First Responders Killed On Duty

WE = First responders: the persons who respond first to emergencies involving the public- firefighters, emergency medical technicians, police officers, etc..

There are firefighters like me. We fight fires. In our area we use the Jaws of Life to disentangle vehicles so that patients can be removed and tended to by the emergency medical folks. Of course we are trained in basic first aid so that we can assist the more highly trained emergency medical folks. We help with things such as CPR, patient packaging and loading them into the rescue unit for transport to the hospital.

The emergency medical folks here in our area actually work for another agency but we work side by side almost daily. In fact some of them are actually housed in our fire stations. We get to know them pretty well. Their shifts are like ours, 24 hours on duty and then 48 hours off. The EMS work is not as glamorous as some think their employees with them come and go quite often. It’s not easy seeing your fellow man at his worse all the time, sick and/or dying. Still they do their best as long as they can. I don’t envy them in the least.

Yesterday an ambulance in a nearby community was involved in an accident. Two emergency medical personnel as well as the patient in the back of the ambulance were killed. Although I did not know any of the folks involved I do know some of our local EMTs who had worked with them in the neighboring community in the past. I tried to think today how they must feel. Every day we go to traffic accidents. Often we leave one and rush to another within minutes. It becomes routine yet… it is far from routine. We leave the scene of an accident where the injuries run the gamut from hurt pride to death. As bad as it may seem after a few months or years depending on the individual within a few hours of being as some tragic scene we find ourselves laughing and joking as if nothing has happened. But yesterday a group of first responders, fire and ems were called to a scene of an accident and upon arrival they found two of their fellow co-workers for which they could do nothing. How helpless they must have felt. Somewhere to day I am sure there are folks walking around enjoying life simply because those two dedicated EMS workers came to work shift after shift and did their job. Somewhere a mother is smiling at a child they may have helped to deliver or perhaps a grandfather is bouncing a young one on his knee remembering the time the EMS professionals saved his life.

Rest in peace 44-year-old Teresa Davis and 56 year-old Randall Whiddon.