By EMS1 Staff
Have you ever said “clear right” when your wife is driving? Or what about eating faster than everyone else during dinner?
If you’re nodding your head “yes,” then you understand exactly what it’s like to be a paramedic — both on and off-duty.
Most of these thoughts, if not all, are difficult to explain to the average Joe or Jane.
Did we miss one that you’ve thought on an occasion or two? Add them in the comments below.
1. “You are confident that if you stare at the monitor display long enough then it will change to something you recognize and know how to treat.” — Perry Bailey
2. “While the call is being dispatched, you automatically head to the bathroom.” — Stan Slaughter
3. “Having spaghetti after the GSW and not even blinking an eye. Just pass the sauce.” — William E. Harris Jr.
4. “When you doze off standing up while giving a patient report at the hospital. Those times you decide to just sleep on the truck, because it seems like there is an imaginary alarm that trips when you lay down.” — Amy Hall
5. “Walk by a construction site, and instead of wondering what they are building, you think, ‘Where do I cut the rebar to get an impaled worker into an ambulance and to hospital?’” — Pam Morrell
6. “When tones drop on a TV show and you reach for your radio and it isn’t there.” — Shane E. Croft
7. “Constantly noticing signs and symptoms of illness/disease in random people out in public while not on-duty.” — Christina Miller
8. “Wondering if the glove can hold the contents of your bladder. Worse, knowing that it can. Even worse, knowing that it can’t.” — Daniel Katzenstein
9. “My partner used to make me sleep with my boots on, because if I took them off to get in bed, the phone was going to ring.” — Stephen Rakkaus
10. “When your dry cleaner never asks what’s on your uniforms.” — David P. Walker