A year or so ago he decided he should become an EMT. He said he needed to have a better understanding of all the aspects of the business he runs. I know better, he likes the excitement and camaraderie of being an emergency responder.

He generally tries to go on a few runs every month to keep his skills up and occasionally he ends up having to jump on a truck unexpectedly. I thought I would share the e-mail he sent me after he made a run yesterday.

Maribeth;

Had an interesting day today: better than most. Thought you might like to know about it.

I'd had a rather normal day up until about 4:30 this afternoon. I'd been spending most of my day getting ready for an attorney conference on Friday that required me to prepare several folders full of documents to turn over and explain occasionally interrupted by a problem to fix or a question to answer.

But at 4:30 that all changed.

A page came over my phone: "EMS 10, Emergent response to an MVA involving two cars and multiple patients at 4800 West State Road 42. EMS 22 is also enroute."

EMS 10 is the signal that comes over our telephone system in the offices alerting managers of departments and myself that we need another truck and don't have one staffed. Two managers in the building -- who are all at least EMTs -- need to roll out a backup truck and respond to the call.

It was about 15 seconds before our Josh (Communications Center Manager and an EMT-Basic/Advanced) was standing in my door asking, "So, you want'a drive?"

"Sure," I said.

"I'll grab a defibrillator and meet you at 35," (truck number) he told me.

No time to change into a uniform, so I grabbed my OSHA required vest and put it on over my street clothes and walked across the hall to the EMS Director's Office to ask why his assistant wasn't going.

"Thanks for going," he answered. "I've got to get payroll done."

OK.

"Is the ambulance checked out?"

"Yeah. I checked it and used it myself this morning."

So I headed for the unit, started the engine waited about 10 seconds for Josh to put the defib in the back and climb in. On came the lights and siren and away we went.

Josh had never been with me driving emergent before so I'm sure I made him nervous. We discussed the route and away we went. It took us about 18 minutes to cover the 14 miles to the accident scene. We both went directly to the patient we were going to transport -- a very nice lady approximately 59 years old, who was already in sitting spinal precautions provided by one of the crew of EMS 22.

After assessing her issues, we planned to extract her on a long spine board and transfer her to the cot. Josh went to get the board while I held her head in C-Spine position and when he came back, he had the board but said, "We have a problem."

"What?" I asked. We had plenty of help. The patient was alert, conscious and talking to us. There didn't appear to be a problem.

"We don't have cot," Josh told me.

Now I've heard of this happening to EMTs before in my job and I'd always assumed that it was a really stupid mistake to make. And now two managers had made it. Maybe it wasn't so stupid after all.

We actually didn't lose a step. We transferred the patient to the long spine board, secured her to it, carried her to the truck and secured her to the bench that lines one side of almost all ambulances.

The patient was very cool with it all. We got her to her chosen hospital in Brazil in about 20 minutes. Josh rode in the back with her to continue care and assess vitals.

It turned out she was going to a job interview at K-Mart but had dispatching experience in another industry so Josh gave her his card because he has a dispatch opening.

What are the lessons of the day? 1) This is an interesting employee recruitment technique; and 2) Never assume, even if the EMS Director's Administrative Assistant says, "Yeah. I checked it and used it myself this morning." (We should have opened the doors and looked.); and 3) The next time it happens to someone else, maybe I'll have a little more empathy.