Speaker 1: This is on the Job. This season, we're speaking with
Speaker 1: folks who are finding their professional stride in a tumultuous
Speaker 1: job market and learning how to double down on their
Speaker 1: skills and their experience to overcome challenges. We'll bring you
Speaker 1: inspiring stories of people making themselves essential, an important skill
Speaker 1: set in any economy. Among all professionals that keep working
Speaker 1: throughout the COVID nineteen crisis, none may be as widely
Speaker 1: commended as those who work in the medical field. In
Speaker 1: places hit hard like Manhattan, the city erupts every night
Speaker 1: in applause at seven pm, showing gratitude for the work
Speaker 1: of health professionals. Well, that applause echoes throughout the rural
Speaker 1: areas of the country as well, where medical workers like
Speaker 1: EMT stay busy serving their communities and adapting to changing times.
Speaker 1: If you call nine one one after you take a fall,
Speaker 1: or maybe you see someone having trouble breathing, the people
Speaker 1: who show up in the ambulance are emergency medical technicians EMTs,
Speaker 1: and if you're an EMT in the city of Rutland, Vermont,
Speaker 1: you can expect those calls to start rolling in the
Speaker 1: moment your eight am shift starts. When the emergency line rings.
Speaker 1: It's a distinctive bell and a loud buzzer. It'll wake
Speaker 1: the dead, and that's what it's intended to do. It's
Speaker 1: very loud and very obnoxious. This is Kyle Robillard. He's
Speaker 1: thirty two and he's an advanced EMT at Regional Ambulance
Speaker 1: in Rutland, Vermont. One of the busiest ambulance services in
Speaker 1: the state of Vermont, and it's not uncommon for the
Speaker 1: department in a twenty four hour period to run over
Speaker 1: thirty calls for service. The calls can be for anything
Speaker 1: car accidents, helping an elderly person who's fallen down, cardiac arrests.
Speaker 1: Kyle says he has people call even if they have
Speaker 1: a bloody nose, So you don't know what's coming when
Speaker 1: you're working at the amblets, but you know something is coming.
Speaker 1: Regional Ambulance is a building right next to the local
Speaker 1: hospital that's got a long garage with seven ambulances at
Speaker 1: the ready, and when the alarm goes off, a dispatcher
Speaker 1: in the office picks up and that call blares over
Speaker 1: an intercom system throughout the building telling us where, when
Speaker 1: and why the need of service. So you can start
Speaker 1: to get a sense of what the call is. The
Speaker 1: EMTs go out in pairs, so Kyle and his partner
Speaker 1: will hear what the call is and judge what they
Speaker 1: need to go on scene. And if they know that
Speaker 1: it isn't as serious, they'll know that they don't have
Speaker 1: to blow through traffic to get there. But if it's
Speaker 1: something like a heart attack, they move quick. So we'll
Speaker 1: get out to the ambulance, we'll get in, we'll sign
Speaker 1: on where the hospital, let them know what we're going
Speaker 1: to because it's important. I'll let the hospital know like
Speaker 1: what to expect, especially if it's a significant incident. They
Speaker 1: want to start to prepare rooms in space and have
Speaker 1: resources available. Each EMT is trained to drive the ambulance,
Speaker 1: so they'll decide who's driving and who's in the back
Speaker 1: with the patient. Sometimes the call severe enough, we're both
Speaker 1: in the back and we call in another crew to
Speaker 1: drive for us. If it's an easy call like a nosebleed,
Speaker 1: if my partner is a basic MT, I'll let them
Speaker 1: take the call in and if it's something that requires
Speaker 1: a little more care, I step in so it's it's situational.
Speaker 1: They also do a lot of transfers. So if a
Speaker 1: patient can't get what they need at the Rutland Hospital,
Speaker 1: Kyle's team might bring them to nearby Dartmouth or Boston.
Speaker 1: He's even gone as far as Buffalo, New York, an
Speaker 1: eight hour drive. Regardless of what the call is. As
Speaker 1: soon as you clock in, being an EMT keeps you
Speaker 1: on your toes three years into the job. That's why
Speaker 1: Kyle likes it. Somebody who's been doing this for over
Speaker 1: twenty years, who's been to hundreds of thousands of calls,
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't mind a slower day, and you can't blame
Speaker 1: him either. You know, a career of service, you're going
Speaker 1: to see a lot of stuff. But right now, I
Speaker 1: love going to work. I love putting on the uniform
Speaker 1: and tackling whatever comes down the pipeline. And at the
Speaker 1: end of the day you're probably physically exhausted, but you
Speaker 1: can look back your day and say, did something today,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yep. There's never a day where I left
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh man, and he didn't get much
Speaker 1: accomplished here. Being an MT is actually Kyle's part time job.
Speaker 1: Full time, he's also a fighter here in Rutland, where
Speaker 1: he was born. And raised. In a senior year of
Speaker 1: high school, a front of his started volunteering at a
Speaker 1: fire department nearby, and it was the first time Kyle
Speaker 1: had heard that was an option at eighteen. My father
Speaker 1: was a fireman at the time and my uncle was
Speaker 1: also a fireman. One time at dinner, I approached my
Speaker 1: dad about the thought of joining the volunteer department. His
Speaker 1: dad totally supported it. So Kyle went into the family business,
Speaker 1: which is really not uncommon for firefighters a lot of
Speaker 1: people in Rutland. It's a generational family thing, but in
Speaker 1: every fire department across the country you'll see sons stepping
Speaker 1: in after their fathers or their mothers and daughters doing
Speaker 1: the same thing. So he started going in once a
Speaker 1: week in training. Soon he was answering a pager he
Speaker 1: carried everywhere and going into calls with a department. One time,
Speaker 1: jumping up from dinner at a restaurant when he was
Speaker 1: nineteen to respond to a raging fire. His dad said,
Speaker 1: was a fire you might see every thirty years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my heart was in my throat. I didn't really know
Speaker 1: what to expect. I remember seeing the huge glow and
Speaker 1: the sky and just being like, holy ship. Just before
Speaker 1: you know it, twelve hours has gone past. You're tired,
Speaker 1: and you're soaking wet, you're hungry, But in a blink
Speaker 1: of an eye of the twelve hours has gone and
Speaker 1: you've been at that fire the whole time. After high school,
Speaker 1: he went to college and got his degree in sports medicine.
Speaker 1: While he was still working as a firefighter part time.
Speaker 1: In college, he was learning a lot about injury mitigation
Speaker 1: and physical rehab and he saw how much that could
Speaker 1: apply to his work as an emergency responder. And then
Speaker 1: there was a EMT class being offered in Rutland in
Speaker 1: the evenings and it worked with my schedule really well.
Speaker 1: He thought, this will be great training to have. It
Speaker 1: ties into firefighting, it ties into his work as an
Speaker 1: athletic trainer. This seems like too much work. But are
Speaker 1: you doing any of that as well on the side. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The last three winters, I was traveling with the United
Speaker 1: States Junior loose team. Wow. Yeah, that was an unbelievable experience.
Speaker 1: I was able to travel Europe with a loose team
Speaker 1: and practice sports medicine. It was unbelievable. That's all. You're
Speaker 1: working a lot, are you a workaholic? Yeah, to a fault.
Speaker 1: It's partially by nature. I think the fire department job
Speaker 1: because our schedule is we work twenty four hours, then
Speaker 1: we have forty eight hours off. We tend to fill
Speaker 1: that void productively. There was a time where I was
Speaker 1: mismanaging my time very poorly. I've had to make some
Speaker 1: changes in like adjust my work schedule, so I'm not
Speaker 1: working all the time. Kyle's dad was the same way,
Speaker 1: always had another job. So three years ago it wasn't
Speaker 1: all out of the question that Kyle would pick up
Speaker 1: a second line of work, especially how complimentary the skill
Speaker 1: sets are. We very much run a lot of calls
Speaker 1: with the EMS department and vice versa, so it was
Speaker 1: a very natural transition to slide into doing that job
Speaker 1: as well. Over the last fifteen years wearing all these hats,
Speaker 1: Kyle's got a pretty impressive skill set. He's got plenty
Speaker 1: of room for upward mobility, and more importantly, he really
Speaker 1: cares about his job. He's a guy you want showing
Speaker 1: up when you call nine one one. But in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: the calls that Kyle gets is an emt shedlight on
Speaker 1: some of the harsh realities of rural America. And when
Speaker 1: you work in the place you grow up. A lot
Speaker 1: of those calls hit home. Talking to some of my
Speaker 1: bosses who were paramedics back in the eighties, you know
Speaker 1: they were doing a lot of the normal stuff you
Speaker 1: would think cardiac arressen motor vehicle accidents to job description
Speaker 1: has definitely shifted. More on Kyle's story after the break.
Speaker 1: A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done,
Speaker 1: sweats over the details. This is you. But to get
Speaker 1: an honest day's work, you need a response. You need
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Speaker 1: Find your location at expresspros dot com. Or on the
Speaker 1: Express Jobs app. In twenty fourteen, an article ran in
Speaker 1: The New York Times. It was titled a Call to
Speaker 1: Arms on a Vermont heroin Epidemic. The article focused on Rutland,
Speaker 1: where Kyle's from and where he's now an EMT. In
Speaker 1: the last few decades, heroin found its way to rural
Speaker 1: areas all over the country, and Rutland got hit hard.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I always saw heroin and
Speaker 1: drugs of the similar nature were big city drugs. That's
Speaker 1: not up here. I felt insulated to it. Just it's everywhere.
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like it. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: prescription pill abuse too, something that really wasn't as prominent
Speaker 1: even thirty years ago. And the thing with people who
Speaker 1: tend to abuse drugs like that, they do it over
Speaker 1: and over again, So you have a lot of repeat calls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of people we know on a first name basis.
Speaker 1: In places like this, where people live a little farther
Speaker 1: apart than they do in cities, it's less densely populated,
Speaker 1: the problem can be hard to see. When that New
Speaker 1: York Times article came out, a lot of people here
Speaker 1: were shocked. They didn't know that an epidemic was happening
Speaker 1: right where they lived. It's far more widespread than you think.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know somebody. One of my close friends.
Speaker 1: He and I shared the same birthday. He was born
Speaker 1: two minutes ahead of me. He passed away this winter
Speaker 1: from an overdose. Yep, you know it's awful. Kyle's right,
Speaker 1: I do know someone, one of my best friends growing up.
Speaker 1: The great thing about living in a small town is
Speaker 1: everyone knows everyone. There's a real sense of community. But
Speaker 1: when something happens to someone in that community, they can
Speaker 1: make it that much harder. Because Kyle's lived in Rutland
Speaker 1: all his life, he knows that when a call comes in,
Speaker 1: there's a good chance that he'll know who he's going
Speaker 1: to help. Remember when I talked about I was bad
Speaker 1: at time management and I wear a lot of hats. Well,
Speaker 1: I was doing perpetry. Also sure one of our coworkers
Speaker 1: was a heroin addict. I would have to bring him
Speaker 1: to the methodone clinic before going to the job site
Speaker 1: in the morning. Then one day, while he was working
Speaker 1: at the firehouse, he got a call to respond to
Speaker 1: an overdose. The address sounded really familiar, and I was like,
Speaker 1: please don't be this person's house. Please, don't be this
Speaker 1: person's house. We drove by his apartment, I was like,
Speaker 1: thank God. But then we pull up to this other apartment.
Speaker 1: I see this individual's outside the door, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: he was inside unconscious. They did chest compressions on him,
Speaker 1: and they gave him Narcan, which is a nasal spray
Speaker 1: that can help reverse an opioid overdose. After that, he
Speaker 1: woke up. He was alive, incoherent, but it was my coworker.
Speaker 1: But two days later he was back at the job
Speaker 1: site like nothing happened. We didn't speak of it, you know. Really, yep,
Speaker 1: that's one of the things I fear is going to
Speaker 1: an overdose or somebody I know. I asked Kyle if
Speaker 1: calls like that way on him, if the things he
Speaker 1: seized on the job as an EMT overshadowed the reasons
Speaker 1: he got into it. Try not to think that way.
Speaker 1: I don't want to become jaded. I just my goals
Speaker 1: when I go to work are to make my partner's
Speaker 1: life easier, try and help as many people as I'm
Speaker 1: called upon to help, and then try and make the
Speaker 1: station a little bit cleaner, a little bit nicer than
Speaker 1: when I found it. If I can do those three things,
Speaker 1: I've had a good shift. Do you like your job
Speaker 1: as an em Yeah, I like it a lot. The
Speaker 1: shifts fly by, I look at the quack, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I've only got it. Like an hour left.
Speaker 1: Is very rewarding work and never leave feeling deflated like
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything. What would you say to someone
Speaker 1: who's interested in becoming an EMT, I'd say, if you
Speaker 1: like a challenge, if you like continually learning, and if
Speaker 1: you like being busy, it's a great career opportunity. Starting
Speaker 1: from this career. You can become a physician assistant. You
Speaker 1: can become a flight medic. You know, you can take
Speaker 1: this education wherever you want to, which is awesome. When
Speaker 1: I ask Kyle what his favorite part of the job is,
Speaker 1: he says he loves working with the elderly population. He
Speaker 1: says that they show a lot of gratitude. He especially
Speaker 1: likes those longer transfers. They'll do something times from hospital
Speaker 1: to hospital, for going to Burlington which is in an
Speaker 1: hour and forty five to two hours away and dart Mets,
Speaker 1: which is over an hour. You can either spend a
Speaker 1: time with your nose in the computer right in your report.
Speaker 1: You can get to know the person you know in
Speaker 1: the back seat with you, and sometimes they have pretty
Speaker 1: incredible stories. In a lot of cases he helps out
Speaker 1: those same elderly people multiple times. They get to know
Speaker 1: each other by name. And that's the other side of
Speaker 1: this work and doing it in a small town. You
Speaker 1: get to be the person that someone trusts they'll see
Speaker 1: when they ask for help. You're doing your job, but
Speaker 1: you're not just a uniform. I think sometimes in this
Speaker 1: profession and others similar to it, you forget you're dealing
Speaker 1: with people not too dissimilar from yourself. So anytime I'm
Speaker 1: in the back seat, I like to talk to them,
Speaker 1: get a little bit of their backstory and get to
Speaker 1: know them by name, you know, talk to them like
Speaker 1: I'd be talking to my brother, or like I'm talking
Speaker 1: to you right now. You can have a great conversation
Speaker 1: with somebody, and I think that goes I think that
Speaker 1: goes a long way with people. For On the Job,
Speaker 1: I'm Otis Gray. Thanks for listening to On the Job,
Speaker 1: brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. This season of
Speaker 1: On the Job is produced by Audiation and Red Seat Ventures.
Speaker 1: The episodes are written and produced by me Otis Gray.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Sandy Smallens. The show is mixed
Speaker 1: by Matt Noble for Audiation Studios at The Loft in Bronxville,
Speaker 1: New York. Music by Blue Dost Sessions. Find us on
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard,
Speaker 1: please consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. For
Speaker 1: more inspiring stories about making yourself essential as you discover
Speaker 1: your life's work, Audiation