Most of us have encountered a situation that brings reality to the realm of our life during our years in EMS. If you haven’t had the occasion to reflect on the loss of a friend, colleague or partner, you will most likely in some point during your career. This is a situation that will arise from time to time in which we will reflect on the positive situations that these individuals have brought to our profession as well as all the smiles that they have instilled in our lives.

Certainly, after such a tragic loss, we often wonder if we will ever be the same while delivering the patient care that we have learned and practiced daily. Will we be able to climb back on board to assist those that we know nothing about? Will we be able to provide the quality of care that we have practiced while working side by side with those we have lost? Where will we go from here? How will we get there? All of these questions are easily answered each time we receive that call for help. Let’s recall the passion that each of us have for assisting those that we know nothing about. The passion and pride that we have for being a professional in the EMS industry. The same passion that our fallen partners had when they deployed to each call, ready and willing to make a difference in some one’s life. We must remember that we are all a part of a family that many others may find it hard to understand. We must rely on those that are left on this earth to continue the quality of patient care and response that our fallen partners have instilled in us.

Sure, it is easy to sit and say that those that we lose would want us to pick up the pieces and continue doing what we know to do and do it proudly. However, speaking from experience, it is one of the hardest things that we will encounter. Those who have worked side by side with the one’s that we have lost know what I am speaking of. There will be times when we look around expecting to see the smiling face of our friend and realize that they are not there in a physical sense, yet the feeling that we have could come from the angelic wings that they now wear while they watch over our daily lives and endeavors.

Remember, they are now watching over us in all that we do and guiding us into perfection while we strive to carry on without them here on earth. Let these thoughts and rememberances bring you a steady hand while drawing up life altering medications , an extra glow to appear as you are trying to pass that tube through some of the most difficult airway situations and may there be a calmness come over you in the most chaotic circumstances.

Kenny, Ken and Gayla will be sorely missed over many years to come, yet their passion for the sick and injured will live with us for the rest of our lives. It is our responsibility to ensure that we reflect back on the changes they have made while doing what they loved!

To each and everyone that reads this, I wish you the best as an EMS Professional and pray for your safety each day that you will be able to return home to your family and loved ones. I am grateful and thankful to be a part of your family and I am humbled that you are a part of mine.

God Bless each of you in this trying time and please be safe out there!

In just over 3 years time I’m going to be driving through your jurisdiction just as you are sitting down to your first meal in 12 hours.  As your order hits the counter I will experience an odd tightness in my chest and dismiss it as gas.

When you take your first bite my wife of 35 years will watch me clutch my chest and stop the car on the side of the road.

Just as you begin to think your bad day is finally slowing down, the worst day of my life, and possibly the last, has just begun.

I’ve slumped over in the car, releasing the brake pedal and the car drifts into a signpost, discharging the airbags.

My wife is hit by the passenger side airbag as she is leaning over to help me, noticing my unconsciousness just prior to her own.

A passerby has stopped and is now describing a motor vehicle accident to your dispatcher.

Lunch is still warm in your hands when your radio alerts to the accident.

You are tired.

You are hungry.

The kids have been keeping you up late.

The rent is past due.

Big deal.  I’m about to die.  While you’re cursing me walking to your rig, my MI is moving and my wife’s head injury is complicating what is already going to be a difficult airway judging by the amount of teeth on the floorboards.

As your rig negotiates traffic, my respirations are rapid and shallow, my wife’s now non-existent.

When you pull up to the scene I need your A game.  I need you trained to the point where what you are about to do comes as naturally as breathing, because we’re having a bit of trouble in that department.

This is not about you.  It’s about me.  It’s about us.

So back to your studies, we’ll meet again before you know it.

- Judy Taylor

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.

While we had great success in the legislative effort for our association there were some efforts that were uncompleted and will be available for future opportunities.  I encourage the ones who are interested to begin now in preparation for the next legislative session.  We are a powerful voice in the legislature; our partnership with the Arkansas Ambulance Association gives additional credence to our requests for assistance.  It is interesting to watch the lawmakers respond when they know we are aligned with other representatives of our industry and they realize we do have strength in numbers.  I encourage the incoming leadership team to maintain our alliances; they do serve to benefit us all.

I encourage any of you who want to become involved in the leadership of our association to step up, become involved and help us to make a difference in our future.  Shyness is not a normal trait for people in our profession; we apply boldness to our delivery of patient care, boldly step out and assume your position in our future.  It is a rewarding effort and not only do we make a difference in our future but also in the future of the people we will care for in the days to come.

I’ve had the opportunity to be president of this amazing group of caregivers for a total of 5 years now and it is time for me to step back and let someone else lead this amazingly talented and diverse association as we avail ourselves of the opportunities available to us.

Thank you for honoring me with your trust and thank you for letting me head this organization.  It has been a humbling journey.

Stay Safe,
Ben

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.  As with most of us in EMS, I diagnosed myself with joint pain – possibly pleurisy, took a couple Tums and totally ignored what was the beginning of a much dreaded day.  I didn’t want anyone to see that I was in pain – that I was soft and could not take a little shoulder pain.  In our business, along with cattle farming, you will have some minor aches and pains and we just learn to live with it and go on.  Plus, this was on my right side, totally opposite of where the important parts lie!  I dressed myself for church services and made the 25 mile trip to Harrison with my family and noticed that this pain was more severe and was now radiating into my right jaw and ear – and the 10 Tums and Prilosec weren’t kicking in.  After Bible class, my intuitive other half put me on 100% O₂ and took my pressure, 184/124…I promptly got a quick trip to the emergency department.

Of course, the story goes on from there…enjoying the drugs, embarrassing the nurses, using my “When Seconds Count” membership, and receiving another stent in my heart compliments of a fine physician at Washington Regional.

My point from this story is for everyone to pay attention to what your body tells you!!  Don’t ignore what we all know can happen.  We have too many people depending on us to make their world go round – not only our family that we share our homes with, but the family that we share our many hours of work with.  I am trying to live a better life.  I am currently smoke-free for a month now and watching what I eat a little closer.  Sure, in our professional lives at times, we do not know what we are going to eat, where it comes from or when that meal may take place.  I am not preaching about our food intake as much as I am about listening to our bodies and taking care of ourselves.  We are only given this one body to make the best of it for the number of years that we are blessed to be on this earth.

I use myself as an example.  I am 44 years young and have not taken the best of care of myself for many of those years.  I have eaten what I could grab, exercised by lifting a cot and have done things with my body that I shouldn’t have.  I have had two heart attacks and now cannot walk through a metal detector without it beeping.  I have been told that if I don’t change my ways of living, my time will be short.  I intend on being a burden to Evyn and Allie.  I WILL be around to sit on the porch with a shotgun.  I WILL be around to see my children graduate.  And hope that I live to be old enough for some nurse to have to change my diaper one day!

With all this preaching aside now, I have another situation that I want to discuss.  The Arkansas EMS Foundation was created to help those in our EMS family during difficult times.  After returning from the local pharmacy and spending $250 on prescriptions, I checked the mail to gather more bills that needed to be paid by the first of the month.  Inside the mailbox was a small white envelope, with AEMSF titled in the upper left of the envelope.  I opened this mail first and tears began to flow.  Not only was my family at home concerned, yet my extended family of EMS as well.  I really don’t know how to say thank you enough to the board of the AEMSF and to express to them our deepest gratitude.  I want to let the Board of the AEMSF know how much they have touched my life and how great a service they have provided to me and my family.

I would be remiss if I didn’t extend my sincere gratitude to the staff in the emergency department and CCU at North Arkansas Regional Medical Center in Harrison.  After several blood draws, my Triponin levels continued to rise and AirEvac 40 transported me to Washington Regional.  I received the most professional care and treatment that a person could expect to receive from the crew at AE40 and I thank them tremendously.  By the way, may I just say, that myself, the pilot and the crew would like to thank whomever created Zofran!!!

My life has been changed dramatically since the 9^th of August.  I challenge each person who reads this to evaluate what can be done differently in your life so that we, your EMS family can enjoy as many years as possible of care giving and fun-filled times that we can.  I am not challenging everyone to go get a complete cardiac work up right now, but think about it as your mid-life approaches.  We live in this highly stressful, demanding world of EMS and we just have each other to take care of ourselves.  I appreciate each and every one of you who are out on the streets taking the time and showing the dedication in making the sick and injured feel more secure.  Thanks to your families for letting you take time from them to dedicate and devote to those who need you.  Tonight, take a moment of time and let those that live in your life know that they are loved.

Please be safe and enjoy the ability that God has given us by taking care of those that need us!!

Dr. Hammons was an Air Force doctor who saw the success of pre-hospital treatment for heart attack patients and wondered why they could do it in California and not do it in his home state of Arkansas. He had read the works of Dr. Frank Partridge and visited other advanced training sites. He knew if Arkansas was to ever have Advanced EMT’s (Paramedics), they needed to train here. He had faith that the revolution in emergency medical care was one that was needed here and his dedication to developing a training site.
He shared his vision with anyone that would listen and frequently told public gatherings how these Advance EMT’s would save lives by taking skills that were limited to nurses and doctors out into the streets — not a strange idea in 2008 but a radical idea in the 1970’s.  It seems like yesterday when I first stepped foot into the classroom and he started to share his passion for emergency care. He shared that passion many times, and it never did grow old until the day he died and then the Diamond in that Arkansas flag grew a little dimmer.

Thanks, Dr. Ed Hammons for everything you did for Arkansas EMS and sharing your passion.

He was a man from a small Arkansas town who wanted to make a difference.  Having seen what combat medics were doing in Viet Nam, when he came back to Forrest City, AR after serving in the military he decided U.S. citizens at home should get that same cutting edge care before they reached the hospital.  Dr. E. P. Hammons, who just referred to himself as “Hammons”, was one of a kind.

He:

• was called the Father of AR EMS.
• worked to get legislation passed so that paramedics could function in the field.
• started the paramedic school at East AR Community College and served as it’s medical director until his death.
• was proud of EMS, and of the graduates he had taught.
• worked for the greater good.
• put himself on the line to bring about positive change.
• was a physician, teacher, encourager, mentor, and friend.

And he was more.  He left a legacy that has continued and will continue.  Every student he taught carried part of him with them on every run.  To every partner his graduates taught, to every third rider they had, to every student they taught in the classroom his graduates passed along a little of bit of Hammons.

Those of us who were lucky enough to have known him and fortunate enough to have learned from him carry him with us every day.  It shows in respect for other people.  It shows in the unending demand for excellence.  It shows in who we have become.

As with any good friend who passes on, I will always miss Hammons.  But I am grateful.  It was a terrible hurt when he died, and while writing this the pain still seems fresh.  But as the song says, “I wouldn’t have missed the dance” for anything.

Remember the days with no cell phones? These were days when we actually had home phones and we used them. These were days when no caller ID was available to see if it was the office calling. These were the days when we actually used time clocks instead of all the modern up to date equipment, such as a telephone, to clock in and out. A blackberry was something we ate and canned for preserves, not something we talked on and typed on. Email was non-existent, unless you were extremely wealthy and could afford a $2,000 deck of cards to play solitaire with.

Vacation is defined through the dictionary as, “a.) a scheduled period during which activity (as of a court or school) is suspended; b.) a period of exemption from work granted to an employee; c.) a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation.” Wow, what happened to this?

PTO as some know it today is defined as “Paid Time Off.”  Most of us know it as “Pretend Time Off.” It’s there, it is just not used for what it should be used for.

Today, we take this time off for granted. We schedule it, then we attach ourselves to our cell phones, emails or any other means of modern day communications, and we forget to actually enjoy this time away from work. We forget to allow ourselves the ability to refresh our minds and bodies to be prepared for the next call.

EMS professionals are all dominating, enduring and excitable individuals, waiting for something to happen. We know from past experiences that we can go from being sound asleep to 80 miles per hour down a long highway, and never even think that this is not normal. Trust me when I say that this is far from the normal everyday citizen in America.

As we begin a new year in EMS, we need to be more alert to our personal needs and desires away from our daily routines in EMS. I know we all love what we do, yet we cannot do it to the best of our abilities if we don’t take a break every once in a while. Speaking from experience, our bodies cannot take the continual beatings that we give them in this business. The alcohol, tobacco and convenience store foods, along with fast foods, take a toll on our bodies.  Without a break from this, we can suffer major issues with our health, both mentally and physically.

So, in the year 2009, use what you have earned! Make a pact with yourself to leave modern day conveniences behind and take a break from your very important job. Grab up a fishing pole and a friend and find a creek! It is amazing what a bobber and a glass of sweet tea can do for a person.

I, personally, want to take this opportunity to thank each and everyone involved with Arkansas EMS. Whether you are a first responder, billing clerk, fire fighter, dispatcher, EMT-Basic, EMT-Ambulance, EMT-Intermediate, EMT-Paramedic, Flight Nurse, Operations Manager, Owner/Operator or a Medical Director, you play a very vital role in the success of saving a life. It is you that goes from zero to 80 at the blink of an eye and does make that difference in someone’s life. Always remember, the call you are working on is the patient’s worst moment of their life, and they want you to make that difference.

I hope and pray that you, my coworker in EMS, have a very prosperous, joyful and wonderful 2009. Give me a shout if you here the trout are biting!

Keith Edmonds, EMT-A
Vice President
Arkansas EMT Association