I have fond memories of that first Emergency Medical Technician class. It was the EMT-Basic level class and in those day, about four technical college credits. It is odd now reflecting back and realizing how much I remember about that experience. The class was held in a neighboring fire station on what seemed to me then, as odd nights. It was on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays as I remember it. At least half the class was women. The feminine participation in the ambulance world was well under way by the mid-1990s - something completely different from my Army training days twenty years prior. The neighboring town was starting up an ambulance service, so many of the people were in that clique. That was ok, as the class had a special bonding I thought.  I was one of only four or so students not affiliated with the start-up service and their group.

    About every two years as an EMT-B, one is required to go back to class for a couple weekends. The thing about medical work is that it required both book work and agility skills. We would be tested at the end of that first semester in order to get our license. The refresher classes were required to maintain the State license. There were intubation tubes, splints, and medications to master. It is one thing to take a book test; it is another thing to be tested in intubating a patient with a veteran paramedic watching your technique. 

        In the mean time, I was riding along on my own service and gradually working into driving and giving what ever patient care I was allowed, as I was not licensed yet. I was so enamored with this new activity and learning, I volunteered at the Emergency Room at one of the hospitals we took patients to in Madison. As an ER volunteer, you wheeled patients up to rooms, made up beds in the ER cubicles, and generally acted as a go-for person. I remember that finding pillows was always a hallowed task. 

    Through my ER work and ambulance participation, I started to notice how people act when sick. That realization would follow me until my graduate school work which among other things involved studying how people communicate and the cultures they create to do it in. I came to know what was really an emergency and what was not. It would later help my wife and I care for my mother until her death. She was actually able to have her wish of staying at home until she passed away in the Spring of 2001. I could have never have helped care for her without the medical training. 

    In fact, considering I had quit the truck assembly job, my days were open. Toward the middle of the semester that I had started my EMT-B class, I enrolled in a four-credit nursing assistant class that as I recall started in mid-semester. Nursing assistant work was another book and skills mix. I thought the two classes complemented each other quit nicely. Emergency medical technicians treat the patient for maybe an hour at most and drop them off to ER staff. Nursing assistants work in perennial settings in nursing homes, private homes, group homes, and hospitals to name a few places. They often get to know their patients well. An EMT on the other hand sees people at their worst for a half hour and then may never see them again. 

    One caveat of small town ambulance work is that you may find yourself rushing to the scene of a wreck, fire, trauma, or illness and realize the patient is a neighbor, or one of your own family members.  Another realization is that medical calls and car wrecks are usually chaos. It's not always like television.

    Another thing was starting to become apparent.  Medical work and training are time bandits.  I did not let the long hours distract me at first.  I was soaking up all the new knowledge and experience.  Years later, I would explain the large turn over in the ambulance world and nursing world as "not" due to horrific and graphic injuries and illnesses of the patients as average people often think. But, I maintain the long hours and relentless re-training finally take their toll on people.  The medical world is one of 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  In ten years, holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and just a plain good-night's-sleep, often were waived in lieu of work and volunteering. 

    Note: This Blog "Jobs of Bob" Category does not list the jobs chronologically - I write about the experiences as they pop up in my memory and I often revisit an older job.  Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Jobs of Bob Page  for an ordered chronology.

         Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
    (each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan) 

    Army Sergeant First Class Trevor J. Diesing 30, was killed by a bomb in Husaybah, Iraq, on Thursday, August 25, 2005.  The Pilot Newspaper out of North Carolina said Diesing was born in Minnesota. He grew up and worked on his familys' dairy farm in Maiden Rock, a western Wisconsin community. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Diesing played basketball and baseball for Plum City High School, Plum City, Wisconsin. He joined the Army Reserves before graduating in 1992. Sergeant Diesing spent several years in the Army Reserves and joined the Army full time in 1997. Diesing was assigned to Headquarters Company, U.S. Army Special Operations Command out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was on his third tour of duty in Iraq.  At the time of his death Trevor Diesing was survived by: Wife Lori; children Mariah Vogel, 7, Cole, 3, and Maddox, 3 months; parents, Debbie and Lonnie Diesing, and brother Toby Diesing. Sergeant First Class Trevor J. Diesing was the 45th Wisconsin military service person to die in Iraq since the spring of 2003.

                               As of this blog entry's posting date:

    95,755 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
    
    9,415 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    4,390 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    1023 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    317 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    663 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    31,762 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    5,393 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    102 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    17 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    140 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; and, icasualties.org.