This has been an especially bad week for EMS providers nationwide.
And tragedy has struck again, this time in the form of a massive explosion in a small Texas town, that is likely to have claimed the lives of both citizens and public safety personnel sworn to protect them.
The West, Texas, calamity is a study of contrast when compared to the Boston Marathon bombings.
Small town versus urban center; volunteer personnel versus career, limited resources versus sophisticated response.
Yet the intensity and severity of Texas is just as dramatic as Boston. And in both cases, EMS and other safety personnel responded to the scene when others were running out of it.
As columnist Michael Morse said earlier this week, I can’t help but be proud of my colleagues, most of whom I’ll never meet, for going far beyond doing “just their job” in the most hazardous of conditions.
Any sense of fear or hesitation is overcome with the sense of duty to community to serve and protect.
