So now you know how I got started in EMT class. I promise we will get to the good stuff soon, but I felt like some background would be helpful. The class ran from December 2012 to May 2013. There were times I felt I would never pass my national registry. (For those unfamiliar with EMS, the national registry is the test one has to pass to become certified to work as an EMT) I remember thinking that paramedic school must be really hard because this was pretty hard. Oh and remember how I said we started class with 10 students? Yeah, well by the second night of class we were down to seven. I'm not sure what happened to the other three who ventured out into that blizzard the previous night but they must have decided the class wasn't for them. The teacher acted like that was completely normal and said we would lose more before the class ended in May.
I know you're wondering how it is that I became a paramedic when I said in the last post that I gave up on it about as soon as I thought of it. That's where April 2, 2013 comes into this story. On the first day of class, one of the state EMS coordinators came to speak to our class and mentioned that the busiest ambulance service in the state was found on a reservation several hours away. I of course decided that I wanted to go and see this place. I had grown up not far from the reservation and I knew what it was all about, but I had never seen it from the side of the first responders who serve there. So I got up at 0300 on April 2nd to be at the ambulance garage by 0800. After an almost 4 hour drive I finally arrived at a pole building on the edge of a run down reservation town. I walked in and saw 6 ambulances, one of which had a big sign on the front that read "fix me". People were walking around feverishly cleaning and restocking the trucks. I was in awe. All I could think is "this is awesome." I tried to text my husband and tell him that I made it and that I was really excited for this day, but when I looked down at my phone I discovered it had no signal. It was at about this time when I decided I had better introduce myself to these people. So I walked up to one of the ladies and told her my name and that I was an EMT student. She was friendly and reassured me "its really not as bad as it looks." Of course I was thinking, "what are you talking about??!! This is great!"
Someone once told me "There are two very important days in your life: they day you are born and the day you discover why you were born." April 2, 2013 was the day I discovered why. Not only was I able to help with trauma calls and experience what it would be like to work at a busy ambulance service, but I figured out how that particular service ran. The people there were all really nice and although a few were from the reservation, most of them said they commuted from several hours away, just like I had done that morning. They told me that they work a 40 hour shift and then go home for 5 days before coming back again. This was it!! This was how I could work as a paramedic even though our town didn't employ them! Not only that, but it was on that day I decided that I had so much fun, God must have put me on this earth to be a paramedic. It was like my professional life was finally going to make sense. I finally discovered why I was given this adrenaline junkie and impatient personality and I made up my mind that day that I would take what God had given me and use it to help other people-and if that meant spending money on school, studying, changing careers, and being even poorer than I was used to being for a couple years so be it. It was my calling. And the funny part is when I called my husband on my way home to tell him this, he already knew. Somehow he knew what had happened to me that spring day on the reservation, and he totally understood what I needed to do next.
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