I wish you could know how it feels dispatching officers, firefighters
and EMT's out to calls. The feeling of having someone cry and scream
into the phone asking for immediate help. Then when our law officer or
firefighter or medical unit we send out does not respond to us on the
radio when we ask for their status or check to see how safe the scene
is. We call for them and our heart drops because no one answers back to
let us know they are safe or that the scene is secure. Whether it is a
child or an elderly person needing help. A woman crying whose been
beaten or raped. A man yelling that his neighbor is on his porch with a
gun yelling threats at the whole family. Someone may smell smoke or they
may fall and be hurt and whatever the case is we are in the dark and
have no idea what is going on until we finally hear our units respond to
us. Our hearts race, our breathing stops and yet we still continue to
work and try to make contact or wait patiently for help to arrive on scene.

I wish you could know what it is like to search a burning bedroom for
trapped children at 3 AM, flames rolling above your head, your palms and
knees burning as you crawl, the floor sagging under your weight as the
kitchen below you burns.

I wish you could comprehend a husband's horror at 6 in the morning as I
check his wife of 40 years for a pulse and find none. I start CPR
anyway, hoping to bring her back, knowing intuitively it is too late.
But wanting her husband and family to know everything possible was done
to try to save her life.

I wish you knew the unique smell of burning insulation, the taste of
soot-filled mucus, the feeling of intense heat through your turnout
gear, the sound of flames crackling, the eeriness of being able to see
absolutely nothing in dense smoke-sensations that I've become too
familiar with.

I wish you could read my mind as I respond to a building fire 'Is this a
false alarm or a working fire? How is the building constructed? What
hazards await me? Is anyone trapped?' Or to call, 'What is wrong with
the patient? Is it minor or life-threatening? Is the caller really in
distress or is he waiting for us with a 2x4 or a gun?'

To be in the emergency room as a doctor pronounces dead the beautiful
five-year old girl that I have been trying to save during the past 25
minutes, who will never go on her first date or say the words, 'I love
you Mommy' again.

I wish you could know the frustration I feel in the cab of the engine or
unit the driver with his foot pressing down hard on the pedal, my arm
tugging again and again at the air horn chain, as you fail to yield the
right-of-way at an intersection or in traffic. When you need us however,
your first comment upon our arrival will be, 'It took you forever to get
here!'

I wish you could know my thoughts as I help extricate a girl of teenage
years from the remains of her automobile. 'What if this was my daughter,
sister, my girlfriend or a friend? What is her parents' reaction going
to be when they open the door to find a police officer with hat in hand?'



I wish you could feel the hurt as people verbally, and sometimes
physically, abuse us or belittle what I do, or as they express their
attitudes of 'It will never happen to me.'

The physical, emotional and mental drain or missed meals, lost sleep and
forgone social activities, in addition to all the tragedy my eyes have seen.

I wish you could know the brotherhood and self-satisfaction of helping
save a life or preserving someone's property, or being able to be there
in time of crisis, or creating order from total chaos.

To have a little boy tugging at your arm and asking, 'Is Mommy okay?'
Not even being able to look in his eyes without tears from your own and
not knowing what to say.

Or to have to hold back a long time friend who watches his buddy having
CPR done on him as you take him away in the Medic Unit. You know all
along he did not have his seat belt on. A sensation that I have become
too familiar with.

Unless you have lived with this kind of life, you will never truly
understand or appreciate who I am, we are, or what our job really means
to us...I wish you could though.