Video: Honoring National EMS Week

LAMAR COUNTY, AL. (WCBI) – This week is set aside as National EMS Week.

It honors the service of medical personnel, who are usually the first ones on the scene of an emergency.

First responders are the bridge between the scene and the hospital.

They’re in every community and are heavily relied on.

We see ambulances rushing to calls daily with their flashing lights and quick speed.

Each call is different, but they all come in to the same place.

“When we page out, we give some basic information on what kind of call it is and they can determine from there, you know, the priority level,” says dispatcher Cristal Perkins.

They can range from chest pains, up to deadly crashes, and it’s those tragic calls that makes the job tough.

“Figure out a way to, you know, when we come back, just watch TV or something like that to get our mind off of that, so we can get refreshed for the next call because we don’t want to take this call to the next call, because we want to show the next patient we go see, for us to do our best job with them,” says Brandon Crawford of Lamar Ambulance Service.

Paramedic Gabe Whittington started his journey inside an ambulance almost two decades ago.

He says his compassion is what led him to this industry.

“I like helping people. I like knowing I can keep them calm and take what could be the worst time that they’re having and make it more bearable and get them through to the hospital so they can get some help and get better.”

Responders have minutes to get on scene and Brandon Crawford is one of the men behind the wheel making it happen.

He says he and his co-workers treat each patient as if it were their own family member.

“The calmer they can be, the calmer the patient is going to be, the better we can do our job and to let us do our job. We know they want to help and they want to help their families, but to let us get in there and do our job and if we need them for help, we’ll ask them for it.”

Lamar Ambulance Service usually responds to around 100 calls a month.