Red and blue flashing lights, a siren; not blaring in the distance but blaring out of your own truck. The beeping of the selcall, along with the horrid sound of the MDT ringing, just as you think your safe for your overdue crib break.
Its what I believe to be one of the most rewarding jobs in our strange world. An emergency services worker is who I am. We are one. But for me and my colleagues we stop natural selection in its path. Its a fatiguing life, mostly mentally. Expressing compassion to people who you have never met. Addressing peoples subjective feelings of pain and establishing rapport in people you would never normally speak to. Providing sympathy to patients who are experiencing feelings in which we will never feel.
Its a job designed to break us and theres no way around it. Or is there? Its important to remember an emergency services worker’s life doesn’t stop at the ambulance, police car or fire truck, it continues like a rouge mosquito right into the family home where it shatters relationships, destroys family bonds and causes poor mental health in every form.
Why does this happen? How can it happen? and who are these special people who give up there life to be broken, mended back up and then broken again. Well its us the warriors of the world who decided that helping people will be our life. Its not all bad and you wont know what its like unless you have been immersed into the environment that us first responders experience each and every day. Does this life break us? Can we be functioning members of society? I know one thing…. This life creates the most resilient, determined but yet truly compassionate people. We are strong, we are vibrant and together we fight to help keep this world from insanity.
What initially written above as a deathly experience, I can 100% say that we are immersed in a culture of happiness, friendships and bonds between people who call this workplace of ours a second family.
Im an emergency services worker. I love it, Its the greatest job as it creates feelings that are so rich and immense, it produces smiles, it produces stories but most of all its produces a lifestyle. The lifestyle of a tough yet rewarding career in which I will share with you.
I will delve into the unknown, bringing you the deep, saddest but most of all the happiest stories that this job brings to me, along with the feelings that follow. I cant wait.
Yours truly,
Responder 007
Lights. Sirens. Emergency. How Do I Survive? 