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Taking time to learn the true signs and symptoms of a stroke or heart attack saves lives, as does understanding the difference between respiratory distress and shortness of breath. And with only five ambulances covering 530 square miles in a community of over 50,000 people, attending to the nonemergency call may leave a true emergency without adequate resources. Emergency medical services are not exempt from the staffing shortage affecting all of life in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He explained, \u201cYou\u2019re in a minor car wreck, and you think you\u2019re hurt. The ambulance comes out and evaluates you, but do you need a ride to the emergency room, or could someone drive you? While you think your neck is sore, two houses down, Miss Jones is having a stroke. That could be life or death for the next call. I\u2019ve worked in this county when we didn\u2019t have enough staffing to run more than two ambulances, because we didn\u2019t have the personnel to staff them fully.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poff, a 40-year veteran of emergency medical services, served 31 years with the Nashville Fire Department and has been a paramedic with Bedford County Emergency Services since 2019. He has seen it all. From the call for a troubling hangnail to multiple fatalities in auto accidents, this public servant has shown up. On call and off, his heart is for helping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI worked as an instructor for the State Fire Academy in Bell Buckle. And honestly, I got tired of living in the dorms, so I decided to buy a house here. I\u2019m doing a training series on technical rescue that will probably last a year. So, being involved in the community, wanting to see our community prosper and grow and be better, from the emergency services aspect, is a priority of mine. I don\u2019t have any family, so my family is who I work with; my family is the lady across the street that needs her water heater fixed or replaced. I\u2019m here to help people, whether it\u2019s the lady across the street or the person in a horrific car wreck. That\u2019s just who I am,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Poff has dealt with countless horrific scenes. As with all first responders, it can take a toll on their mental health, and managing it is a priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure how I do it, just that I think this work is one of the things I was chosen to do. I\u2019m just following the way I\u2019m supposed to go, if that makes sense. I used to go fishing a lot, and most of us have some type of activity we\u2019re involved in to help get our minds off our jobs. Because no matter what we do to help the stress of our job or what we see, we\u2019re never going to get rid of it. It will be forever ingrained in the deepest files of our brain. For me I use work a lot of times to keep my mind from thinking about what happened, or I teach a class or talk to other people about what we do for a living, because that\u2019s my biggest fear for our young folks in today\u2019s world. How will they cope with the amount of stress they\u2019re under? Not just work stress, but family stress, personal stress, and financial stress. There are so many factors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have to talk about it. And that\u2019s one thing I now express to our young folks. If you experience something that bothers you, we need to talk about it. Call me. I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s two o\u2019clock in the morning, and you have an issue dealing with a crisis; call me. I will get out of bed, put my clothes on, and come to you, and we\u2019ll talk, because I never had that person in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Poff\u2019s day-to-day goal is the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne of the top things we\u2019re after as emergency service workers is to make life a little better every day for somebody. One of my biggest desires is to leave it better than I found it every day, whatever it is. Whether vacuuming the bedroom at the station or holding your hand and talking to you, giving you a sense of comfort, that\u2019s leaving it better than you found it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can leave things better than we<\/em> find them, too. GN<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 911. IT\u2019S A CALL we hope and pray we never have to make, yet we\u2019re confident someone will come when we do. Answering those calls is the responsibility of our first responders, and we envision an army at the ready. In our panic, our ability to reason logically about what constitutes an emergency is challenged, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7357,"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":[5],"tags":[33],"class_list":["post-7345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-october"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnewsmags.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/DSC_0557-1024x683.jpg\")