Editor’s note: We’re pleased to unveil the winners 2012 contest to mark EMS Week! Check them out here.
By Jennifer Guyton
When did you know that EMS was your calling? Finding out that EMS was my calling starts with my father who was a paramedic.
As a child, all I knew about my dad’s job was when the beeper went off, daddy had to go.
That all changed when I was 10. On the way home from lunch, there was a MVA that happened right in front of us. I will never forget that day as long as I live.
My dad pulled over, got his bag that he always had with him, and ran right to the cars. I saw him work for the first time. That was the day my dad became my hero.
I saw him work on a stranger, with a look of caring, love and hope. I never saw anything like that before and I looked at my mom and said, “I want to be just like my daddy.”
As a teenager I would go see my dad at work just to be able to see the ambulances and be around the people I thought of as heroes.
I started getting ready to start collage and told my dad I was going to be an EMT. He laughed. Right before collage I got a job at a bank and so I put it off. I ended up getting married and having four kids.
My father passed in December 2010, and I saw that he never had co-workers — he had a whole other family. They had a memorial bike ride and to my surprise, people who had not seen me in many years showed up to show respect for my father.
I knew I could not give up on the dream I had since I was 10. I ran into my father’s old partner this past January and told him I still really wanted to take my EMT course.
He told me he was starting a class in a week. On January 9, I was sitting in my EMT class. I passed the class this past month. I am so proud I did it.
The first time I got to do my ride on I was hooked. I did not want to leave.
I have job with a private ambulance company as a driver right now. I love work with the patients and now see why my dad loved this job. I go this Wednesday to take the first part of my National Registry.
I pray by the end of June to have my patch and be able to live my life doing a job that I am already in love with. I am so blessed to have been born into a family of EMS, firefighters, police and dispatchers.
I could not see myself doing anything else. I have to end this by thanking my father, for teaching me how to love and care for a perfect stranger.