Norm Rooker

Norm Rooker and I have been brothers-of-another mother since we first met in SWAT/Tactical Medical School (CONTOMS #2). That was a long time ago. Norm has always led from the front of EMS and now, at the age of 65, he continues to do so. This is his story. It’s a remarkable journey. Enjoy the ride.

Norm Rooker has been a medic for 48 years. He started out as an EMT in 1973 and became a paramedic in 1979.

I asked Norm what made him choose EMS as a career. “Multiple reasons.?One, I was the oldest child and from a young age assisting my mother in caregiving for my very handicapped sister, Meredith. Severely mentally retarded w Hurler’s Syndrome and Down Syndrome.?She passed when I was 13.?Two, Boy Scouts & Civil Air Patrol. Through those organizations I was a Red Cross Advanced First Aid Provider and a Senior Lifeguard. Three, EMERGENCY! had just had its first season when at age 17 over the summer between my junior & senior year of high school I was invited to participate in the second pilot EMT course in the State of Connecticut.”

Norm worked for various private ambulance services as he attended several different colleges in Virginia and Connecticut.?It was while attending the University of Bridgeport and working part time for Bridgeport Ambulance Service that Norm met his first wife (now ex) and followed her out to Ann Arbor, Michigan where:?“I took a full-time job in a factory working a foot-powered metal cutting press and attended paramedic school and clinicals three nights a week. I would work a weekend shift to make up for the lost hours during the week.?As long as I got the right amount of sheet metal cut in time for their orders, the company manager and my foreman were very supportive with the flexible hours.”

Norm graduated from the paramedic program in June of 1979.?“I took a fulltime paramedic job for a Basic Life Support (BLS) ambulance service that kept promising to go ALS.?The only thing I could do as a paramedic in that system was hook the patient up to a cardiac monitor - a Datascope - and if they arrested, drop an EOA.”

“They had a terrible work schedule that really screwed with your bio-rhythms. 18 on 18 off.?Worse schedule I ever worked.?The company went bankrupt after I left to work for the City of St. Louis starting in January of 1980.”

“The EMS “nugget” I got for working for that wretched service was that the basics worked.?I would have a chest pain patient hooked up to the monitor and watch the oxygen I was administering clear up the PVCs, slow the heart rate down, etc. It hammered home BLS before ALS.?It actually works.?Not just a trite phrase.”

Norm was visiting his then in-laws in Hannibal, Missouri in August of 1979 when timing and good fortune worked out so that Norm challenged the State of Missouri licensing exam that weekend.

“Everything worked out and I started as a paramedic for the City of St. Louis EMS on nights.?No orientation.?Just issued uniforms and given a schedule.?I had to call dispatch to get directions to my duty station.?I was the paramedic for Medic 2.?My EMT, Ace Boyd, had to show me how to use a LifePak 5 as I had up until then, never seen one before except in ads in Emergency Product News.”

“Ace had to show me the paperwork, explain how the system worked and in general do an unscripted orientation in between being dispatched out on calls.?That was the night I discovered a new street drug trend that hadn’t been mentioned in Paramedic school or in any of trade magazines - T’s & Blues.?The night EMS supervisor did check-in with us around 2 in the morning and got me lined out just a bit better on the job. St. Louis EMS was definitely a sink or swim system and over the years, more then a few medics “drowned”. So-to-speak.”

“It was the wild west of EMS.?In 1980 race relations in the St. Louis metro area were not at their best. Fall of 1980 Federally-mandated busing and school desegregation was implemented. The ambulances had all been made “Salt & Pepper” crewing towards that end just the year before. Most of the EMTs were black and most of the paramedics were white.?In 1980 the City of Miami was the Murder Capitol of America but St. Louis was a close second.”

Norm was so fascinated with the drug trend they were dealing with so he did his own research and learned that “T’s & Blues were a combination of Talwin and Pyribenzamine, a very strong, blue colored antihistamine tablet that had speedy cocaine-like effects.?The quality of heroin available in the Midwest back in the late 70’s/early 80’s was such low quality and had been stepped on/cut so many times that getting 1-2% strength was considered pretty good stuff.”

“T’s & Blues on the other hand, could be ground up and mixed in any ratio the user wanted.?If they wanted a mellow, heroin-type high, they would mix say three Talwin tablets to one Pyribenzamine, grind them up to a powder and then cook it like heroin before injecting.?If the user wanted a speedier, snowballing or speedballing type of fix, they could mix it one to one or one to two, etc.”

“Finally, unlike heroin which once cooked the user had to use all of it or it went bad, the T’s & Blues mix could be reheated and re-used for days after the original grinding and cooking.?I found this so fascinating that I ended up writing an article on it for the EMT journal.?In turn that article earned me the 1981 Armstrong Literary Award from the National Association of EMTs.?And thus began one of my many and varied side hustles, a long writing career for various EMS, Fire & Rescue trade journals.”

Over that first summer of working for the City, the area experienced what became to be known as the “Killer Heatwave of 1980”.?32 straight days of 90 plus degree temps with over 95% humidities.?“Tempers grew short and violence increased.?We had a 132 deaths from Heat Stroke.?Those chemical cold packs didn’t work worth squat in that environment.?As medics we learned to adapt, improvise and overcome.”

“We would find a viable heat illness patient and we would raid their freezer.?A can of orange juice behind the neck.?Frozen chickens in each armpit.?A slob of ribs between their thighs. Another can of frozen juice taped to the IV bag.?It worked and the receiving hospitals weren’t stupid about this either.?They put cookers in all the Eds to store the frozen food in before donating it to area foodbanks and churchs.”

“At the same time, starting pay for a paramedic in 1980 was $14,900/yr.?I worked a lot of overtime and made over $21K that first year.?Set my first wife and I up to purchase our first home but it was not good for our relationship.

"Like every medic back in the day, I also worked numerous side jobs/hustles.?Teaching CPR, teaching EMT classes at St. Louis Community College, guest lecturing for the local paramedic training program and working part time for the St. Louis Regional Poison Information Center.

"Good for the income but bad for the marriage.?

Then came the Thunder Blizzard of 1982.?On a Sunday a snowstorm had been predicted to pass through the area dropping no more then 2-4 inches.?Instead, the storm cell stalled right over the metro area.?Snowflakes big as quarters coming down thick and fast with lightning flashing and thunder crashing throughout the night.?That 2-4 inches turned to about 13-14 inches with drifts of over three feet by dawn’s first light Monday morning.?The city was paralyzed.

"I responded in early from home and did my part to serve the citizens and visitors of St. Louis as my marriage terminally imploded.?“You’d rather be out there helping strangers then staying home w me!”?and I realized that you know what??She was right.”

“Divorced by the end of May, I met my second wife, Vicki, now my bride of over 38 years, a sister medic who also worked for St. Louis EMS, at an Irish Pub about five hours after my divorce papers had arrived in the mail that afternoon.?We had a fascinating conversation that almost ended a couple hours later when she stated that she didn’t fool around with married men.

"Fortunately for me, in my shock and grieving at my failure with my first marriage, I had the Divorce papers with me.?I pulled them out and said that as of that afternoon I was single.

"We were together for over a year before I proposed to Vicki.?It would be a second marriage for both of us and neither of us were going to jump into anything without having our eyes wide open.

From St. Louis, Norm headed west to San Francisco.

During that same time, Norm was selected to take a pair of courses at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland.?Over half of his class was from California including a Captain with the San Francisco Fire Department. who suggested Vicki and Norm apply to the City of San Francisco, Department of Public Health Paramedic Division.?A third service system.

"We were married in April of 1983 and applied in the fall of 1984.?We were both hired on by San Francisco in 1986.?A unionized system that paid a very livable wage for the area.

Norm says it was an exciting time to be a paramedic in an all-medic system.?“We were doing all sorts of EMS research and studies.??High dose Epinephrine study, a multi-city EMS Domestic Violence reporting study, pre-hospital stroke identification study, the PHTSE Study, the Pre-hospital treatment of Status Epilepticus study, the Toilet Plunger CPR study and - Project Rapid Zap.

Project Rapid Zap was a pilot study to prove that one did not have to be an EMT to operate an AED, Automatic External Defibrillator.?The DPH Paramedic Division trained the entire San Francisco Fire Dept. station by station, watch by watch with a four-hour module on how to operate and implement an AED when they were first on scene for a cardiac arrest.?"While meeting some resistance at first, both from some of our medics and more than a few of the firefighters, “I didn’t join the dept. Just to be an F’in nurse”, the program proved to be a tremendous success.”

“The program’s very first save happened a couple of weeks after the first units were put into the field.?An off-duty firefighter was in line at his bank when he witnessed an older gentlemen in line ahead of him suddenly collapse in full cardiac arrest.?CPR was started in less then a minute as he also directed bank employees to call 911.?The engine with one of the first AEDs arrived five minutes later and brought the patient back with a single shock.

"The patient was starting to breath on his own when the DPH ambulance arrived.?The receiving hospital actually stated that they thought the patient might not have been in arrest at all and that maybe there was a training issue with the program as the patient’s blood chemistry was not altered.?No Troponins or other cardiac arrest markers in the blood.

"It wasn’t until the memory card was pulled from the AED and the arrest record printed out documenting the patient in V-fib and responding to the first shock that the receiving hospital staff accepted that well, maybe the patient may actually have been in arrest and those firefighters may have known what they were doing after all.?

"And with that first victory the resistance to Project Rapid Zap was overcome and accepted by all sides.?And what was the pilot project for AED use in the State of California has long since become a national standard pretty much everywhere across the US.”

“In the meantime, like most career medics.?Vicki & I, well mostly me, kept taking various medical merit badge and various specialized rescue courses. Everything from PEMSTEP, the Pediatric EMS Trauma Training Program held at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, to Structural Collapse Rescue (Heavy Rescue, now Rescue Systems 1 & 2) to surf rescue swimmer, to SWAT/Tactical Medic (CONTOMS Class #2 where I met and became friends w Hal).

"Vicki was equally as active as a union activist & shop steward. SEIU Local 790. San Francisco was also unique that while we had a very strong union, the paramedics recognized that there were professional issues that could not be dealt with by a union.?The union was for work rules, pay issues and the like.

"To deal with professional issues like moving the system forward, a medic centered professional association needed to serve on the various EMS committees which at that time, the paramedics had little or no representation on.?Thus the San Francisco Paramedic Association, the SFPA was formed.?I was already a charter member of the National Assoc of EMTs so getting involved w the SFPA and its various educational EMS advocacy projects was an easy task for both Vicki and me.

"While Vicki worked on the issues side of the SFPA, I was more involved in teaching lay CPR, serving as one of the Chairs for several of the CPR Saturday events the SFP organized in conjunction with the University of San Francisco, UCSF Hospital and Medical School and the San Francisco Giants baseball team.?For three years in a row Candlestick Park hosted a massive all day CPR training program.?The educational video played on the jumbotron big screen and hands-on skill training with individual paramedic and EMT instructors along the outfield warning track.

"One of the many rescue merit badges I had earned was Heavy Rescue Technician from the California State Fire Marshals Office.?I went on to become a Heavy Rescue Instructor and taught through the Fire Sciences Program at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz County.?One of my issues as I shared emergency building shores, various rope rescue systems, lifting and moving of heavy objects, etc. was how do we take care of the victim/patient that we were rescuing.?

"I was still working on this when on October 15th, 1989 at 5:04 pm the Loma Prieta Earthquake occurred.?Vicki and I were both off-duty and home getting ready to watch Game 3 of the World Series between the SF Giants and the Oakland A’s when the earthquake struck.?After getting both of our daughters secured with a neighbor, Vicki and I answered the mandatory recall for all off-duty police, firefighters and paramedics to report to duty.

"There were many stories and experiences that happened that night.?Too many to go into here.?But as a result of working that event and seeing first hand how unprepared we were as America’s 14th largest city for an event of that magnitude, I joined NASAR, the National Association for Search and Rescue.?I would later go on with the organization to both become a Life member and serve on the NASAR Board of Directors from 1999 to 2006.

"Back to San Francisco. In 1991 I was approached by the SF Boy Scout council to resurrect Paramedic Explorer Post 87.?I had allowed the previous advisor to use my name as a supporting advisor and when she left the service with an injury, the post had disbanded.

"With the help of good friend and brother medic Mike Whooley, a former Eagle Scout and at that time a Boy Scout Troop leader, we got the department to support bringing the post back on-line.?This at a time when the BSA had issued a statement making being gay the equivalent of being a child molester. So, this was a highly-charged political minefield at the time.?

"But the department supported the post and we ran a highly successful program from 1991 until the merger of the Paramedic Division into the San Francisco Fire Dept. in July of 1997.?Unfortunately, the Explorer Post was not one of the programs that was carried over into the SFFD.

"Neither was the PHTSE study which was abruptly terminated by higher ups in the SFFD administration even though it was a National Institute of Health funded study.

"The SFFD also looked to balance their budget by taking the paramedics from a 40-hour work week working 10 or 12 hour watches to a 53-hour workweek working 24-hour watches with no change in pay.?Their stated rationale was that now that we had firefighting responsibilities, the FLSA, Fair Labor Standards Act no longer applied to us.

"Of course, we were so busy running all of those EMS calls that there was no time to train us so thus, no need to issue us turnout/firefighting protective gear.?My bride, Vicki, took great exception to this and filed a FLSA lawsuit against the department.?Rooker vs. the City of San Francisco.

"The city lost.?Badly.?To the tune of 10.2 million dollars in back pay, interest and legal fees.?They were also forced to issue us protective gear, cross train us to firefighters including our probationary time on both engine and truck companies.

"Most of this was accepted but there was also an undercurrent by some that having a paramedic on the apparatus was taking away a job from a firefighter.?It also didn’t help that the pay for a Firefighter Lieutenant was about $1200 less than a Firefighter Paramedic, either.

"While I was blessed to be assigned to some pretty good stations with enlightened officers, this disparity led to some, what best can be described as “lively” or “sporty” conversations around the dinner table at some stations.?

"One of those conversations occurred when I had been detailed for the watch to a single engine station in a different battalion.?The Lieutenant was less than friendly and at dinner that evening he proceeded to berate me in front of the other two members of the engine company about how I should take a cut in pay. How he was supposed to be supervising and leading me yet he made less than I did.?All the time the other two firefighters were nodding their heads in agreement.

"After about five minutes of this after a fairly unfriendly reception and work day up until then I put my fork down, looked the LT in the eyes and quietly asked him if he was Frick’n nuts or what??Dead silence.

"You just don’t talk to a boss in the fire house like that but I had had enough!?I went on in firm but calm voice, some call it my command voice, to say that I agreed with him that as my supervisor he should be earning more than I was but… instead of trying to pull me down, like crabs in a bucket pull back anyone of their members who is climbing out, that instead maybe, just maybe he should be demanding that the union use that as a reason to negotiate for a higher base salary for Lieutenants in the upcoming contract.

"I then turned to the two firefighters and stated that since a LT’s salary was 10% above a base firefighter’s salary, wouldn’t that mean that if the LT’s salary got say a $6K pay raise, wouldn’t that pull their base salaries up as well??With that I picked up my fork and finished my dinner in dead silence for the meal and the cleanup afterwards.

"Later that evening the LT came over to me and said I had brought up some good points.?No apology for being a horse’s backside all day but… it stopped for the rest of the watch.

"I and many other medics were winning battles in the SFFD but I was losing my soul.?I was becoming embittered.?The job was less and less fun even though I was running out of some good houses.?There were some good times, friends and some positive highlights but overall, it just wasn’t worth it to stay for my full 30.?Even though it would have more then doubled my pension.

"Two other events occurred.?Vicki retired off the job with a medical disability.?After four knee surgeries and one shoulder surgery the department was only too happy to get rid of her with a most generous settlement package after their drubbing in Federal Court over the FLSA lawsuit.

Tell me how you made the move from San Francisco to Ouray, Colorado.

"And me, being a poster child for Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, in 2003 I was off taking yet another rescue merit badge course. This time attending a basic rope rescue course put on by Rigging For Rescue which had been sold to new owners in Ouray, Colorado.?It was a great program in a beautiful part of the world and while there I casually mentioned if the Chief’s job for Ouray County EMS ever opened up, to give me a call.

"With Forest Gump dumb luck, that very thing happened the following year.?I received a call in November requesting I apply for the position to interview for the position the following March.?I was coming up on my 20 years in San Francisco, soon to turn 50 and felt I had earned my “big city EMS bones”.?With Vicki’s blessing I went for it and in April of 2005 began the next phase of my career as the lone paramedic and chief of a super rural/frontier combination ALS county 3rd service that just also had the responsibility for providing the EMS support for the Ouray Mountain Rescue Team, Haz Mat at the Operations level on steroids and Vehicle Extrication responsibilities for the county.

"I went from America’s 14th largest city, 49 square miles with a day time population of almost a million and 7 hospitals including a Level One Trauma Center, a regional burn center and medical school/teaching hospital to Colorado’s third smallest county.?Just under 5000 full time residents with only one traffic light in the entire county.?Eight and half percent of the roads were even paved and our closest hospital was a level four trauma center in the next county north of us.?As opposite of big city as one could get and a chance to put into play many of the programs and ideas that had been shut down or deemed too low a priority to even consider let alone implement in a large, high volume system.

"At the same time, I was encountering problems that I just hadn’t even imagined could exist.?Like - none of my system’s ambulances were licensed.?Or a non-existent narcotics inventory and control program.?My first day as chief I discovered the system had 58 vials and ampules of Fentanyl, Valium, Morphine and Versed.?49 of them were expired, some going back over six years and not a shred of paperwork that even indicated that we owned the stuff.

"My deputy chief Kim, an EMT-Intermediate and the only other full time employee stated that the place was in a disorganized, administrative mess when she took over and if I thought this was bad, I should have seen it her first day on the job.

"Kim and I sat down and identified every problem we could with the system.?We came up with a list of 102 immediate action problems.?We then triaged them.?Just like the old Chinese Proverb, how do you eat a dragon??One bite at a time.?We set about fixing things.

"The first was bringing the problem(s) to the attention of the County Administrator and the Board of County Supervisors.?Whose initial response was, oh those are Front Range regulations.?We have the entire Rocky Mountains between us and them so they don’t really apply to us.

"I had to politely educate them that no, they did indeed apply to us and I wasn’t asking them to fix the problems.?That was my job.?I was bringing the fact that there was a problem and the proposed solution/fix(s) to their attention and for their funding approval.

"We got it done.?And along the way expanded the system. At one point I was accused by one of the county commissioners of empire building, all within budget, by hiring two additional full-time staff, a training officer, the other EMT-I in the system and one of my volunteers who was also a bookkeeper to be an office manager and field supervisor.

"We upgraded everyone’s training.?We sent Kim to paramedic school and our office manager to EMT-I school.?By the time I re-retired in 2010 the system had 4 paramedics between paid staff and volunteers and three EMT-Intermediates.

"Another one of those problems that I hadn’t imagined is how to respond to an EMS call through a cattle drive.?Nothing in my EMT or Paramedic training or any of the dozens of medical and rescue merit badge courses had prepared me for this when it came up on a call.

"However, all EMS training is based on the urban/suburban model.?And this was the mountains.?Beautiful mountains with lots of recreation, cattle ranches and farms.?And those cattle need to be moved twice a year from their winter pastures in the spring up to the summer grazing and in the fall back down again.?Most of that movement is on roadways.

"The rancher gets a permit from the county and if they are going to use a state road/highway - from the Colorado State Patrol as well.?The permit is issued and area law enforcement agencies provide a front and rear escort for the cattle herd.

"My challenge was an Oklahoma Elk hunter developed chest pain in hunting camp.?There was no cell service at the hunting camp so his buddies threw him into a SUV and drove towards the Town of Ridgeway.?They were out of cell phone service when they came up on the Ridgway Marshal bringing up the rear of the cattle drive.

"The Marshal had EMS dispatched to his location for a chest pain.?The information that his location was at the back of a cattle drive was not mentioned in the dispatch.?I responded to the call in my ALS QRV, Quick Response Vehicle until I encountered the lead of the cattle drive where I quickly learned three things.

"Cows don’t move for lights or sirens.?They do give a shit though.?Lots and lots of poop all over the road.?Horses on the other hand, get mighty spooked by the same lights and sirens and the ranch hands trying to drive and get control of the herd were none to appreciative of this as they now worked to get their mounts under control.

"So, I got out of my vehicle, grabbed my gear and learned that yes, I could push my way through the herd but that the footing was a might slippery stepping through all that cattle poop.?

"I arrived at the Marshal’s vehicle just as the elk hunter took his last breath and went into cardiac arrest.?Not a good call.

"What came out of it though was the Sheriff, the Ridgway Marshal and myself got together with the heads of the Ouray Cattlemen’s Association and we worked out a very reasonable and workable Cattle Drive Response SOG.?The Sheriff’s Dept. would notify EMS of the dates and routes for scheduled cattle drives.?EMS would loan a pager and walkie talkie via the Sheriff’s Office or the Ridgway Marshal’s Office for the trail boss to have.?If the pager went off, the trail boss would contact the lead law enforcement vehicle to find out if the response was through their drive.?If it was, they would stop the herd and push them to the side of the road.

"In turn, the lead law enforcement vehicle would contact us via radio of their location.?This allowed EMS to shut down our sirens a quarter mile short of the herd and not turn them back on until we were at least 500 yards past the herd.?A good low-cost solution that had everyone’s endorsement.

"As an EMS Chief, I found I had to be politically involved in regional and state EMS issues.?The state EMS office had the state divided into 9 Regional EMS councils.?Either Kim or myself attended every monthly council meeting and did our best to ensure that super rural EMS issues weren’t overlooked or addressed.

"Being a long-time member of the National Association of EMTs I joined their EMS Chiefs and Directors Division.?Around 2007 NAEMT did away with most of the Divisions, in large part over a schism with the Chiefs and Directors Division.?In turn most of the former members of the Chiefs and Directors Division formed their owned group and named it the International EMS Chiefs Association.?

"I was one of the founding members and found myself the chair for the Rural EMS Chiefs section.?And in another one of those Forest Gump type moments I found myself at one meeting sharing a table with Steven Kuhr, who was at that time the Chief of New York City EMS. So sitting at the same two person table you had the chief of a two ambulance system that responded to between 210 and 240 calls a year and the chief of the largest EMS system in the US.

I asked Norm how the heck he made the transition to being a wildfire line medic.

"How I came to be a fireline qualified paramedic was an easy story.?The first part was several of my volunteers also worked as on-call fireline EMTs and Medical Unit Leaders.?The second was that now that we lived in the mountains, Vicki had purchased a chain saw for me as a combination birthday/Father’s Day present our first summer there.

"A Stihl. An almost firefighter proof chain saw.?(Nothing is ever actually 100% firefighter proof).?Probably the single most dangerous piece of equipment a structural firefighter is trained to use.?I quickly came to realize that while I could cut a near perfect 4 x 4 vent hole on a steep pitched roof in the dark - when it came to cutting up downed trees for firewood, not even felling them, I had no training or experience what-so-ever and I could kill myself with this tool.

"So, in 2007 I took a S-212 chainsaw class at the summer Colorado Wildfire Academy. I let them know I was a paramedic and had all my equipment with me as well.?That was when the Med Unit Leader for the academy pulled me aside and started the process of recruiting me to this kind of work on a part time/as needed basis as the next phase of my EMS journey.

"Since June of 2010 when I re-retired, I have had the good fortune to have worked 11 wildfire seasons as either a Public Information Officer, fireline qualified paramedic or Medical Unit Leader trainee.?I have also had the good fortune to have been part of a number of special short-term contracts and positions.?Everything from being a line medic on a boat out of Venice, LA for the BP Oil Spill cleanup effort, to being a consultant for evaluation of a large east coast EMS system, to taking an 11-week gig teaching a series of one-week structural firefighting courses in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2012, to being a vaccinator on a FEMA COVID-19 vaccination task force, to the occasional sporting event or movie set standby as a set medic.

"Usually by April of each year Vicki has had enough of me at home on a full time basis and starts inquiring “Isn’t there a wildfire somewhere that needs you?” .?Said tongue in cheek but…

I asked Norm what he was still doing out there as a line medic on a wildfire team??

Taking care of my firefighters and incident support staff.?At 65 I can’t cut line or run a chainsaw all day anymore but I can keep them as healthy as possible and be there with the knowledge and skills to take care of them and get them safely out of the back country environment in an expeditious manner as possible while providing the best possible care needed. That and I am still having fun providing care. I don’t need to do it on the street in an ambulance anymore. I’ve earned those bones many times over. I am still part of “the mission”.?Part of the people getting things done, not sitting back and hoping that someone will get it done.

I asked Norm what the future holds for him.?

"Hopefully at least two more wildfire season as line medic, EMPF or Medical Unit Leader, MEDL.?I am exploring several teaching/training opportunities including submitting a speaker’s proposal for this year’s World Extreme Medical Conference being held this November in Edinburgh, Scotland.?I hope to get going or complete several writing projects and a pair of book ideas.?One on the rescue and medical response for the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and a second one on my career.?Finally, Vicki and I have lots of travel ideas we would like to explore as COVID eases up and the world’s health improves.

If you had any words of wisdom for medics just coming out of school what would they be?

"Stay humble.?You are just starting your education and training.?Learning how to put it all together.?Don’t become a cynical, back-stabbing, putting-down of your co-workers or members of other departments or systems.?There is a meme of how members of different response agencies utilize a row of urinals in a men’s room.?The final example is of firefighters and instead of utilizing the urinals, they are peeing on each other.?The same can be said for a number of EMTs and paramedics I have crossed paths with over the years.

"Finally, you will never know it all and you should never stop learning. This can be a great career with lots of fun, satisfaction and career growth along the way.

And what are the most important lessons you’ve learned as a paramedic?

"That we are taking care of people, not a symptom, illness or injury.?Talk to your patient.?Not at them.?Explain what you are doing.?Even if they are unconscious.?Hearing is the last of the five senses to go and it tends to have a calming effect on family and bystanders as well.

Where should EMS be headed in the next five years?

"Just like nursing - a sustainable wage and a reasonable set of working hours.?So we are not burning out, exhausting or pushing our brother and sister medics to seek employment as firefighter or law enforcement officer for the better pay, schedule and benefits package.?

"We also need to have access to other EMS positions besides just as a responder working on the ambulance.?Not everyone can go into supervision or become a manager, director or chief.?But for those that do, we need to provide high quality training and development for those supervisors so that they in turn can provide good leadership and supervision in the field and not just try and get by on the “Golden Rule”?I wear the gold, I make and enforce the rules.