I watched a fascinating documentary on TV this past week that shed a light on two things:
1. Saskatoon is undeniably a troubled city when it comes to violent crime; and
2. It takes a unique, one of a kind person to be someone who races to the scenes of said crime.
It was a program called 'First Response: Paramedics', and it followed select teams from Saskatoon's MD Ambulance Service as they went on emergency calls throughout the city.
I thought it was captivating. It came off as a gripping, realistic portrayal of life as a paramedic, set against the backdrop of a city that only seems to be getting worse for crime. In the one-hour show, there were two instances where teams were called to the scene of a stabbing; one man managed to go to the hospital and get checked out, while the other one was discovered to be so bloody and near death that the show's producers had to blur him out. It was revealed that he later did die upon arrival to the hospital.
Edited in-between the visits to these emergency calls were interviews with the paramedics, and I was almost taken aback at how calm, collected, and downright positive these men and women were about their daily adventures on the job. Personally, I think I'd more than likely become jaded and form a darker personality if my occupation involved seeing humanity at its worst or driving right into the seedy, crime-ridden underbelly of Saskatoon.
But as I said before, it obviously takes a special kind of person to do that job. I definitely have to tip my hat to those men and women on the show.
The other thing I noticed was the attitude that they take with them on their shifts. They're exposed to some of the darkest stuff that people like you and I don't have to face, and yet they do it because they want to be someone who can make a difference and help to ensure that people can make it home in one piece. In one instance, the team gets called to a house where an older man - intoxicated - may have heart issues, but he turns out to be fine, and it's discovered that he's someone that one paramedic sees regularly, and the man may just want a sympathetic ear to his many troubles. It's heartbreaking to watch, but the paramedic just looks at it as being someone's sounding board.
I suppose it's kind of a silver lining that they take to work with them; the scenes they come across may be hard, but all they can do is be positive, do their jobs efficiently and hope that people can make it home.
It got me thinking about how tough other professions might be, and where the silver linings may be for those people. Is my own job tough? I'm not sure it's fair to categorize it as such, especially compared to the hectic, bullet-paced scenario that people such as those paramedics routinely find themselves in.
However, there certainly have been tough assignments.
The hardest news story that I ever covered was a murder trial in early 2011. A local man had been brutally killed at his home in Broderick, and the story swept up the area in such a frenzy as only a piece of earth-shattering news such as that can do to a small town area. The trial was a three-week affair in which I cruised up to Saskatoon multiple times to take notes, hear testimonies, and be privy to some very graphic details and photographs. On top of that, I knew the affected family, and the responsibility to cover the story from an objective, balanced point of view somewhat clashed with my personal feeling to protect the family from letting too many details be publicly known.
Not much silver lining in that, but that's my own feeble attempt at relating to the darker part of one's job, much like paramedics go through.
In the end, it's all about finding those silver linings. Maybe it's that hot meal when you get home. Maybe it's the date night you have planned with that special someone. Maybe it's even payday. The truth is, we all find ways to see them.
The world is a scary place, but I believe there's a difference between acknowledging that it's scary and living in fear *because* it's scary. The stronger people, who go to work and deal with people who are at their most vulnerable - or on the brink of death - are the ones who make up the former. They go to work and manage to find those silver linings that make it bearable to get up and do it all over again.
For this week, that's been the Ruttle Report.
