This is a question that many EMS providers ask themselves while entering a scene on any given day. However, shouldn’t we ask ourselves why I am here? What brought you to this life style of reaching out and helping people in their time of need? It is easy for a person in any carrier to begin to fall into a rut of mundane monotony. The same commute every day the same seat the same walls. But, let’s steep back and ask ourselves the simple question of why am I here?
My answer to this question is passion, passion for what I felt was the coolest possible job I could imagine when I was 17. Like any other 17 year old growing up in the middle New Mexico where the plains meet the southern tips of the Rockies, and noting but dirt and brown field grasses consume the landscape, I was searching for my future. I thought I wanted to be a Professional Bull Rider and maybe a Fire Fighter. Although, I always thought it would be cool to be the next Jim Sharp, Ty Murry or Tuff Hedman I did not have the burning passion to dedicate hours and hours of practice and training to be the World Champion so I started Volunteering at our local Fire Department as a Junior Fire Fighter. It was here that my lifelong journey began. While at a drill and talking it up about becoming a professional Fire Fighter someday perhaps in the city of Albuquerque, a fellow volunteer challenged me, “Firefighter that’s not the coolest job come ride in the ambulance with me and I’ll show you a cool job”. The ambulance what is the big deal about the ambulance I thought, but my curiosity got to me and I accepted the invite. The next thing I knew I was signing release wavers and looking for some blue BDU pants and black boots to fit my role as an EMS observer with Albuquerque Ambulance Service. What an experience I was hooked between the drunk guy on the street providing a bit of entertainment while he slurred his words and stumbled into the ambulance to the woman having a heart attack right before my young impressionable eyes. How cool where these guys running lights and sirens down the street and touching lives in an incredible way. I was hooked no more fire house hose jockey dreams here, I was all about becoming a Paramedic and saving lives every day.
Fast forward 15 years and here I am a long way from NM, sitting at my desk as a Paramedic filling my new role as the EMS Operations Manager, and still loving the fact that I have the ability to touch and effect lives every day. While riding a desk is not nearly as exciting as working up a STEMI patient or punching in coordinates into the GPS of the helicopter and going to pick up someone who has wrapped their car around a pole at 3:00 AM. I still have passion for the job and every time that passion starts to slip away, I close my eyes and remember back to those first few hours I was introduced to the world of EMS, and I remember that this is the coolest job I can imagine. So the next time you and your partner are steeping out of the truck and you here “Why are we here” ask them why you are here?
If the passion is gone then it is time to walk away, if you feel the passion slipping is is time to reflect. Even the coolest job has it’s mundane monotony, but we must always remember why we are here.
