How One Cardiac Arrest Save Ripples For Decades

You can work a cardiac arrest, get pulses back, hand the patient off, and never learn what happened next. That missing chapter messes with how we measure success, how we carry trauma, and how we stay resilient over a long career in EMS and emergency medicine.

We sit down with Brad Newberry, a captain paramedic with more than 40 years in fire and EMS and the founder of a major EMS education and training center, and his daughter Kiera Newberry, an EMT and emergency room technician. Together, they share the origin behind their project “The Saved Effect,” built from real resuscitation stories and the idea that saving a life is never just a moment. It’s a ripple effect that can stretch across decades, families, and entire communities.

We also dig into the mental side of the job: generational differences in “suck it up” culture, the pressure to stay emotionally neutral while doing deeply human work, and why so many providers never get to see the long arc of the lives they touch. Along the way, we highlight the chain of survival, the power of bystander CPR, and why learning CPR and being willing to act can change outcomes in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

If you know a responder, work in healthcare, or want a clear reason to finally take a CPR class, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people find the stories that make service feel worth it.

Find Brad and Kiera at the following links: 

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/thesavedeffect/
https://www.instagram.com/bradnewbury/
https://www.instagram.com/kieranewbury/

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/brad.newbury
https://www.facebook.com/kiera.newbury.1


Tiktok
https://www.tiktok.com/@thesavedeffect
https://www.tiktok.com/@bradnewbury1
https://www.tiktok.com/@kieranewbury

Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/@BradNewbury
https://www.youtube.com/@TheSavedEffect


Linkedin

www.linkedin.com/in/brad-newbury
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiera-newbury/

Transcript

Welcome And First Responder Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Resilience Development in Action with Steve Bisson. This is the podcast dedicated to first responder mental health, helping police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and paramedics create better growth environments for themselves and their teams. Let's get started.

Guests And Family Service Background

SPEAKER_03 0:29

Well, hi everyone, and welcome to Resilience Development in Action. I am so happy to have fellow Massachusetts people. I know I'm a hypocrite, I'm from Canada, but nonetheless, very happy to have people from Massachusetts because I don't get those a whole lot. And I'm very happy to have here Brad Newberry, who is a captain paramedic for more 40 years of experience in firefighting and EMS, and Kira Newberry, who's also his daughter and is an EMT and emergency room technician at Bet Israel, like at the BI. That's quite an experience in itself, I'm sure. But I wanted to welcome you both to Resilience Development in Action.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Thank you so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Thank you for having us. We're excited for this.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

You know, just based on these intros, and I saw your like mother, like you know, father, daughter, that's already a 14 questions there. Being a captain and a paramedic for 40 years, many questions there. I run a group and I have a few emergency room technicians and nurses that come to the group with the first responders. And I know that becomes all controversial if they're a first responder or not. I frankly don't care. We'll call them first responders in a half. Is that a good way to discuss it? Because they are in the front line in some ways. Absolutely. That's how I perceive it anyway. But being EMT and working, if you if you worked also for like you work for a town, it's hard. But if you worked for a contracted company, that's even harder sometimes. So anyway, I have about 40 questions about those things, but we have other things to talk about. So how about we start off with we'll go with Brad first? I'm you can choose as we go along. Brad, how about you introduce yourself? Because I introduced you barely, I think.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Sure. I

Brad’s Path Into Fire EMS

SPEAKER_02 2:05

mean, I think you you hit the high points, right? I I have been in uh fire and EMS for now over 40 years. My favorite line is I don't look that old, but the reality is I I started when I was 16 years old. I joined the the Tivenar, Rhode Island Volunteer Fire Department, and and I've had continuous service ever since then. It was always something I wanted to do. I grew up watching the show Emergency, and and Johnny and Roy inspired me in so many ways. And and not only just as a as a firefighter, but I also wanted to be a paramedic, right? I mean, uh LA County uh paramedics and firefighters back in the 70s was something that as I watched that, I said, this is this is what's for me. And and it wasn't until I was about 10 years old where I got to do some ride-along. My uncle was a Fall River firefighter. So here in Massachusetts, a small city on the south on the Rhode Island border. And and I got to do some ride-alongs with with my uncle, and it was an amazing opportunity to see the men at the time do what they did. And and it really inspired me to this life of service. So as soon as I joined 16, as soon as I turned 16, literally the day I turned 16, I joined the uh fire department in in in Tivernary, Rhode Island. I still think it's amazing that they allowed me at 16 years old to crawl into building fires. And and back in the 80s, we had a lot of fires. So that set me on this life of service. And throughout my young adulthood, I went to became an EMT and then went on to paramedic school. And I was 20 years old when I became a paramedic. So yeah, it was it's been an amazing career. And and people would ask, you know, as I talk about it today, all the things that I've been blessed to do in my life and to get to this point, both on on the service side, but also too as an educator, because I I own National Medical Education and Training Center. We're an incredibly large EMS education institution here in Massachusetts where we teach EMTs and paramedics. We have a EMT and paramedic program, a nationally accredited paramedic program. And we serve students from all over the country and around the world. So back in 2007, I launched one of the first online hybrid paramedic programs in the country. It doesn't seem so novel now, but when you think about 2007, no one was doing online education. So here at our school, you know, we've been open now since 2010. And so we've we're 16 years old. And we service, you know, right now at our school today, we have students from around the country and and around the globe. Along the way, we be somehow became the Iceland paramedics program in a sense. We train, I shouldn't say with the Iceland paramedic, but we train most of the paramedics in Iceland now, too as well. So we have this incredible hybrid program that has amazing outcomes and and we get to to serve in a in a different way, not just one patient at a time, but as educators, we get to really impact the care that's being delivered through all of our students throughout the country. And, you know, I also work for the Disaster Medicine Fellowship at the Beth Israel Hospital. So we have a in a we teach a disaster medicine, disaster response to an international group of physicians and and nurses at the BI. And that has given me incredible opportunities to teach really around the world.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

You know, there's two things I want to mention. So many people forget that this is a life of service. And I appreciate you saying those exact words. So thank you for the service. I and I appreciate it more than you know. I also had a comment about what you said. You mean there were TVs and TV shows when you were young?

SPEAKER_02 5:42

It was a black and white TV, Steve. It was a black and white TV. So which is it is funny. I actually wrote that in in in once and and talked about that. And and it's so think about how foreign it is, Kira to grew up in an era of only iPhones and never any black and white TVs in our house.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

So take that as a very good joke that I'm also making about myself because I knew what shows you were talking about. So let's leave it at that.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Well, we we remember the time where your your parents would say, get up and change it to channel 10 or channel six or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 6:17

Yeah, the clicker, the the clicker was you turning the knob. That's right. That's right. On UHF, you gotta put it on 56. I remember those days too, but enough of us dinosaurs talking. Let's talk about someone talk to someone who's a little younger. How about you introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_01 6:33

So my journey began when I was real young, and it it really started because my parents had opened this school. And I'm the youngest of three, so I have an older brother who's eight

Teaching EMS And Disaster Medicine

SPEAKER_01 6:45

years older than me, and older sister who's five years older than me. And so at the time, they had been trying to figure out their place uh in the school and what their role will be. And both of them knew that they also wanted to go into the medical field and kind of follow into our parents' footsteps. And it's so funny because now I kind of reflect on it. And eight years old, I was kind of running around the school, and a lot of the students, it was a lot smaller back then, so we really were a big family. And you know the EMS community, it is a big family. So a lot of the students kind of took me under their wing and they were excited to show me a lot of the things that they had just learned. And in a way, I also thought that I could teach them something too. But one thing that I love to do was intubate mannequins.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

And just like every eight-year-old that I'm of course, of course.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Exactly. And I I couldn't touch the needles yet, so we didn't get that far. But I would go up to the students and I have a real competitive nature to me. And so I would go to them and I'd say, Well, I bet I could intubate the mannequin faster than you. And so it got to the point where some of these students would actually bet money on me. And so I one time went to my dad and I said, Hey, can I have five dollars? Do you have five dollars? And he's always up for the c the competition too. So he said, Okay, well, what's it for? And I said, Well, Joey bet me that he could that I wouldn't be able to beat him in this competition to intubate the mannequin. And so, but he said that I needed five dollars to to do it. And so he he said, I'm all in, gave me five dollars, and I I went off, and then a few minutes later I came back and I had a $20 bill. And I said, Oh, do you do you have like change to break this $20 bill? He said, Where where did you get the $20 bill? And why do you want change to break it? And I said I said, Well, I want to give you your five dollars back. He goes, Where did you get the twenty dollar bill? And I said, Well, Joey just kept he just kept betting me that I I wouldn't be able to do it. And it became this big joke. And and even later on, there was a really one time where somebody kind of said, or somebody was able to kind of beat me, but I think she was taking souls, Steve.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

This is what she was doing. She was taking souls in the paramedic program.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

I was gonna say, like, all right. You just made everyone feel a little snorted.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Like David Goggins. She was like the David Goggins of uh enemies.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

So there was one guy who who he was really determined. We kept we kept competing against each other, and he he finally beat me by a hair. And I looked over and I said, Well, I you actually didn't beat me because you didn't inflate the cuff on the tube, which is a critical fail.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

And so everybody was gathered around because this would this would bring crowds, really. And so he he was so mad at himself. But yeah, so I've always had that camaraderie for for me, and especially in the world of EMS. But I went to my dad one day and I said, I I need I want to become an EMT. And this was also when I was eight years old. And he said, Well, okay, you can't become an EMT. You have to be 18 to sit for the exam and become licensed. And I said, No, no, I can sit on on the I can sit in on these classes and I can do a lot of these skills. I want to become an EMT. I want the license. And he said, No, Massachusetts won't let that happen. So I was really bummed. And I went online. Of course, I was Googling if I was actually able to not become an EMT and if he was lying to me or not. And but I had found online that I was able to complete a CPR certification course and become CPR licensed or CPR certified. And there was no minimum age requirement. So at eight years old, I went to my parents and I said, Well, if I can't become an EMT, this is something that I want to do. And they said, Okay. So I took the course online and I took notes and I took it literally because I had seen my older siblings going through different courses and and doing things at the school, and I wanted to also be a part of it. And so we had gone to the school to so that I could show my skills to my dad. And I looked over at him and he had been taking videos and pictures of me, and I just thought it was this proud dad moment, like he had always done for all of my other achievements. And so he but a few years later, to come to find out, he wasn't just taking them because of it was a proud dad moment, which I'm sure it was, but at the same time, he was really doing it for insurance purposes, to the fact that he wasn't just handing out these cards to eight-year-old girls because I was his daughter. And it proved that I knew what to do and I had those skills and I'd been practicing. But a little later on, I actually did go through the EMT course and become licensed in Massachusetts. And then a few years later, I began working at level one trauma center in Boston at the BI. And I worked there for around three years, and I got some amazing experience, and I learned more than any textbook could ever teach me. And yeah, so I I kind of have dedicated also, just like my dad, I've also dedicated my life to service. And I was graduating college. I I went, I majored in psychology and I minored in writing. And when I was coming out and graduating, I I kind of had this epiphany that I had always seen myself doing something that served my community and served others. And when he when my dad had, which I'm sure we'll get into later, when my dad had brought this idea to me and said, Can we write this? I originally told him no. And that was kind of a driving factor because I really wanted to serve others and be a part of something clinical.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

So you have to understand too, Steve, we're a whole healthcare family. So my wife is a nurse practitioner. You know, she had been a nurse for many, many years. My son's an EMT, worked worked on the ambulance. My older daughter, Bridget, uh, is an emergency room nurse at BI. Uh and and there's a whole story of how the two of them actually got there. That's an incredible story. And and she just

Kira’s EMT Origin Story

SPEAKER_02 13:05

actually, this past week passed her nurse practitioner. So she's a nurse practitioner now, too, as well. My son-in-law is a firefighter paramedic in in the town of Duxbury. My daughter-in-law is an emergency room nurse. So and my mother-in-law is a nurse. So we're we're we're built for service.

SPEAKER_03 13:20

So the first thing that comes to mind is why did you make a vow of poverty? I mean, I thought we were done with these things. That's the first thing that comes to mind. And me seeing the person oversees the ERs and two major Boston ERs. I don't have a permission to say which ones, we can talk about it off air. I feel for you guys. So, you know, this is you know, that's what people tend to forget about these jobs. And I think therapy is the same way. It was a calling for me. It wasn't, I knew I wasn't gonna be a millionaire, but definitely it was a calling. And I think that when you do the service, you know, I see my my work as a service too, very different than yours. I'm not saying it's the same, but you need to be dedicated, and hearing an eight-year-old girl like intubating and betting with firefighters is par for the course, number one, knowing the people, but more importantly, super impressive. And I want to mention that too, because that's really cool because they don't let people in very easily, they're competitive, so they don't like letting people in. And I thought the world of therapy was really small, the world of EMS in general is really fucking small.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, yeah. And I do, I I do think that there are a lot of parallels with therapy and and the EMS culture.

Sponsor Deemed Fit And RDA15

SPEAKER_03 14:39

Just a quick break, guys. I'm gonna talk about a new product that I really like. I actually bought one of their hoodies, it was amazing, and I really enjoyed wearing it. Uh, it this episode is gonna be supported by Deemed Fit. Deemed Fit is a first responder-owned activewear and a leisure brand. And one thing that I genuinely like about them is that they support different causes. I actually gave a few people I know who work with first responders and our nonprofits their name to uh DEMFit, and I know they're talking to them. They do a lot of initiatives and collections that are based on mental health for first responders. And if you go there right now and you buy anything, including the mental health support stuff, uh use the code R D A 15. That's right, R D A 15 to get 15% off on any products that you get. Again, it's called R D A 15. Go toenfit.com, D-E-E, M-E-D, F-I-T.com, and enjoy 15% off at checkout to save. Now, right back to the episode. And I

The Saved Effect And Ripple Healing

SPEAKER_03 15:40

think that that's what brings me to, you know, a little bit of my work, you know, and talking a little bit about you guys, you know. So you watch your dad go through everything, and you're 88 years old, you're doing you're working at the school and all that. So you decide you're gonna, you're gonna be like, okay, we should write something called the saved effect together. Two generations different. One's like looking up the encyclopedia for the definition, the other one already knows how to do it with Ray-Band glasses or something I don't understand. So, how did you both learn about trauma, resilience, human connection, how to connect with other people? And frankly, like there's a gender difference too. I know there's mu we'll talk about the father-daughter difference, but let's talk about also the gender difference, which you know, again, if I'm breaking a wall, you correct me. But men get treated differently than women in this field. Shocker, I know. But I think there's a lot to be said about all that. So I don't know where wherever you want to start. Because I mean the trauma stuff, I think the trauma of an older generation, no offense, Brad, and I'm an older generation. We see it way differently than the younger generation. For us, it's like, you know, tough it, you know, suck it up, buttercup, dude. Yep. Where this generation is very well aware. Oh, this may have impact me. Some people are a little too sensitive, but for the most part, I think they're generally well like, oh, this might impact me in the future. I need to address it now. Our generation, like, fuck this shit. I gotta get through the next call. There's gotta be a lot of things about resilience, the trauma, the human connection, and the gender differences. You can start wherever you want, but I think there's about 50 minutes worth of conversation right there. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

And and I think we have to understand too, like, where did the where did the idea from the book come from? And I've been I've been given a talk at every paramedic graduation for many, many years, including Kira has is heard it ad nauseum because she it's the same story I would tell over and over again. And they're actually kind of funny because the kids would make fun of me about it, but I tell them all the time. It's like you heard these stories, you hear them over and over again. These kids are hearing them for the first time, and they're human stories. So the the story it really revolves around what does it mean to save a life? And and it's I start off with this this story that's in the book about Frank Nagel, and and circumstances led me to be involved in Frank's resuscitation. And then, you know, I won't unpack the whole thing, but Frank, we we defibrillated Frank five times. And by the time we left in the emergency room, he was up talking to his family. And then through in an incredible story, I actually got to stay connected to Frank post-is resuscitation. And Frank lived another 25 years post-resuscitation. And the impact, or really the ripple effect of that was absolutely amazing. And and for the book, we here in our in our school, in our studio here where we're sitting, we brought in Frank's family because Frank's passed away. And it wasn't until Frank had passed away, and another gentleman who had passed away, I was involved in his resuscitation too. And and John Perino is another story in the book. And and John lived after more than 30 plus minutes of CPR in the field, he lived neurologically intact. He he spent two weeks in a coma, woke up, and went home to his family, and lived 27 more years. And the incredible ripple effect of that, and I use this metaphor that I've told in in this in these talks about about Frank, about throwing a pebble in the pond, and the ripple effect of where those ripples go. And so when I first came to Kira about this, I already had this idea of writing this book about some of these incredibly human stories. And there's two there's two real messages that come out of this book. The first one is, you know, a number of these resuscitations uh happened. You know, John Perino uh went into cardiac arrest on the dance floor in the Polish Club in 1994 in Abington, Massachusetts. Two bystanders who were were part of the crowd that night stepped forward and began CPR immediately. And because they did, that gave us the time to respond, to get to that emergency, too. So it bridged the gap. And we know that bystanders make a huge difference in in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survivability. So that's number one. But the second part of these stories, and you talk about from a mental health standpoint of first responders, many of the times we don't get to see the arc of time of a save. And we'll go to a call, we drop them off at the hospital, maybe, and I think more so in today than they were back in the in the you talk about, you know, the the back in the 90s, in the early 90s, there was no post-traumatic stress debriefing or any of those things that that I went through. And I I was the the son of a force recon Marine. I grew up in the suck it suck it up buttercup environment, right? And actually, I used to tell my kids that too. Like, ask Kira. It's like, okay, you're just gonna have to suck it up, right? We'll move on. And and don't get me wrong, my dad was an amazing guy. I mean, amazing guy. And, you know, and it's so funny because he, as he, you know, he talked about suck it up. My father would cry at commercials just because he was an incredibly emotional guy and a very people person. And there is a story in the book, too. My dad suffered an out-of hospital cardiac arrest at a dance recital. And two bystanders stepped in and did CPR. Wow. And and and he survived that neurologically intact. Like unbelievable. It's a great story. So I think from uh both on the side of the two audiences, one is the layperson to be inspired by these, and we say it at the end of every chapter, you know, be inspired, learn, learn CPR, and be ready and willing to act. Because we also know that that action is something that makes a difference. But on the mental health side, I found it incredibly cathartic writing and but also, you know, listening to the stories of not only the survivors, but the families of the survivors. Because we don't generally connect the two. We might think about the individual and the life that was saved that day, but we're generally not thinking about their their children, their gr their grandchildren, their great grandchildren, their community, all of the individuals that, if he had died that day, or that person had died that day, all of those connections and all of those ripples would have stopped. Because they lived, they all continued. And see, when I think about you know connecting back to the I've been asking every paramedic class since I've been teaching for well more than 20 years, why are you here? Right. I think Simon Seneck stole my idea of of you know of of why. I tease about that. I love Simon and his work. But but literally I've had a presentation that I give to first day of every paramedic class, and I ask, why are you here? Because I also know that it takes perseverance and dedication to get through, you know, being an EMS provider, not only on the education side, but also later on as you become a provider. And it's like to me, is like, can you connect yourself back to why? Why did you do this? What's driving you every day? What makes you get up in the morning and go to that shift, despite yesterday was a tough day, too? And and I worked incredibly busy EMS systems, and I'm sure some of your audience they have too. And and then we see sometimes what the worst of mankind can do to each other. I mean, I have literally have 36 years as a paramedic. And and all of those years and the culmination of that, how do you stay healthy from a resilience standpoint? So when I started writing this book, I I realized that I wasn't just writing it for, and I wasn't writing the stories. And the stories that I were involved in, I wrote the other stories that I wasn't involved in that we curated for the book that we knew about, Kira wrote those. And so when when I was writing these stories, and even today, they they're emotional. I mean very emotional. And because to me, it's like when you're connecting that story, and you're connecting it, and and so many times we try to stay as, and I don't want to say sterile, but emotionally sterile as as possible in the moment. However, taking care of people is human. And and it's connecting that story to the emotions of taking care of people. And I think that was the biggest thing about writing the book. And then from a mental health standpoint, you know, I've always wondered how do I how have I stayed so healthy over the all of my career emotionally? And and then, you know, I've certainly have been on some incredibly uh difficult and challenging calls and and have seen co-workers who are suffered from because of that. And and I always wondered, am I like a cold, heartless bastard sometimes? And but it's not. I I think that, you know, I one of the things I've taught for years is that you know it's not my fault. It's just my problem. And I didn't cause any of those things that we get we go to see. And and so I've stayed fairly healthy over the years and and kind of rationalizing, but I also think, too, that that true injury, and I'm sure you could talk way more about this than I could, of that of you know, that true brain injury that happens with PTSD. So when we go back to like why do we write this book, uh it was to tell those human stories to not only our profession, but but also to inspire the lay person to learn CPR because we have some incredible stories that start with that bystander.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

I get to you, Kira. There's just a few things I want to say. Emotion, what's that word? What does that mean? I don't know. I try to keep myself from having those. Uh, but no, that's the other part too, is that sometimes we do have people who think that they can't they can go without emotions. Yeah, suck it up butterka exists, but that doesn't mean there's not emotions behind there that affect you. So that's why I joked around about that. Why are you here is my question for anyone who comes in for my sessions. Why are you here is always my first question. And most people are shocked to be told that because I'm like, if you're here for someone else, leave. There's no point to it. I'm not gonna waste my time with you. And if you're here for yourself and you want to get better and you want me to cure you again, we're gonna change the language of curing because I've never cured a human being in my life. I'd cure myself first if I

Training Minds For Resilience

SPEAKER_03 25:50

could. But the other part is be inspired is so key. And maybe this is a good jumping point for you, Kira, to come and jump in, talk uh, continue a little bit on the ideas of Brad or your dad, and talk about you know, inspir inspiration. Because it's funny because you either have families or like they watch their dad or mom work in this field and go, my god, that's what I want to do, or oh my god, is that something I never ever ever want to fucking do? So I maybe that's a good jumping point in talking about the same thing, like the trauma, the resilience, and your perceptions of all this, because it's very key because I think the generational difference is so important.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yeah, I it's so funny you say that because a few days ago, I I just previously talked about this, but a few days ago I was going through a lot of my parents' old Facebook posts and I found a video of me shockingly intubating a mannequin. And my mom was recording me and she said, Kira, like, do you want to be a paramedic when you grow up? And I was really young. I it it was before I was eight years old, but I looked directly into the camera and I said, No, I want to be a ballerina. So when you say some people see their parents go into this and they they say that they don't want to follow in their footsteps, I think that along the way I had a few thoughts of that, but primarily I did know that I wanted to go and and serve the people that my parents and my entire family had served before that. So come my graduation when my my dad had come to me and said, I want you to write this book with me. At the time, I had been studying writing. So I had a few of my professors would invite our family members in to listen to our stories. And my parents never missed one. So he he had come to me and said, You're this amazing writer, and I want you to do this with me. And of course, he's my dad. He's gonna say that to me. So I was I was like, okay, yeah, I don't know. But I had plans. I had other plans going into this. And I want to, again, I wanted to continue a life of service. And so I said, I said, no, I don't think that I want to do that. I think I want to follow a different path. And and he came back and he pushed back at me and he said, Well, if that's really what you want, okay, I'll support you. But I I really want you to go back and take some time to think about this. And I said, All right, fine. So I went back to my dorm room and I I kind of was thinking about it. And I the thing that was pushing me the most was the fact that I wanted to help people. And so I my mindset when I was saying no to him was the fact that this wouldn't help people. And so when I had pondered with it in my dorm, I kind of changed that mindset to that this is going to help people, this is going to save lives. So I went back to him and I said, you know what? I think you're right. I think that this is something that we should do. And so, so we began this journey, and it's been a long journey for for now, and it's been a great one. But going back, I think that my mindset really did change because of the fact that I thought that these stories are not only for the lay person, it's for the profession, the professional, and all of those healthcare workers who don't get to see the effects of what they do every single day. In EMS, the EMTs and the paramedics come to the emergency room, they get maybe maximum 30 minutes with the patient, maybe 40 minutes, depending on the call. They drop them off to the emergency room, they don't hear from them again. And it's very similar in the emergency room in the sense that we treat them, and it may be for days, it may be longer than EMS, but we send them up to the floors. We pretty much, our job is to get them stable so that they can go to a more floor that's that's more catered to their needs. And so we never get that long-reaching arc of the fact that our actions have these amazing consequences.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

And which I never honestly, until Keir said it the other day, I never thought of it that way. I never thought about the emergency room nurse having that very similar kind of experience or the physician, the ER physician, where they just had this fairly short interaction with a patient and then they transferred him somewhere else and really never got to see him again. Unless, of course, they came back in the emergency room for whatever reason. But I mean, I hadn't thought about that. So when you think about healthcare, who do who are we serving? It's not just, it's just not pre-hospital. I mean, this is the continuum of care.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

And I think too that for the layperson or the civilian, that by telling these stories, and and it's something that you definitely know too, when you kind of gear somebody up, by telling stories, they can rehearse it in their mind and and through training and action, they're going to be more willing to act. Not only that, but they're gonna have better outcomes mentally after the fact. They're not as prone to PTSD as they would be if they hadn't gone through the scenario prior to actually doing it in real life.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

Right. There's so many things about neuroplasticity that we can talk about here. Neuroplasticity is seen as a savior, but it can also be a way to reprogram your brain in a negative way. And it really is the process that's important. You know, I think that what you just talked about is having the experience of a parent or parents doing it can also show you what not to do. And I'm not trying to be mean, Brad. I'm just saying there's something to be said about that. Sure. You know, and I have a sticker in my office that says, Don't worry, I practice on a mannequin once rich really helps. Most of the guys think that's funny.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

Oh, we need that. That's hilarious. That is awesome.

SPEAKER_03 31:21

We know what I'm gonna send it to you. I'll uh I'll do that after, but I will definitely, it's one of my favorite stickers because I always think about that. Don't worry, I've done it on a mannequin once.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

And I think, I think too, I just want to add real quick that it's it's I think there's a big audience that we're forgetting from the the healthcare professionals and the lay people or the civilians, is the people who are currently civilians who in a few months will become healthcare professionals. And and I I like to talk about how you walk into an EMT class downstairs where we host them, and you'll have these 18, 19-year-old kids. And they are, they, they're they bring a freshness to EMS education. And we we have so many instructors who have been in the profession for so many years who can attest to this. But they it it's light, it's it's new, and they don't have the hardcore experiences that we that the rest of us have, or you know, this dark humor that we use to cope. But I I think too, it these stories, and and which is something that you could attest to too by just giving them to paramedic graduates, they they don't have these experiences and just kind of gearing them up for it does does bring a little a little hope for them that they're gonna be okay in the

Closing Subscribe And 988 Reminder

SPEAKER_01 32:39

end.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

Well, as we get to the first half hour here, I'd like to continue this conversation, particularly to call about the saved effect and the stories, because I think those stories are so valuable. And to some extent, I believe that if a paramedic first responder of any kind kind of writes it down, it can almost be therapeutic for them to write it down and share that story. But I think that's a good subject to start off the second part of that episode. Are you willing to stick around for another half hour, guys? Yeah, absolutely. All right, so let me uh say thank you to the audience for this and uh don't forget to come back for the next episode. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

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