Sugar

After the hospital pronounced the jumper, we got cleaned up — wiped down the blood, restocked, shook the snow out of our jackets — and went back in service.It didn’t take long.Within minutes, dispatch sent us another call. “Sick person.” Woman in her...

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May 10, 2025
Christmas Eve

It was Christmas Eve, and the call came in as “unresponsive adult female.” Mid-30s. No further information.I arrived first. The house was large, quiet, and meticulously decorated. A couple met me at the door — polite, composed, maybe in their sixties...

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May 10, 2025
She Asked for the One with the Blue Eyes

It came in as a lift assist.That’s one of those calls we almost don’t talk about. A person has fallen — usually older, usually unharmed — and needs help getting up. It’s the EMS equivalent of a courtesy call. No sirens. No adrenaline. No chart, if yo...

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May 08, 2025
What He Didn’t Want to Say

The call came in just after midnight: young adult, allergic reaction, epinephrine administered. Stable, but requesting transport.We pulled up to a health clinic just off campus. That kind of setting always lands somewhere between clinical and collegi...

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May 08, 2025
The Jump

The dispatch information was simple: 4-year-old child with a head injury on the side of the highway. There was no report of an accident, no explanation offered as to what took place, just “head injury on the side of a highway."There’s a specific kind...

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May 08, 2025
The Wildest Night

December 16, 2020The storm had already started when FDNY activated Central Park Medical Unit under Mutual Aid. That night, I was riding with Megan, a seasoned EMT, and Dylan, who was just seventeen and already sharper than most adults I knew. We were...

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May 05, 2025
The 6 Year Old

Compartmentalization gets a bad rap.People hear the word and picture emotional repression — trauma boxed up, feelings duct-taped shut, a backlog of unprocessed pain that will eventually explode. But for me, it’s the opposite. It’s not suppression. It...

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May 04, 2025