Some EMS shifts end when you clock out. Some haunt you for days. But a shift like this one? It changes you. This city has a way of doing that.I’ve worked in quiet rural systems where a whole week might pass without a single call. I’ve worked in busy...

“You Do It Once? F%*k No — You Do It Eighteen Times”Trenton, 2022There’s this Robin Williams bit where he’s talking about golf — how the Scottish invented it as this torturous game. He pantomimes swinging a club and yelling profanities, and then says...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Imagine a world where every meeting you attend sparks inspiration, drives decisions, and propels your team forward — a world where your calendar isn’t a battleground of back-to-back time sinks that could’ve been emails. This isn’t a pipe dream; it’s...