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I wonder how many of us can single out someone and say categorically "I owe my life to that person". I am in that position.

I spent a good deal of my working life in places overseas which would not be top of your list of vacation destinations and where, because of the nature of my work, I found myself in some situations which were less than relaxing and in which colleagues were expected and did look after each other. But that's another story.

What was NOT expected was what happened to me one Friday evening a few months ago at home.

I had just gone to bed when I fainted! Never done that before so it passed and I thought little more of it.

It happened again! This time I didn't come round and my wife called 911.

An ambulance arrived and the paramedic team rushed in and started the resusitation process.

At the same time I was taken to the waiting ambulance which set off for our local hospital - around 5 miles away.

I was only semi-conscious and later learned from my cardiologist that my heart had stopped several times on the journey! I had suffered third degree heart block.

I was firstly fitted with an emergency Pacemaker in the ER and then taken to the ICU and had a permanent one fitted the next day.

The staff there were superb and I was looked after with great care and attention.

My cardiologist later told me that, if it hadn't been for the efforts of the girl leading the paramedic team in the ambulance, I wouldn't have survived.

I can remember her shouting at me to stay awake, talking to me, sticking something long and rubbery down my throat from time to time and generally bullying me to keep me alive until we reached hospital.

To this wonderful girl, then, I literally owe my life.

Since then, paramedics and the services they carry out, have become (quite literally) close to my heart and I want everyone to realize just what an important role they perform.

We have at least one paramedic amongst our Members and my hat's off to you and all your colleagues.

I am glad you encountered such a skilled crew Philly! i love our fire-rescue people, they are wonderful and expert at their jobs. i have had a lot of situations in my career, hard to pick only one. but one of our SWAT guys literally saved me one night when some 400 pound psycho had a boxcutter to my throat. i had stopped him outside a walmart for shoplifting, and was never armed on that job per walmart policy. the service desk had notified police i was on my way out the door after a huge bald ugly guy and my friend the SWAT guy was hiding out there, ran up like a gazelle out of nowhere and took that guy down so fast it was almost a shock! (this was before we had tasers) i loved that guy, his name was ACE. one day i went to SO and saw our flag was at half-mast and asked why....ACE had died of cancer. i cried all that day, big blubbering uniformed deputy. :-1 :yh_flag

My goodness, I almost welled up! It is sooo wonderful to have someone make comments like that. It seems paramedics and EMTs never know how much they are appreciated. In 14 years, I can only recount a handful of people who made a point to find me later and say thank you, and there have been some hairy situations (yours would be one in my book), where I did make a difference. Family is always quick to thank you at the ER before you leave, but it makes my day when a former critical patient walks into my station and either hugs me or shakes my hand with a sincere thank you.

I will save your post to give to the younger generation of Paramedics and EMTs that I work with who get frustrated and down when they feel what they do is not appreciated.



Also, thanks for sharing your story.