First Responders "professionals are not immune to experiencing the impact of the crises they respond to"

First responders need support too

Metro West Daily
By Michael Coughlin
March 19, 2020

While Covid-19 is a unique (and hopefully temporary!) crisis, first responders are on call every day to mobilize on a moment’s notice to assist those in medical crisis, drug overdoses, criminal activity, or natural or human-caused disasters. Think about it: EMTs in this area on a daily basis are administering multiple doses of Narcan to people who have overdosed on top of other medical emergencies. Police officers are constantly called to intervene in tense and dangerous situations all over the community. Hospital emergency room staff go from one medical crisis to the next without catching a breath.

The current worldwide concern about the spreading epidemic of Covid-19, the coronavirus, has reached emergency status in a growing number of hot zones such as Washington state and Northern Italy in addition to the locations in Asia where it first took hold. Closer to home a February biomedical conference in Boston is now linked to as many as 15 new cases of the virus.

At times like these, our community relies heavily on the trained professionals who respond to assist us at times of emergency. We take for granted the role that doctors and other public health professionals, paramedics and EMTs, fire fighters, police officers, and other emergency professionals play to keep the rest of us as healthy and safe as possible. But those professionals are not immune to experiencing the impact of the crises they respond to. Look no further than the heartbreaking story of the young physician in China who was reprimanded for first calling attention to the seriousness of the virus’ threat who then ended up contracting the virus and died from it.
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