The Differences Between Town of Poughkeepsie and City of Poughkeepsie Medical Concerns as Told by EMS Responders
Even Dutchess county residents have a hard time distinguishing between the City of Poughkeepsie and the Town of Poughkeepsie aside from their borderlines. But there’s a stark difference to be made when it comes to the medical concerns that are unique to these areas.
Take for example the town of Poughkeepsie, which wraps around the city of Poughkeepsie in a crescent shape, similar to that of a microbe-eating amoeba. According to EMT-B Matteo Vitale, who works for both Mobile Life in the City of Poughkeepsie and Fairfield’s volunteer-EMS units that cover the town of Poughkeepsie, the town of Poughkeepsie does not nearly get as many calls for opiate related overdoses as the city of Poughkeepsie.
“It’s very seldom I get a call from town of Poughkeepsie police asking for our unit to respond to an overdose,” he says. “Typically a bulk of the calls we get at Fairview are for drunk Marist students who can’t make it home or psych patients from the surrounding psych facilities in the area.”
At Mobile Life, however, the calls are very different and varied in nature, and can range from anything to treatable ailments like asthma to cardiac arrest from gun shots wounds. “I’ve seen my fair share of gun shot wounds just from the three years I’ve been working at Mobile Life, and they always keep me on my toes and reinforce the training I received when I was a student,” says Vitale.
The biggest uptick Vitale has noticed in the latest year has been the rise in the administration of Narcan, a brand name for the generic drug naloxone which is a medication that can rapidly treat an overdose in an emergency situation. “It really helps us when we arrive to a call that a patient has overdosed and someone has administered this life-saving drug,” says Vitale. “At that point it’s a life or death situation, and with the stakes being as high as they are it helps us in the long run.”
According to Justin DiBiase, a Marist junior and part time EMT and firefighter, there a great deal of responsibility when being an EMT. “ Being an EMT and firefighter I see these kind of jobs are added responsibilities service to a community to go and when I want to stay in bed I was going to have.”
DiBiase admits some days are harder than others, especially the ones which require either alternating from early morning into early evening or late evening into early morning. “I work a 12-hour shift so I work 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.,” DiBiase states. “Sometimes I can work back to back so I can do 20 for 6:36 up to 48 and it’s it’s a stressful job. “There are some days when you don’t have a single call and other days where I got in at 6 left the station at 6:30 and didn’t see it again until 5:30 at night.” He adds that it is kind of hit-or-miss depending what day you have.
DiBiase also says that the level of the call sometimes varies and it does give him a certain rush of emotion.“It is kind of the adrenaline rush you get kind of berries I mean if I know called like there’s certain calls where you always get like chills down your spine and lay down your arms and you are here like you know someone unresponsive like CPR in progress or like a multi vehicle rollover,” he says. DiBiase adds that he knows sometimes he’s going to work late but says he’s going to be putting in work. “It’s not like it’s not going to be like show up you know alright let me help you stand up out of your chair and walk to the bathroom so it kind of varies- it’s exciting depending on what you kind of call you’re giving me,” he contends.
When asked if he sees a lot of drug overdose calls DiBiase replied that he sees very few because they work more in the Fairview area unlike the more private EMS companies that work directly in the city of Poughkeepsie.
EMT Daryl Medina also agrees that there’s a big difference to distinguish between private and public EMS companies. “Having worked for EMStar, Fairview, and Mobile Life, I can tell you right now that each company has their own unique challenges,” says Medina. “Mobile Life by and large gets hit with the hardest calls, whereas Fairview gets more manageable cases.” When asked if the harder calls that the private company gets deter potential EMT’s from choosing the company, he argues that this isn’t the case.
“EMT’s right out of school want a challenge,” he says. “And as dangerous as some of the situations we respond to are it’s important that new EMT’s practice what they learn as soon as they get out of school so that they are more confident in their later years.”
When asked about the transports EMT’s oftentimes end up doing, he responds that there’s a difference between transporting someone and doing a good job as an emergency medical technician. “We didn’t get into this business to do transports. We’re not a luxury taxi service like Lyft or Uber. We’re EMT’s, and we want to tech. Plain and simple,” says Medina.
