Saving Lives?

There’s a girl on campus who often asks me if we’ve “saved any lives today” or if I’m “heading off to save lives” when I’m going to shift change. I’ve heard this a few times, but every time she says something, I’m not sure how to respond. Usually she gets “not yet” for an answer, but sometime, when we both have a minute, I’ve got some serious discussing to do.

Truth be told, we don’t save lives all that often. There are a few things we do/use that will immediately do some serious life-saving: any of our drugs, suctioning and maintaining an airway. And, somebody please correct me if I’m wrong, but we don’t do a lot of any of these here at Brandeis. Generally, we make things easier for someone who’s in a not-so-pleasant situation. If you ask me if I’ve ever saved someone’s life, I’ll tell you, “No.” Sometimes we make the call for help if someone’s in need of ‘saving,’ people with more training and more equipment, but that’s a call anyone could make.

I can’t fault her for asking—I do, however, feel like I can fault myself, her other EMT friends, the media’s portrayal of the profession, and the fact that people who speak up against that only do so within the EMS community. When people ask, why not ask, “What does ‘saving a life’ mean to you?” Explain what we do, what we can do, what we can’t, what we have done, and what we’re trained to do but very well might never have the chance to do. If you have a problem with how we’re depicted in Trauma*, or even in Emergency!, don’t just blog about it to those of us that share the sentiment; talk it up with other people.

It’s strange to think that on the same campus as people who call for Tylenol or for cotton stuck in the ear, there are people who think we can do anything. There’s got to be a middle of the road somewhere.


*I watched Trauma, all 18 episodes of it. I enjoyed it. I knew it wasn't accurate. It was good for a laugh and some decent TV dramatics, more MCIs than you can count on one hand, and one highly improbable result of a helicopter crash.