Ben Blankenship

Thanks, yes thanks to every one of you.  Thanks for allowing me to be your president for another year.  We had some great successes and we left some things to be accomplished in the near future.  I am most pleased with the legislation creating our trauma system.  I do believe that this one major step in our future will make the most significant difference in our ability to care for our patients that has occurred in quite some time in the history of emergency medical services in our state.

We also obtained licensure for our profession, no small feat.  Lots of work into the effort for this accomplishment and a tremendous amount of time and effort were committed just assembling the bill, in the end it was over 16 pages and the areas of other state law that we impacted were unbelievable.  While some still question the importance of obtaining licensure for our profession the majority of us know that we have made another step in elevating our profession.

Continued

There are times in our lives where pride of our business and dedication to our service is at an all time high.  We take several things for granted and never realize that it can be taken away from us at a moment’s notice.  With recent events in my life, I have realized not only how important life may be, yet who is important in sharing my life with. This is where that sense of pride and dedication to our service steps in.

On Sunday, August 9, 2009, I woke as I did every morning with a cup of coffee and a cigarette and sat on my porch and watched the sunrise and listened to the day awake.  I never knew what was brewing deep inside my old bald body until later that morning.  While enjoying my Folgers brew and Marlboro cigarette as I have for the past 32 years, my “chronic indigestion” returned and I began having some pain in my right shoulder.  Continued