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Unknown to many, Painter and his co-workers answer more than emergent calls. He shared, \u201cWe do more than 911 calls. We do convalescent and scheduled calls, such as discharges from the hospital. There\u2019s not a lot of downtime for us. Either we\u2019re on the road doing a 911 call, a dialysis call, or we\u2019re doing a discharge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Painter continued, \u201cAbout 60% of the calls the service gets in a day are emergent calls,\u201d making the vast majority of calls emergent in nature. When asked what is on his mind while heading to a 911 call, Painter said, \u201cWhen I\u2019m going on a call, I always anticipate the absolute worst-case scenario. I prepare myself mentally and physically. Then once I get there, if it\u2019s not as bad as I made it out to be in my mind, I can downgrade. I am calm, because I have already prepared for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Very few times has Painter\u2019s preparation strategy not been successful. One of those times happened when he was still working as an EMT and got a call to work a murder-suicide scene. Unfortunately, there was no care to be provided. The job entailed cleaning up the scene instead. Painter shared, \u201cThere were three bodies on the floor, and it was very gory. It was really, really bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thankfully, calls of that nature are not the norm. Most calls elicit medical attention and end when the patient receives excellent and lifesaving care, making a positive story of someone returning to their loved ones. In fact, Painter shared that, in July, seven calls were from people who went into cardiac arrest. He said, \u201cIn the month of July, we had seven people who went into cardiac arrest. We also had seven people that got a pulse back, in the month of July. So we were seven for seven on ROSC [return of spontaneous circulation].\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since Painter started this career path fresh out of high school, he has had a lot of time for his experiences to marinate in his own heart and mind. Being on the front lines in the medical field has caused him to change his outlook on life. He shared, \u201cYou know, seeing things that I\u2019ve seen, unfortunately, can make you grow up super fast. I started this job right out of high school. Coming into this stuff as a young 19-year-old definitely changes your mindset. When you start seeing the things that we unfortunately see, your eyes are opened to how precious life is. Life has always been precious to me, but now it is super precious.\u201d GN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
IN A SMALL rural community, where the pace of life is undoubtedly slower, one would think that a first responder\u2019s job would be fairly cushy. Images like firefighters tucked in bed at the fire station, their home away from home, might come to mind. Some have joked that police officers write speeding tickets \u201cbecause they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7423,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-7403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cover","tag-october"],"yoast_head":"\n