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Canada Is Drastically Failing Its First Responders

When most paramedics report being abused on the job, something is broken

Kim Fedyk
CanadEH

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Two paramedics practicing CPR on a dummy
Photo by Michel E on Unsplash

Six years ago, I suffered a serious, sport-related concussion.

Paramedics were called and I was carried off the Brampton, Ontario baseball diamond in a stretcher. The two paramedics sat with me and my husband as I lay semi-conscious in the back of the ambulance.

I don’t have a lot of memory of that time, but I do remember those two women who in a very professional and comforting tone told me everything was going to be okay.

The professionals who conducted tests on me and walked us through what they were doing while the ambulance sped down highway 410 toward the hospital.

On one of the scariest days of my life thus far, they were there for me.

And as I lay on my stretcher in the hospital hallway and watched countless paramedics, nurses, and doctors rushing past in an endless line, I marvelled at how busy they all were.

They never walked. They ran everywhere. Hurrying from one emergency to the next. I could see the stress, the urgency, the worry in their eyes. I could see it in every move they made.

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