What face is it for you ?
For me , it is that of an 18 month-old girl in the early 1990s , on a shift where I was riding the ambulance as the medic at Station 302 . We had a great Sunday breakfast , and with us was a young student EMT ride-out trying to better herself through the training program at Victor Valley College .
Our perception of life was about to change with the sound of the dispatch tones for an automobile vs . pedestrian on the east side of Hesperia . We arrived at an uphill driveway of a single family home to find deputies already at scene ; immediately our eyes were drawn to the small blanket behind the pickup of a family friend , covering the body of our young lifeless patient . by Dave Burkart
It seems this was the first day little Becca was able to open the screen door leading to the driveway , an event unknown to her family or their departing friend ; the mom found her young daughter at the very moment their friend realized his vehicle had struck something in the driveway .
While the deputy said it was an obvious death , he had requested our response to confirm . As the “ patient man ” that day on the ambulance , that job belonged to me .
I will spare the visual details save one : her eyes , the biggest , bluest eyes , beautiful — in stark contrast to the rest of the picture I have carried with me ever since .
This event is neither the first , last , least or even the worst of what each of us encounters — just a single example among the worst moments our chosen career can dish up on any given day . As you read this story , undoubtedly you remember an event of your own , probably several of them — testaments to the many faces crisis wears , especially in emergency services .
This incident happened about the time when peer support programs were gaining ground in emergency services . Taking a page from the military , in the 1980s Drs . Jeff Mitchell and George Everly , founders of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation , recognized that the impacts of “ shell shock ” ( What we now call Post Traumatic Stress Injury / Disorder , or PTSD ) in military personnel were very similar to the personality and psychological traits witnessed in emergency services personnel .
28 FIREWIRE • Spring 2016