How being an EMT burst the“Bethesda Bubble” Bub
bySammyHeberlee
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Content warning: This article contains language that pertains to drug overdose and domestic abuse. Everyone knows about the “Bethesda Bubble,” that invisible barrier that separates Bethesda from the “real world.” It distances residents from the opportunity gap and diversity that exist elsewhere. But even though this bubble can be insulatory, it might not be as bulletproof as we may think. Last April, I started volunteering at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad as an Emergency Medical Technician. EMTs provide prehospital care for patients in an emergency setting, including treating each patient in an ambulance and transporting them to the hospital. Most stations in Montgomery County, including BCCRS, are staffed by volunteers at night and paid career EMTs during the day. BCCRS is one of three stations in Montgomery County — Cabin John and the Rockville Fire Departments are the other two — with a junior member program that allows high school students between the ages of 16 and 18 to volunteer. All junior members are probationary members of the rescue squad, which means they must undergo training and ride in the back of the ambulance. Junior members have almost the same responsibilities as any adult probationary member, including a weekly shift, taking an inventory of the ambulance, restocking any missing or malfunctioning equipment and doing chores around the sta-
tion. The lone exception is that junior members’ shifts are only from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. on school nights instead of the required overnight shift for all other members. My assigned duty is Friday nights, so I ride overnight from 7 p.m. every Friday night to 8 a.m. Saturday morning. Since I joined the rescue squad, not only have I learned a great deal about medicine and patient care, but my perception of Bethesda has changed, through the coworkers I’ve met, the eye-opening calls I’ve dealt with and the sexism I’ve realized permeates the workplace. When the captain in charge of new members assigned me to Friday nights, I was disappointed. On Friday nights, while my friends were hanging out with each other, I would be doing something completely different than anyone I know. I’ll admit, I thought about quitting before my first shift. Even more distraught about the Friday night situation was my mom. She didn’t want her 17-year-old daughter sleeping at a rescue squad with complete strangers. But I decided to stick it out, at least for one night. Going in with a pretty pessimistic attitude, I didn’t expect to have much in common with anyone on my night crew, especially because I thought everyone would be several years older than I was. I couldn’t have been more wrong. There’s one other high school student on my night crew; I now text her more than I text any of my other friends from school. In EMT class together, we bonded over
the disparities we witnessed within Montgomery County — there was one woman in our class who works comfortably for the U.S. State Department while another man had to take four buses just to get to the training academy. A student at George Washington University, who’s originally from Georgia, is also on my night crew. When I first started working, she was always available to answer any questions I had, something a lot of the other higher ranked members aren’t as happy to do. And there’s a guy who just went back to school after he had to take a year off to look after his sister. He spends the afternoon waiting tables at P.F. Chang’s before coming to our shift. I’ve been exposed to people with vastly different backgrounds than my own — people who didn’t grow up in Bethesda like I have — and it has given me a more diverse perspective on both the workplace and Bethesda itself. Not only have the people I work with impacted me, but a lot of the calls I get and patients I meet replay in my mind for weeks. Most of the rescue squad’s calls are to low-income housing areas, for people who have little to no medical care. Even though Montgomery County ambulance service is free of charge, patients who are in obvious need of medical assistance often try to refuse our care because of the anticipated steep hospital expenses they know they won’t be able to afford. In one of my friend’s most impactful shifts, there was a call for a mother who overdosed and rolled on top of and killed her infant. The call was dispatched