Read on Twitter
This is how I start every shift, with a stark reminder that we’ve run out of some of our protective equipment, or are critically low. Every morning I store my “reusable” masks in a paper bag, and I take stock of how many of the mismatched gowns and masks that we’ve managed (1/?)
to scramble together are left. Some days, the answer is zero. We’re still luckier than some.
I began working in emergency medical services knowing the risks I would face, but never did I imagine that I’d be witness to a rapidly crumbling and overexerted healthcare system (2/?)
I began working in emergency medical services knowing the risks I would face, but never did I imagine that I’d be witness to a rapidly crumbling and overexerted healthcare system (2/?)
and that this many lives would be lost needlessly. And never did I imagine that our government and our Governor would openly portray our lives as expendable. We cannot go back to the way things were. (3/?)
There’s a superstition among first responders. Whenever our days get calm, we dread somebody mentioning how “quiet” it is, because there’s the belief that if someone says it, something terrible will happen. During the stay at home mandate, our days were quiet. Some days, we (4/?)
didn’t get a single patient. We filled our days with watching the news. Seeing the coverage was like waiting for someone to mention how quiet it was. And then our state was reopened, and the word “quiet” was effectively mentioned. Life since then has felt surreal. There’s (5/?)
not a moment that goes by that I don’t wonder how many more times we have to rush to a patient who is gasping for air, how many more times we have to hear a patient beg us to not let them die, how many more times we have to hold a family member back from entering the (6/?)
ambulance because we know they can’t enter the hospital due to the COVID-19 restrictions, how many more times we have to put our lives on the line, and how many more people have to die. To the Republican leadership, you have failed us by reopening this state without (7/?)
meeting the recommended criteria for reopening. You have failed us by not mandating masks statewide. You have failed us by not instituting more protections for us to survive with dignity. You have failed us by letting our children, our brothers, our sisters, our fathers, (8/?)
our mothers, our grandparents, and our friends die. How dare you continue sleeping at night when we are going without sleep because we are doing our best to save the lives you have failed to protect. (9/?)
To date, over 1,500 Arizonans have died. They had families. They had lives. They had a future. As I get ready for another 24 hour shift tomorrow, I can’t help but wonder if I will soon join that number. (10/10)
