Owatonna People's Press - July 06, 2005
The lives of lifesavers
Life saving is a thankless job. It’s a, low-pay, 24/7, high-stress job. Yet when that long, high-pitched tone comes blaring over the radio, the paramedics and emergency medical technicians of Gold Cross Ambulance spring to their feet and rush to the rig.
Gratitude is rare in the life of an ambulance worker.
“Every once in a while we get a patient who writes a thank-you note,” says Karen Johnson, one of six full-time paramedics at Gold Cross.
In fact, the Gold Cross crew often sees antagonistic and confrontational patients, primarily because of the cost of an ambulance ride, which sometimes can be as short as a couple of blocks. What upset patients probably don’t realize, however, is that it’s not the distance traveled that matters, it’s the level of care.
Ambulances once were associated with hearses, but have evolved past life-support to be full paramedic services.
“We can bring pretty much everything the ER can to them,” says paramedic Mike Zimmer.
This is crucial. This means the quartet of hands in the ambulance can stabilize you once they get to you, rather than waiting to drive you back to the hospital or work on you in the rig. For example, if you have a heart attack, Gold Cross will work you right where you dropped, instead of letting precious seconds tick on the road. They bring the defibrillator, the IV, they bring all the narcotics. They’re an emergency room on wheels and if they can’t restart your heart, well, the coroner is probably on her way.
Paramedic Kevin Kozel says people often don’t understand why they aren’t speeding back to the hospital immediately after they arrive on scene, but it’s better to stabilize the patient first.
“The number one time you’re going to get in an accident is when you’re running lights,” he says.
Johnson speculates another reason ambulance workers receive little thinks is because patients don’t spend as much time with the ambulance staff as they do with hospital staffers.
“A lot don’t remember us,” she says, “Or they might be unconscious.” But a lot of times, she adds, it is the cost.
However, appreciation isn’t that important Kozel says, they aren’t lifesavers for the thanks or the recognition as a hero, nor do they do it for the money.
Low pay
“I used to take my paycheck with me because I’d get yelled at,” says Kozel, who won a 2005 American Ambulance Association Star of Life award.
Consider your job; you probably don’t do something as socially important as saving lives, but chances are pretty good you get paid more per hour than lifesavers. Then again, overtime pay for full-time paramedics at Gold Cross is guaranteed.
The average workweek for a full-time paramedic at Gold Cross is only two days on duty. Two 24-hour days. Shifts run from 8 a.m to 8 a.m. the next day. Therefore, every week, each Gold Cross full-timer receives no less than eight hours of overtime.
Two more days are spent on call, which ensures even more work.
“I usually end up with 40-45 hours of overtime,” says Zimmer, who seems a more than a bit exhausted one on-call morning in June after finishing a 24 hours on duty.
Being on duty essentially means being at the South Cedar Avenue Gold Cross base or in an ambulance. The crew has to be in the rig, moving, in two minutes. They can sleep at the base, they just crank the radio up to make sure it wakes them in case of an emergency call.
On the other side of the time clock, "on call" requires being at the base within 10 minutes. Kozel says 10 minutes can feel like a lifetime in an emergency, hence having two paramedics constantly working with the equipment is essential. The part-timers, he says, are not always as familiar with the supplies and don’t know as well where everything is.
Ambulance staffers have restrictions when on call, tying them to the job for a second full 48 hours. While they don’t get paid to be on call, they can’t consume alcohol or be out with their children unless another adult is present to care for the kids when the pager goes off.
“Your family really has to get used to it,” says Kozel, “Spouses put up with a lot. They have to be very understanding that at any given time, you won’t be there.”
But the job even extends past on-duty and on-call shifts. Kozel says full-time paramedics keep their pagers handy virtually all the time in case of a tornado or mass tragedy. Sometimes, he says, a paramedic will call from vacation to find out what’s happening.
“You dedicate a lot of your life to this building,” he says.
A lot of time at the base can mean a lot of downtime for the on-duty crew.
“The hard part of the job is the boredom,” Kozel says. “You definitely learn patience at this job.”
Some days Gold Cross receives 12-13 calls in 24 hours, but sometimes it’s as little as two. So the crew has to entertain themselves with video games, coffee shops and chores around the base. For example, the trio of Johnson, Kozel and Zimmer spent some of the time I was with them using an ambulance as a ladder to replace florescent lights in the garage.
“Everyone always thinks of the big car accident, the cardiac arrest, all that excitement,” says Kozel. “Sometimes it is non-stop, most of the time it isn’t.”
High stress
But it’s certainly not all fun, games and precarious chores. Sometimes it is the big car accident, the mass tragedy, the plane crash. Kozel says under certain circumstances they can undergo more stress in one hour than most people deal with in a week, month or year.
“I don’t think anything could shock me anymore,” he says, “But you can’t get used to everything.”
This pushes the Gold Cross workers closer to each other than they would be in a less-stressful job. They joke with each other, the tease each other, they talk to each other about their troubles. Kozel says they encounter certain situations they can’t even talk with their families about because only someone at the scene could understand the magnitude.
Johnson agrees that the job makes the group tight. “I see these guys as more of family than my extended family,” she says.
In extreme cases, such as when they see numerous fatalities in a week, a Critical Incedence Stress Debriefing team comes in to help with the certain psychological issues that arise. Kozel said their unit had seen so much tragedy one year a member of the debriefing team joked Owatonna Gold Cross needed their own trauma class.
So why do it?
“It’s not like a real job,” says Kozel. “I tell people the pay isn’t good, but I couldn’t have a real job.”
The paramedics at Gold Cross get to spend more time with their families than average Joes, because even though they can work up to 90 hours in a given week, they aren’t constantly occupied with their duties.
The down time means boredom, but on the flip side, the crew is ensured regular adrenaline rushes.
“We kind of live for the excitement,” Kozel says, “To be out and involved is kind of addicting. How many times have you had to stop and look at an accident? We go to the next step and get involved in it, hopefully making things better for people.”
And they never know what to expect. A pair of Gold Cross crewmembers is bound to have to make a ‘trip’ -- a transfer of a patient to another hospital, such as St. Marys in Rochester, for more specialized care -- but every day is different, says Johnson. It’s not like working in a factory.
Zimmer adds, “Even if you don’t get thanked, that you know you were able to help another person is rewarding.”