The tabloid headline on the original version of this article on The New York Post caught my attention of course. “Pic and Twisted: FDNY EMS workers post glory, private photos of patients online.” Face palm.
If there’s anything about this business, it’s this: just as you think it couldn’t get worse … yep, it does.
In this case though, I’ve been waiting to see when this would bubble to the surface. As long as I’ve been in the business, I’ve known coworkers who carried photos of patients with gory injuries and illnesses around with them at work.
First it was photographs and polaroids, then cell phone, and now they’re broadcast across the internet through social media.
I’ve never really understood the fascination behind it all. I mean, once you’ve seen the back of someone’s head taken off with a loose wrecking ball, leaving behind nothing but the look of astonishment on the victim’s face…I had that patient 28 years ago.
Still remember it. Don’t care to remember it.
Rape victims, patients beaten with bats, a multitude of weapons and devices penetrating various places in the body that result in incompatibility with life – yeah, I don’t care to remember those either. But I do.
Patients don’t hold up well after falling 15 stories, or after being hit by a train. I remember them, too.
I can’t fathom the fascination that some of us have with these images. It’s like trophies, or catching the big one. I could almost see the logic of, “That was so unbelievable, I have to get a picture of it!”
But that doesn’t explain the need to post it online or trading it with someone else.
Don’t get me wrong — good photos can be used in education quite effectively. Truly a picture is worth a thousand words. But to have them identifiable, or just showing them for a voyeuristic leer? That’s not acceptable.
Why? Guess I’m kinda old fashioned — if the victim was my wife, or my child, or my parent, I’d be pretty ticked off to find their images circulating around the web.
Makes me wonder what the photographer was thinking about at the time — the job, or the jollies?
One more thing: Patients are people. They can smell, be abusive, reek of cheap gin and do incredibly stupid things. So what? You didn’t get into this job to deal with that? You thought it was all Johnny and Roy? Third Watch? Chicago Fire?
Here’s a news flash: that’s Hollywood. Make believe. Those are products that are designed to sell advertising.
If you hate the job, please get out. Don’t go away mad; just go away. No one will fault you for it.
All of us will be better for it.
