Point of View of an EMT

Our first responders are our heroes. We rely on them for help when we are in need and they are always there to serve our communities but how do they feel? What goes on in their heads while they are helping others out? Believe it or not, they are human beings too and they have feelings too. For this piece of writing, I interviewed my aunt, Nicole Gonzales, an EMT, and asked her questions pertaining to her work and what she goes through. This gives us a chance to see an EMT's point of view and their perspective on what goes on while at work.

Question 1: What made you want to work in the field that you're working in now?

Answer: The short answer is I wanted to help people. I wanted to be the person that if something was going wrong that I could help make it better, fix it, or sometimes explain what's going on.

Question 2: What would you say the hardest part about your job is/ your weakness when it comes to this job?

Answer: The hardest part about my job. The hardest part about my job is the long shifts that we have to work because we work 24 hours a day. And that means that we can actually be up for that long. Which is also my weakness because I used to be able to stay at that long not so much anymore.

*Deployment - when a first responder, military personnel, etc, gets sent out to a specific place in order to help those in need

Question 3:How'd you feel on your first deployment?

Answer: I felt nervous as I wanted to do a good job. I also felt excited at the same time because it's a very unique opportunity to be deployed. So, it was a mixture of both. Okay, okay.

Question 4: When being deployed to different areas and disasters around this country what is your first thought when you see what those people are going through?

Answer: Like my first thought when they see what people are going through is I hope I hope my time here helps them I'm hope I hope I'm actually doing something that that helps them and I hope they know I'm here or I go to help to make it better.

Question 5: Out of all your deployments well, when which one would you say was the most intense?

Answer: I would say the most intense one was actually my first one. My first one was to the shooting in Las Vegas. And it was intense because I knew that my friends had gone there and they were there that night and how to talk to them before I left to go help the people that were there in Vegas. So to see the site and to see all the pictures of the people that had been killed was pretty intense, because, you know, it could have been one of my friends or somebody that I knew. So that was my very first deployment.

Question 6: How do you keep calm and not let what you see at work affect your personal life?

Answer: Oh, another good question. I rely on my training. I remember what I've been taught to do. And I know that if I freak out, I'm only going to make the situation worse. So you learn to kind of train yourself not to, not to freak out as it concerns. You learned to train yourself not to freak out or not to react to things because you know you have a job to do.