I am going to turn 67 this month. I am the oldest active paramedic in our division.
Today I read an article in the Washington Post about a 76 year old EMT who started his career at 65 and only retired from active duty this year because the physical demands of the job became too much for him. He still works there though as an instructor/mentor.
We have had employees here who have worked into their 70’s before. They may have walked funny at the end with shuffling gaits, and one of them occasionally popped nitro while pausing on the stairs during carrydowns, but I had mad respect for them. They are all dead now.
For a time years ago when I was posted as a medic in a suburban town, riding on their ambulance, I worked with two volunteers aged, 76 and 82. Willard, was an ex-marine, who became an EMT in his seventies. Anita was a long standing EMT, mother of one of the corps’ senior members and grandmother of one of the younger ones who often rode with us. Willard made a footstool he painted purple for Anita, that she could use to step up into the box ambulance. She was great to work with, she would chat with the patients while I took care of them and Willard drove. She also took down the demographics for me. I’d present the patient to the ED register as Tom Smith, date of birth September 17, 1949. I’d give the social security number. The registrar often had a hard time finding the patient in their system. I finally figured out why. The patient would call out their numerals. 795. Anita would repeat 849. She was hard of hearing. Her family didn’t want her working, but they didn’t mind as much if she worked with me as they trusted me to keep her safe. More than once I had to grab her when her balance swayed. She and Willard were good souls. They are both dead now too.
Last week, my partner and I were doing a stair chair carry down one of those narrow stairwells in a triple decker house where the stairwell turns at a 90 degree angle halfway down. I always carry the bottom of the stairs chair because of my height. When we reached the rurn, I had to push in the bottom handles so we could make the turn. We got hung up with one of the stair chair’s treads down and the other still up in the air. My partner and I were having a hard time getting the lift and turn right. A firefighter tried to help. I had it, but he basically took it over and they eventually got it right and I spotted him on the way down. If I was younger he wouldn’t have stepped in to help. On one hand I don’t mind if the FD wants to do the lifts, but I did feel sort of diminished.
I lift weights three or four times a week at the hospital’s gym. It is my favorite time — headphones blaring Neil Young’s “Rocking the Free World” and I am pushing iron. I am taking on the enemy, battling the nefarious forces of age. Each extra rep, each grunt from my core is a declaration of defiance. I am still a man, hear me roar! On the days that I lift when I get home from work, I head right to bed and lay down for a predinner nap. I’m tired and I’m tired and I’m tired, I may say to myself.
I am stronger than many I work with, but I am not as strong as I used to be. My sometimews partner, Erica says I am being silly when I try to carry all of the gear back into the ops room at the end of the shift. “Here, let me help you,” she says. I keep walking, backpack over one shoulder, heart monitor in my left hand, spare bag and computer in the right, balanced.
Not a shift goes by that someone doesn’t ask me when I am going to retire and marvels that I am still working. “You’ve paid your dues,” they say.
Some days I am fine, others my right knee hurts every time I go up the stairs. My feet give me periodic trouble. Ibuprofen and various Dr. Schoals products bought at CVS in the middle of the shift help against the pain.
I want to keep working until I am 72 when my youngest daughter will be graduating college. Not certain if I will make it.
If anyone ever tries to write an article about me being old and still working, I will tell them to F-off. I don’t want to be a novelty.