What it's like

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Zander Melville hops into an ambulance as soon as he gets to work at 11 p.m. For the next 12 hours, the emergency medical technican (EMT) travels with a paramedic answering 911 phone calls. Melville helps everyone from burn victims to those with gunshot wounds as he helps transfer them to a hospital. Upon receiving a call, Melville is excited to go and help someone, but has to try to keep himself from getting scared. He says it’s important to keep your cool and take deep breaths. Melville’s philosophy is that getting scared leads to frustration and frustration leads to panicking. By staying calm and reassured, he can be of the most help.

Melville (left) practices giving a shot on a fellow trainee.

“The hardest thing is just to remember that you’re there to provide care and not to worry about whether the patient is going to live or die,” says Melville, Rochester, N.Y., junior. “That’s always on your mind, but you’ve got to stay really positive. You want to provide as much help as possible.”

Melville began his interest in EMT work as a search and rescue volunteer at the Boy Scouts of America’s Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron, N.M. His work at Philmont and as a volunteer for a fire department helped prepare Melville for working under intense pressure for the past six months as an EMT.

He says it’s a messy job doing things such as holding gunshot wounds to make sure people don’t bleed out. Along with the sheer messiness, EMTs also deal with emotional distress.

“In the medical field, the goal is to try not to lose the patient,” Melville says. “But eventually it’s going to happen. When you get there, the hard part is knowing you did everything you were trained to do, everything you could to help that person. That’s where the stress comes in, dealing with understanding that losing someone is not your fault.”

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