PERU, Ill. — Paramedic Meagan Ryan was returning to her ambulance from a coffee run when she was ridiculed by a man in the parking lot — but she’s not letting it get her down.
“Looks like you guys are working really hard tonight, right?” the man sneered before driving away.
Instead of snapping at the man, Ryan addressed the incident on social media.
“You didn’t insult or humiliate me,” she wrote. “What you did do was teach your young children and your giggling wife that you hold disdain for public servants.”
“I do understand that people are so fed up and angry with increasing taxes, I’m a taxpayer, too,” Ryan told CBS 2 News, noting that her salary was paid through donation money and billing revenue.
She channeled her anger into a donation for the Code Green campaign, which benefits EMS personnel suffering from PTSD.
Ryan feels that because of the intense nature of their profession, first responders shouldn’t be shamed for taking time in between calls to grab coffee, run errands and care for themselves as human beings.
“When we do work, I assure you, we are ‘working hard,’” she writes. “Working hard to care for and fix the sick, the dying, the mentally ill, the abused and assaulted, the mangled bodies and the dead.”
“May you and your family never need us.”