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: and 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: e m T stay busy serving their communities and adapting
Speaker 1: to changing times. If you call nine one one after
Speaker 1: you take a fall, or maybe you see someone having
Speaker 1: trouble breathing, the people who show up in the ambulance
Speaker 1: are Emergency medical technicians e m T s. And if
Speaker 1: you're an EMT in the city of Rutland, Vermont, you
Speaker 1: can expect those calls to start rolling in the moment
Speaker 1: your eight am shift starts. When the emergency line rings,
Speaker 1: it's a distinctive bell and a loud buzzer. It'll awake
Speaker 1: the dead, and that's why 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 e MT at Regional
Speaker 1: Ambulance in Rutland, Vermont. One of the busiest ambulance services
Speaker 1: in the state of Vermont, and it's not uncommon for
Speaker 1: the department in a twenty period to run over thirty
Speaker 1: calls for service. The calls can be for anything car accidents,
Speaker 1: helping an elderly person who's fallen down, cardiac arress. Kyle
Speaker 1: says he has people call even if they have a
Speaker 1: bloody nose, So you don't know what's coming when you're
Speaker 1: 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 the who, what, where,
Speaker 1: when and why, the need of service, so you can
Speaker 1: start to get a sense of what the call is.
Speaker 1: The e m T s go out in pairs, so
Speaker 1: Kyle and his partner will hear what the call is
Speaker 1: and judge what they need to go on see. And
Speaker 1: if they know that it isn't as serious, they'll know
Speaker 1: that they don't have to blow through traffic to get there.
Speaker 1: But if it's something like a heart attack, they move quick.
Speaker 1: So we'll get out to the ambulance, we'll get in,
Speaker 1: we'll sign on with the hospital, let them know what
Speaker 1: we're going to because it's important to let the hospital
Speaker 1: know like what to expect, especially if it's a significant incident.
Speaker 1: They want to start to prepare rooms in space and
Speaker 1: have resources available. E T. E m T is trained
Speaker 1: to drive the ambulance, so they decide who's driving and
Speaker 1: who's in the back with the patient. Sometimes the call
Speaker 1: is severe enough, we're both in the back and we
Speaker 1: call in another crew to drive for us. If it's
Speaker 1: an easy call, like a nose bleed, if my partner
Speaker 1: is a basic empt, I'll let them take the call
Speaker 1: in and if it's something that requires a little more care,
Speaker 1: I step in. So it's it's situational. They also do
Speaker 1: a lot of transfers, so if a patient can't get
Speaker 1: what they need at the Rutland Hospital, Kyle's team might
Speaker 1: bring them to nearby Dartmouth or Boston. He's even gone
Speaker 1: as far as Buffalo, New York, an eight hour drive,
Speaker 1: regardless of what the call is. As soon as you
Speaker 1: clock in. Being an m T keeps you on your
Speaker 1: toes three years into the job. That's why Kyle likes it.
Speaker 1: Somebody who's been doing this for over twenty years, who's
Speaker 1: been to hundreds of thousands of calls, probably wouldn't mind
Speaker 1: a slower day, and you can't blame him either. You know,
Speaker 1: a career of service, you're going to see a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. But right now, I love going to work.
Speaker 1: I love putting on the uniform and tackling whatever comes
Speaker 1: down the pipeline. And at the end of the day
Speaker 1: you're probably physically exhausted, but you can look back your
Speaker 1: day and say I did something today, Oh yeah, yep.
Speaker 1: There's never a day where I left I'm like, oh man,
Speaker 1: and he didn't get much accomplished here. Being an EMT
Speaker 1: is actually Kyle's part time job. Full time, he's also
Speaker 1: a fire fighter here in Rutland, where he was born
Speaker 1: and raised, and a senior year of high school in
Speaker 1: front of his started volunteering at a fire department nearby,
Speaker 1: and it was the first time Kyle had heard that
Speaker 1: was an option at eighteen. My father was a fireman
Speaker 1: at the time and my uncle was also a fireman.
Speaker 1: The one time at dinner, I approached my dad about
Speaker 1: the thought of joining the volunteer department. His dad totally
Speaker 1: supported it. So Kyle went into the family business, which
Speaker 1: is really not uncommon for firefighters a lot of people
Speaker 1: in Rutland. It's a generational family thing, but in every
Speaker 1: fire department across the country you'll see sons stepping in
Speaker 1: after their fathers or their mothers, and daughters doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. So he started going in once a week
Speaker 1: in training. Soon he was answering a pager he carried
Speaker 1: everywhere and going into calls with the 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, holy, holy ship.
Speaker 1: Just before you know it, twelve hours has gone past.
Speaker 1: You're tired, you're soaking wet, you're hungry, But in a
Speaker 1: blink of an eye, the twelve hours is 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
Speaker 1: medicine 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 e m T class being offered in Rutland
Speaker 1: in 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 worked 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 a just my work schedule, so I'm
Speaker 1: not 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 e M S Department and vice versa, so
Speaker 1: it was a very natural transition to slide into doing
Speaker 1: that job as well. Over the last fifteen years wearing
Speaker 1: all these hats, Kyle's got a pretty impressive skill set.
Speaker 1: He's got plenty of room for upward mobility, and more importantly,
Speaker 1: he really cares about his job. He's a guy you
Speaker 1: want showing up when you call nine month one. But
Speaker 1: the calls that Kyle gets as an e MT shed
Speaker 1: light on some of the harsh realities of rural America
Speaker 1: and when you work in the place you grow up.
Speaker 1: A lot of those calls hit home. Talking to some
Speaker 1: of my bosses who were paramedics back in the eighties,
Speaker 1: you know they were doing a lot of the normal
Speaker 1: stuff you would think cardiac arressen, motor vehicle accidents. The
Speaker 1: job description has definitely shifted. More on Kyle's story after
Speaker 1: the break. A strong work ethic takes pride in a
Speaker 1: job well done, sweats over the details. This is you.
Speaker 1: But to get an honest day's work, you need a response,
Speaker 1: You need a call back, You need a job. Express
Speaker 1: Employment professionals can help because we understand what it takes
Speaker 1: to get a job. It takes more than just online
Speaker 1: searches to land the job. It takes someone who will
Speaker 1: identify your talents, a person invested in your success. At Express,
Speaker 1: we can even complete your application with you over the phone,
Speaker 1: will prepare you for interviews, and will connect you to
Speaker 1: the right company. Plus, we'll never charge a fee to
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Speaker 1: to work with companies of all sizes and industries, from
Speaker 1: the production floor to the front office. Express nose jobs
Speaker 1: get to no Express find your location at Express pros
Speaker 1: dot com or on the Express Jobs app. An article
Speaker 1: ran in the New York Times. It was titled a
Speaker 1: Call to Arms on a Vermont heroin Epidemic. The article
Speaker 1: focused on Rutland, where Kyle's from and where is now
Speaker 1: an e MT. In the last few decades, heroin found
Speaker 1: its way to rural areas all over the country. In
Speaker 1: Rutland got hit hard. When I was a kid, I
Speaker 1: always saw heroin and drugs of the similar nature were
Speaker 1: big city drugs. That's not up here. I felt insulated
Speaker 1: to it. Just it's everywhere. I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of prescription pill abuse to something that
Speaker 1: really wasn't as prominent even thirty years ago. And the
Speaker 1: thing with people who tend to abuse drugs like that,
Speaker 1: they do it over and over again, So you have
Speaker 1: a lot of repeat calls. Yeah, a lot of people
Speaker 1: we know on a first name basis. In places like this,
Speaker 1: where people live a little farther apart than they do
Speaker 1: in cities, it's less densely populated, the problem can be
Speaker 1: hard to see. When that New York Times article came out,
Speaker 1: a lot of people here were shocked. They didn't know
Speaker 1: that an epidemic was happening right where they lived. It's
Speaker 1: far more widespread than you think. I'm sure you know somebody.
Speaker 1: One of my close friends, he and I shared the
Speaker 1: same birthday. He was born two minutes ahead of me.
Speaker 1: He passed away this winter from an overdose. You know
Speaker 1: it's that's it's awful. Kyle's right, I do know someone,
Speaker 1: one of my best friends growing up. The great thing
Speaker 1: about living in a small town is everyone knows everyone.
Speaker 1: There's a real sense of community. But when something happens
Speaker 1: to someone in that community, they can make it that
Speaker 1: much harder. Because Kyle's lived in Rutland all his life,
Speaker 1: he knows that when a call comes in, there's a
Speaker 1: good chance that he'll know who he's going to help.
Speaker 1: Remember when I talked about I was bad at time
Speaker 1: management and I wear a lot of hats. Well, I
Speaker 1: was doing perpetry. Also sure one of our coworkers was
Speaker 1: a heroin addict. I would have to bring him to
Speaker 1: the methodon clinic before going to the job site in
Speaker 1: the morning. Then one day, while he was working at
Speaker 1: the firehouse, he got a call to respond to an overdose.
Speaker 1: The address sounded really familiar and I would. 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 dogs 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
Speaker 1: co worker. Um. But two days later he was back
Speaker 1: at the job site like nothing happened. We didn't speak
Speaker 1: of it, you know. Yep, that's one of the things
Speaker 1: I fear is going to an overdose or somebody I know.
Speaker 1: I asked Kyle. It calls like that way on him
Speaker 1: if the things he sees on the job as an
Speaker 1: empt overshadowed the reasons he got into it. Trying not
Speaker 1: to think that way. I don't want to become jaded.
Speaker 1: I just my goals when I go to work are two,
Speaker 1: make my partner's life easier, try and help as many
Speaker 1: people as I'm called upon to help, and then try
Speaker 1: and make the station a little bit cleaner, a little
Speaker 1: bit nicer than when I found it. If I can
Speaker 1: do those three things, I've had a good shift. Do
Speaker 1: you like your job? Yeah, I like it a lot.
Speaker 1: To shifts fly by, I look at the quack, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I've only got like an hour left. Is
Speaker 1: very rewarding work. And never leave feeling deflated like I
Speaker 1: didn't do anything. What would you say to someone who's
Speaker 1: interested in becoming an EMT, I'd say, if you like
Speaker 1: a challenge, if you like continually learning, and if you
Speaker 1: like being busy. It's a great career opportunity. Starting from
Speaker 1: this career. You can become a physician assistant. You can
Speaker 1: become a flight medic. You know, you can take this
Speaker 1: education wherever you want to, which is awesome. When I
Speaker 1: asked how 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 with something times from
Speaker 1: hospital to hospital, for going to Burlington which is in
Speaker 1: an hour and forty five two hours away, and dart Myths,
Speaker 1: which is over the 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 trust, 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 and get
Speaker 1: to know them by name, you know, talk to them
Speaker 1: like I'd be talking to my brother 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 Otus 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: I Heart Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what
Speaker 1: you heard, please consider rating and reviewing the show on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: For more inspiring stories about making yourself essential as you
Speaker 1: discover your life's work, Ariation