http://rescuingprovidence.com/2006/11/03/dignity/

I thought about the lady in the post above when I first read the story below.

http://lifeunderthelights.com/2010/09/a-weighted-issue-the-fire-service-helping-private-ems/

I read the headline about the fire department refusing to assist the private ambulance company a week or so ago and couldn’t quite figure out why. Then I forgot about it until I visited Life Under The Lights a little while ago.

I’ve been a firefighter/EMT for nearly twenty years. Situations like this seldom come up. It happens, but not all that often.

As Rodney King said years ago, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Get the lady where she needs to go, then figure it out. For god’s sake, man this isn’t that difficult. We help people, that’s what we do.

My mother spent the last ten years of her life in a nursing home. On holidays and when we could, we would pick her up and take her out. We literally had to “pick her up.” She wasn’t light. I could do it, but it wasn’t easy. A lot of the events at the time happened at my grandmother’s house, that just so happened to be across the street from a fire station. (not Providence)

If me or my brother were not available, which happened a lot due to our occupations the nursing home staff would help get her into the car of whoever went to get her, usually one of her sisters who physically wouldn’t be able to do it on her own. I figured the firefighters wouldn’t mind helping a brother out. They didn’t, once. The next time, six months later, with my mother sitting in my aunts car, they refused, said call a private ambulance company, it wasn’t their job.

“Can’t we all just get along?”

* wish we had one of those ramps!