stuck on every side of my vehicle
Patches that say EMT sewn onto my clothing
An EMT jacket that says GEORGETOWN on the back
A jumpsuit that says EMT in reflective letters on the back
Two big flashlights
A “jump kit”—a medical supply kit that goes with me in my car to a scene, should I get there before the ambulance
A portable oxygen tank
A fireman’s jacket and pants and a real fire helmet of the old school with a big leather patch on the front
A modern EMT helmet, sort of like a motorcycle helmet to wear on scene in automobile crashes
A box of nonlatex gloves
A handful of protective breathing masks to wear over my nose and mouth
Plastic eye goggles to keep blood and debris out of my eyes
A fabulous switchblade knife with a serrated blade
Scissors to cut clothing off people
A bright orange reflective vest to wear for directing traffic
A huge star of life emblem that signifies EMT and covers nearly the whole hood of my car
A front license plate for the car that says GEORGETOWN FIREHOUSE and EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN
A new, more expensive blood pressure cuff and stethoscope than the ones we were given in class
A silver badge for my wallet that identifies me as a member of the Georgetown Fire Department
There is a line between enough stuff and too much stuff. The big star of life sticker that goes on the hood of my car was my idea, not issued to me by the firehouse. With it I have crossed that line and gone over the edge, from a humble probationary member into the dreaded category known as a “spanker” (as in spanking new): an EMT who flaunts his position by having too much stuff.
Of course, if anyone had asked me, I could have given a good reason for applying the two-foot sticker to the hood of my car. Unlike the good old boys and Bernice, who are known to all the cops in town, I want everyone to know that I belong there when I arrive at an accident scene. My sticker (which I purchased from Galls, a phonebook-thick catalog of stuff for cops and EMTs) looked discreet on the printed page, but when it arrives even I am aghast to see that it is in fact larger than the one on the ambulance—though not so aghast that it
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