Giving Thanks as an EMS Provider
"Mom.. Everything is going black."
This is the thing I recall best from her presentation. Annette Adamczak, CPR Instructor and advocate for required CPR training in high schools, spoke those words seven times the day I helped her teach hands-only CPR to Phys-Ed classes at a local high school. Seven.
Annette takes this show on the road and teaches CPR all across the region in a crusade to decrease the dismal statistics on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival. Her motivation is a pretty, 14-year old named Emily Rose. Emily Rose is Annette's daughter who died six years ago after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest on a soccer field in Akron, New York. As Annette tells the story, Emily Rose approached Annette while running a drill at soccer practice and said "Mom... Everything is going black."
The story is just as heart-wrenching as you'd expect from a mother whose daughter literally died in her arms. Annette tells it again and again and again in gymnasiums, conference halls, and any place else where she can find audience. Her bravery has resulted in AED installations at local sports fields and hundreds of high school students being trained in CPR.
Earlier this week things went dark again. Her daughter Shelby was behind the wheel in a violent motor vehicle accident, and when the dust had settled Annette was once more the grieving mother of a lost child.
My wife Nicole contacted me at work when she realized who the victim was. I had already known that the area lost a young person because responders from my agency had taken that call. When I found out that the fatality was another of Annette's children I was physically ill. My thoughts and prayers go out to Annette, her family, and everyone involved in this tragic occurrence.
This turn of events instigated a few things for me. To begin, when I got home that night I gave both of my amazing children an admittedly teary hug. It was a little longer and a little tighter than the normal hugs, but my soul needed to feel those beautiful little people pressed firmly into the safety of my arms. Yet that embrace reminded me that I had to, both literally and figuratively, let go. Those hugs had to end at some point and I had to return to the things we do every day. And for me, the knowledge of Annette's tragedies made that letting go a bit more difficult, because I know first-hand that there is no safety.
We all know it. Every person who hangs a scope around their neck and climbs into the rig knows it. People are impermanent. Life is fleeting - sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but eventually gone. Fate, if you believe in such a concept, is without mercy or compassion. We are stripped of the things we love when we least expect it, and often for no reason other than fate. EMS providers spend their days trudging through the aftermath of these situations, and our illusions of safety are steadily worn away over time leaving us skeptical and afraid.
Few in this business will admit to being afraid. They'll joke about their own mortality sometimes, but you generally see people clam up when discussions start to center around the prospect of their friends and loved-ones dying. It is an all too real possibility for us, because we've seen it first hand. Here one moment, and literally gone the next. It's the reality of life that we are called to witness over and over.
In two days we celebrate Thanksgiving. It's a time for family, feasting, and football, and we're supposed to give thanks for the things we have in our lives. For most people the family and feasting and football are the main part of the day with the "Thanks" being somewhat of an afterthought. For EMTs and paramedics, the "Thanks" tends to be more prominent. That night when I returned home and hugged my kids too long, I said "Thank You" to whatever power is out there in the universe. Thank you for my children. For my wife. For our family and friends. For the fact that they are still with me and near me. Thank you that I have not been one of the countless people who have had to answer the door to police at 2am or be summoned from work to get to the ER "right away."
In a way, I think EMS folks give thanks each day because we dance with temporality. At some point we make a choice to either cut ties with those things that we love because losing them would be too much to bear, or we cling to them tightly and suffer the smoldering, never-ending fear of losing them. Some of us bounce between those extremes.
This year, when you sit down to the table and prepare to double your body weight, take a moment to look at the faces around you - the people you love. Give thanks in whatever way you do. Thanks for your life and those beautiful people in it who make it wonderful. Hug them all a little longer before they leave and know, as do we in EMS, that in the blink of an eye, everything can go black.
Happy Thanksgiving.
This is the thing I recall best from her presentation. Annette Adamczak, CPR Instructor and advocate for required CPR training in high schools, spoke those words seven times the day I helped her teach hands-only CPR to Phys-Ed classes at a local high school. Seven.
Annette takes this show on the road and teaches CPR all across the region in a crusade to decrease the dismal statistics on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival. Her motivation is a pretty, 14-year old named Emily Rose. Emily Rose is Annette's daughter who died six years ago after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest on a soccer field in Akron, New York. As Annette tells the story, Emily Rose approached Annette while running a drill at soccer practice and said "Mom... Everything is going black."
The story is just as heart-wrenching as you'd expect from a mother whose daughter literally died in her arms. Annette tells it again and again and again in gymnasiums, conference halls, and any place else where she can find audience. Her bravery has resulted in AED installations at local sports fields and hundreds of high school students being trained in CPR.
Earlier this week things went dark again. Her daughter Shelby was behind the wheel in a violent motor vehicle accident, and when the dust had settled Annette was once more the grieving mother of a lost child.
My wife Nicole contacted me at work when she realized who the victim was. I had already known that the area lost a young person because responders from my agency had taken that call. When I found out that the fatality was another of Annette's children I was physically ill. My thoughts and prayers go out to Annette, her family, and everyone involved in this tragic occurrence.
This turn of events instigated a few things for me. To begin, when I got home that night I gave both of my amazing children an admittedly teary hug. It was a little longer and a little tighter than the normal hugs, but my soul needed to feel those beautiful little people pressed firmly into the safety of my arms. Yet that embrace reminded me that I had to, both literally and figuratively, let go. Those hugs had to end at some point and I had to return to the things we do every day. And for me, the knowledge of Annette's tragedies made that letting go a bit more difficult, because I know first-hand that there is no safety.
We all know it. Every person who hangs a scope around their neck and climbs into the rig knows it. People are impermanent. Life is fleeting - sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but eventually gone. Fate, if you believe in such a concept, is without mercy or compassion. We are stripped of the things we love when we least expect it, and often for no reason other than fate. EMS providers spend their days trudging through the aftermath of these situations, and our illusions of safety are steadily worn away over time leaving us skeptical and afraid.
Few in this business will admit to being afraid. They'll joke about their own mortality sometimes, but you generally see people clam up when discussions start to center around the prospect of their friends and loved-ones dying. It is an all too real possibility for us, because we've seen it first hand. Here one moment, and literally gone the next. It's the reality of life that we are called to witness over and over.
In two days we celebrate Thanksgiving. It's a time for family, feasting, and football, and we're supposed to give thanks for the things we have in our lives. For most people the family and feasting and football are the main part of the day with the "Thanks" being somewhat of an afterthought. For EMTs and paramedics, the "Thanks" tends to be more prominent. That night when I returned home and hugged my kids too long, I said "Thank You" to whatever power is out there in the universe. Thank you for my children. For my wife. For our family and friends. For the fact that they are still with me and near me. Thank you that I have not been one of the countless people who have had to answer the door to police at 2am or be summoned from work to get to the ER "right away."
In a way, I think EMS folks give thanks each day because we dance with temporality. At some point we make a choice to either cut ties with those things that we love because losing them would be too much to bear, or we cling to them tightly and suffer the smoldering, never-ending fear of losing them. Some of us bounce between those extremes.
This year, when you sit down to the table and prepare to double your body weight, take a moment to look at the faces around you - the people you love. Give thanks in whatever way you do. Thanks for your life and those beautiful people in it who make it wonderful. Hug them all a little longer before they leave and know, as do we in EMS, that in the blink of an eye, everything can go black.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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