By Jennifer Robison
Las Vegas Review-Journal (Nevada)
Copyright 2006 DR Partners d/b/a Las Vegas Review-Journal
All Rights Reserved
Calvin Griffin found his career calling on a whim.
Griffin was working as a professional kickboxer and attending Pasadena City College in California when he spotted a six-credit emergency-medical technicians’ class that would fill out his course schedule. During the class, Griffin went on a ride-along with a Los Angeles-area ambulance company and fell in love with the patient interaction.
On a visit to Las Vegas in 1986, Griffin applied for a job with American Medical Response, then Mercy Medical Services. When the company hired him, Griffin became Las Vegas’ first black paramedic.
From 1986 until his transfer in 2000 to American Medical Response’s Jean outpost near the California state line, Griffin delivered about 45 babies - including his EMT partner’s - was a first responder to the 1988 explosion of the Pacific Engineering & Production Company of Nevada plant in Henderson and helped countless Las Vegans negotiate medical traumas both major and minor. In April, he won American Medical Response’s EMS (emergency medical services) Responder of the Year honors.
Question: You had an unusual career transition from professional kickboxing to paramedics. What skills did you learn in martial arts that have helped you in medicine?
Answer: When you’re a kickboxer, you control yourself better. You can deal with problems a bit better because of your training. You’re more disciplined and more focused. Kickboxing gives you an ability to deal with adrenaline.
Question: What kinds of calls do you typically handle at Jean?
Answer: On the weekends, there are medical calls because all the buses come in and everybody is over 55. You’ve got buses full of 60- to 80-year-olds who will sit all day at a slot machine. They’re going to get exhausted, dehydrated and hypoglycemic, because they’re not going to eat. On the weekends, we probably have two or three of those calls a day. They’re not transports, but we do have to treat them on the scene.
Question: How does your job change during the week?
Answer: That’s when we get the trauma calls. (Interstate) 15 between mile marker 10 and Baker, (Calif.), has one of the highest accident rates in the United States. Each crew (at Jean) averages three to four rollovers a week, but some of those are minor, without big injuries.
Question: Why do you like working at the state line?
Answer: I like trauma. In town, you have trauma, but not as much, and you always wonder whether you could handle anything major. You ask yourself, “Can I triage? Can I make a difference?” I like that part of it.
Question: What are the experiences you’ve never forgotten?
Answer: I delivered a baby and the (mother) quit trying right in the middle of the birth. I delivered the head, but the baby’s shoulder was stuck. I was trying to deliver the shoulder, and she said, “OK, that’s it.”
I said, “What? What’s wrong?”
She said, “I quit. I’m not having this baby.”
She stood up as we were coming under the Charleston underpass. I’m screaming to my partner, “Pull over! Pull over!” He pulled over under the underpass and jumped in the back. He held her down so I could deliver the shoulder.
One of weirdest calls I had was after we dropped off a patient at Valley Hospital. There was an older security guy outside smoking a cigarette, so I made a comment to him about how smoking would catch up with him.
Maybe four hours later, he’s short of breath at his house. I go on the call and give him a breathing treatment.
He told me he just didn’t feel right, that he couldn’t breathe. So I intubated him and got him to the hospital, and he coded (lost his pulse and respiration). We did cardiopulmonary resuscitation and then we shocked him.
He died anyway, and we left for another call.
We brought back another patient. The nurse pulled me aside and told me the wife came down to see the body, uncovered his face and cried and prayed for 30 minutes. She went to walk away, and her husband grabbed her hand. She screamed, the nurse ran in there, and I’ll be damned if he wasn’t alive.
I’ve also transported my mother-in-law twice. I stuck her with the biggest needles, because she’s so hard-headed. She’s a diabetic, and I told her, “Look, you’ve got to take care of yourself.” I put the big needles in her to show her what happens if she doesn’t care for herself.
Question: You’re dealing with people who are scared or upset. How do you defuse the situation and calm people down?
Answer: I treat them like I do my family. If they’re sitting down, I squat down to their level, and I always smile. You can’t be afraid to touch them. You have to hold their hand. Touch is the only way humans know everything is OK. Patients heal through touch.
We are what the general practitioners of the old days were. We make house calls. We’re the ones who come in and hold your hand as we clean you up and package you to be transported to the hospital. We get called for toothaches. We have training to handle psychological problems. We’re called for ingrown toenails. You name it.
Question: What do you miss about being stationed in Las Vegas?
Answer: I miss the medical calls. I miss running into people’s houses. I miss the interaction. You’re not going to get that with mostly trauma calls. I have to come to town every now and then to get that experience, because I don’t want to lose it.
Question: What traits are common to people in your line of work?
Answer: You have to be a people person and you have to be aggressive. It’s a different breed of person. You get that person who’s used to being around people.
You also have to be relentless in getting information. You can train nearly anyone to intubate, but it takes a special person to be able to sit down with someone face to face, ask questions and get what you need out of them. Treating the problem is the easy part. Knowing there is a problem and finding that problem is the hard part.
Question: We have a shortage of nurses and doctors in Southern Nevada. How has that affected your job?
Answer: We have a time limit we have to meet, and not having enough doctors and hospitals slows us down a bit. Other than that, the system works for where we are and where we’ve come from.
Question: Why has Las Vegas been a good place for your paramedics career?
Answer: We have a bigger array of calls than Los Angeles or New York. There are paramedics in Los Angeles or New York who don’t do what we do or do as much as we do, because Las Vegas is such a melting pot.
We’ve got so many different people in this town at any given time with so many different diseases and medical problems.
The company itself was one of the elite companies and one of the best paramedic companies in the United States, and they gave us a lot of leeway. In California, they wouldn’t let the paramedics intubate. We were intubating. I got experiences I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere else, and I liked the excitement. I love to not be bored.
Question: How can patients who call for an ambulance make your job easier?
Answer: When I ask questions, tell all, and tell the truth. Don’t wait until you get to the hospital and say, “Oh, I didn’t tell the paramedic I got shot yesterday and covered it up with tape and it’s been hurting me.”
When the paramedics arrive, tell them everything. If you’re shy, write it down. You have to tell us all your symptoms - everything you’ve experienced that’s not normal.
calvin griffiN
Age: 46
Occupation: Senior paramedic, American
Medical Response
Quotable: “Touch is the only way humans know everything is OK. Patients heal through touch.”
VITAL STATISTICS
Name: Calvin Griffin.
Position: Senior paramedic, American Medical Response.
Family: Wife, Denise; children, Lela, David, Evelyn and Demetri.
Education: Studied health and physical education at East Carolina University; earned emergency-medical technician certification from Pasadena City College in California.
Work history: Professional kickboxer, 1979-85; owner of The Gym at Jones Boulevard and Spring Mountain Road, 1986-1988; paramedic, 1987-current.
Hobbies: Martial arts, walking.
Favorite book: The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling.
Hometown: Hobgood, N.C.
In Las Vegas since: 1986.