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184

I very well may have some sort of PTSD because of having to carry a pager for work for many years.

Archive: https://archive.today/6ZZMx

From the post:

>It's a low, insistent buzz — felt before it's heard — and in the fraction of a second before the speaker crackles to life, your body is already deciding what to do. Static. Modem tones. Then the dispatch, flat and efficient: Car versus motorcycle. Intersection of Route 299 and 44/55. I am standing in my laundry room. It is a Saturday afternoon. Thirty seconds ago, I was thinking about where my wife and I might go for coffee. Now I am a bundle of nerves pulling on my boots. As a volunteer EMT, still newer to the work than most of the people I ride with, I'm not waiting at a station or posted in a parking lot. I am living my regular life until I'm not — until the tones drop and everything else becomes secondary. Given the location, I'll head directly to the scene while other volunteers bring the ambulance and the rescue vehicles from the station. This means I will likely be the first responder to arrive. I will be responsible for evaluating the emergency, triaging, providing what care I can, and directing bystanders and other first responders as the situation develops.

I very well may have some sort of PTSD because of having to carry a pager for work for many years. Archive: https://archive.today/6ZZMx From the post: >>It's a low, insistent buzz — felt before it's heard — and in the fraction of a second before the speaker crackles to life, your body is already deciding what to do. Static. Modem tones. Then the dispatch, flat and efficient: Car versus motorcycle. Intersection of Route 299 and 44/55. I am standing in my laundry room. It is a Saturday afternoon. Thirty seconds ago, I was thinking about where my wife and I might go for coffee. Now I am a bundle of nerves pulling on my boots. As a volunteer EMT, still newer to the work than most of the people I ride with, I'm not waiting at a station or posted in a parking lot. I am living my regular life until I'm not — until the tones drop and everything else becomes secondary. Given the location, I'll head directly to the scene while other volunteers bring the ambulance and the rescue vehicles from the station. This means I will likely be the first responder to arrive. I will be responsible for evaluating the emergency, triaging, providing what care I can, and directing bystanders and other first responders as the situation develops.
[–] • 1 pt

This is great. I could have written it myself dozens of times. The only thing I found weird was the whole wishing for a paramedic. That's why we have radios. Initial assessment shows a need for a higher level of care? Call for it immediately. Then get to work. Anyway, great little writeup. I still have a pager but it sits in a dock at home. We get the Tones on our phones now. I even have a plectron still. Tech from the 60's or 70's probably, but it still works and it'll wake everyone in the house up at 3am when the tones drop!!!

Edit: I also really like the It's not your emergency line, I use that ALL the time. I tell all they young folks that constantly.

[–] • 0 pt

I missed mine so much I went and downloaded all the tones from a Motorola advisor as advisor gold to have them as ring tones. Love it. And people of old it is like a fresh pie smell in their brain when they hear it. Like a calling of olden times.

I miss.

[–] • 1 pt

Funny. I just think violence and anger when I hear the buzz of a pager. We clearly had very different experiences.

[–] • 0 pt

Mine was like a fucking cash register when it went off. Tech in the 90’s.