#paramedics

My Friends  Today  Is A Sad Day …. A Hero of mine since childhood passed away …But Today We Honor Him                Today We Honor A Hero ….His Actions on the show ultimately saved my life and Family members later on …. I wanted to be John Gage since Age 4 A FF / PM … I couldn’t but became a great advocate like Mr Mantooth was and ironically my start was advocating publicly for FIRE and EMS in…

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I am having thoughts about safety and accountability and transparency and conscientiousness, and struggling to articulate them.

Here’s what happened last night.

Pedro, due to having to stay late and finish up the paperwork for Smarmy McDickbag’s accident last night, was running on three hours of sleep. So that colored the whole night.

The Evil HR Lady brought in a gift for our bereaved dispatcher, who I’ll call Woobie. The gift is a potted peace lily. In typical thoughtless fashion, the Evil HR Lady didn’t reach out to Woobie or anyone who knows her before doing this; she simply expected that Woobie would love the plant and take it home. Woobie has a cat. Peace lilies (all lilies!) are EXTREMELY POISONOUS to cats. I contacted Woobie’s work bestie, confirmed that she has a cat, and made the executive decision that the plant lives in dispatch now.

Paramedics are allowed and expected to give some pretty heavy duty drugs. Some of these are narcotics (opioids), benzodiazepines, and ketamine. These are kept in a sealed box (a “narc box”) which is to be tightly controlled; its whereabouts are to be known and documented, any opening is to be documented, and any administration of the drugs is to be documented and backed up with airtight medical reasoning.

Anyway, one of our paramedics just fucked off home on Friday night with a narc box in her pocket after an event, and didn’t notice until the supervisor for the venue called her last night.

(If you work with controlled substances in any capacity, and have a moral compass, I am sorry for making the needle fly off and stab you in the brain.)

The supervisor, upon confirming that she had the narc box, told her to bring it back. She said that she had her kids and didn’t want to wake them up. She said she didn’t know why it was such a big deal. She started to cry on the phone.

Pedro, in all his 23 year old, people pleasing, sleep deprived weakness, somehow found the strength to say, “We will not have this conversation over the phone. The narc box needs to come back and I expect to see you soon. We can talk then.” I was practically vibrating in my seat, I was so proud of him!!

The narc box and the paramedic were there within the hour, and she had a long closed door meeting with Pedro and the clinical director. And some paperwork.

Eventually, it was time for Pedro to clock out. And go home. By driving, on long, smooth highways, when it’s dark and there’s nobody else around. On three hours of sleep. ⚠️ That’s dangerous as fuck. Did I tell you that I knew someone who was killed by a driver who fell asleep at the wheel?

Friday night, knowing that Pedro wouldn’t get much sleep, I tried to convince him to call out sick for last night’s shift. (Considering the narc box thing, I’m glad it didn’t work) I ended up raising my voice at him, warning him about driving sleepy. This morning, I tried a different tactic. I offered to Venmo him money for an uber, then drive his car to his house after my shift so he wouldn’t have to come back and get it.

“But I live in [suburb 45 minutes south of work]!”

“I know, dude!” (I didn’t actually know) “I am not offering this to you because it’s convenient for me, I’m offering to keep you safe. If this wasn’t life and death, and I wasn’t serious about it, I wouldn’t offer.”

He ended up driving to 7-11, taking a selfie with the energy drink he bought and sending that to me, then texting when he got home. I would have rather driven his car home, but I can’t exactly force or coerce him into going along with my plans. Besides, sleep deprivation makes people stupid.

All of these things combined make me think about how there are some people who are very conscientious and safe and trustworthy, who hold themselves accountable, and who think of what could go wrong and what knowledge they could be lacking. And then there are other people who fuck off home with a box of narcs and benzos and ketamine in their pockets and don’t understand why that’s a big deal. And then there are those who are either actively malicious, or greedy to the point of cruelty. Systems should be designed by the conscientious and thoughtful, with plenty of input by the careless and irresponsible, so that whatever system is created (anything from a checklist to a narcotics tracking protocol to restrictions on work hours) is easy and appealing to use. That way, most people will actually use it. Then it should be presented in a way that frames all the life safety and accountability as cost savings, so those who are greedy to a fault will buy in.

My other idea is to shake people by the shoulders and yell “DO BETTER” but I don’t see that actually working.

MS NOW rode along with a home-care paramedic team for a look at programs meant to make up gaps in rural healthcare.

Jun. 17, 2026, 6:52 AM EDT

By Rosa Flores, Sara Weisfeldt and

Cameron Brock

Regina Young’s chronic fatigue and anxiety had escalated to debilitating exhaustion, then a panic disorder that had her trapped in her home, unable to care for or even feed herself, when there was a knock on the door.

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