How old were you?

[daedalus]

When I was 9 y/o, my friend's family had taken me to a car show with them. It was a real hot day and my best friend collapsed. Within minutes we heard sirens and saw that cool ambulance come ripping down towards us. The paramedics got out and took his history from my friends mom, and checked his vital signs. They released him on the scene and told us to go home and have my friend drink lots of gatorade and rest for the day in a cool area. They were heros to me.

Two years later it was reviled that I would need open heart surgery to repair a congenital defect that had started causing problems. I was taken to Cedars-Sinai hospital and that is when I fell in love with medicine.

After that, while all the other kids were reading novels I was reading anatomy books.

 

[aidan]

When I was 9 y/o, my friend's family had taken me to a car show with them. It was a real hot day and my best friend collapsed. Within minutes we heard sirens and saw that cool ambulance come ripping down towards us. The paramedics got out and took his history from my friends mom, and checked his vital signs. They released him on the scene and told us to go home and have my friend drink lots of gatorade and rest for the day in a cool area. They were heros to me.

Two years later it was reviled that I would need open heart surgery to repair a congenital defect that had started causing problems. I was taken to Cedars-Sinai hospital and that is when I fell in love with medicine.

After that, while all the other kids were reading novels I was reading anatomy books.

Very cool story.. Cedars can make anyone fall in love with medicine..it's amazing. I worked there for two years.

 

[Redemption]

My dad's drunk driving was what made me first think about it. He's also the one that told me to go to college and get a 'real job'... Ugh.

The first wreck my parents had when I was 8 or 9 years old, my dad was driving, had wrecked and just left my mom in the car there to well... you know. A couple of kids we knew (small town) found her and drove her to our house, and I called 911. It was the scariest day of my life, and the only person that made it better was the EMT's that pulled up in the ambulance, one hugged me after she'd closed the doors and said she's be alright, and she was. That woman, to this day, is my hero.

The second wreck my dad by himself. I was 13 and my parents had just seperated, he was drunk driving without a helmet on his bike. He swerved to miss something (probably a deer) and smashed his head on not one... but two of those damn poles on the side of the road (not the mile markers)...

He had literally scalped himself and crushed his frontal lobe. Broke 3 ribs, left arm, left leg, and tore his shoulder out of socket. Very lucky he lived, last time I saw him he looked like 'Sloth' from "The Goonies"

The people that responded to his accident really are heroes. Sadly, they were all friends of the family too. Very scary moment in my life.

Sorry this is so long. I was 8or9 and then 13... finally signed up for the class now (at age 19)

 

[E.M.T.Loza]

the first time I had considered being an emt was approching my second semester of my senior year in H.S my brother was an emt for a year and bet me that I couldn't pass the emt class he took. I signed up for the class my second semester of senior year and loved the clinical and ride alongs I passed the class a few weeks after i turned 18. In the fall after I graduated from H.S I started attending UC Davis and had no time to work as an emt :glare: :sad: now im going take a refresher course and get my recertification in two weeks and im going to start looking for an job doing what I love since Im going to have some spare time the next few months B)

 

[fortsmithman]

The bug first bit me in the 70's as a kid watching Johnny and Roy do their thing on TV.

 

[stephenrb81]

I actually started in the IT field. I was an Assistant Sys Admin/Tech Support Supervisor for a dial-up ISP. Of course in that field, things are changing nearly monthly and the company I worked for sold and was disassembled/outsourced. When my Support Techs were all let go my primary duties were to oversee the merging of our billing system and various servers to the new outsourced systems, I knew my days were numbered.

In my area, there isn't any demand for those in IT. I was pretty stressed on what to do. That's when I was told about an EMT program being offered at one of our CC's extension campuses so I signed up. That was about 6 years ago, I was 22 at the time.

Haven't looked backed since, now I'm 28 and only have 6 months left in a Medic program

 

[karaya]

Seventeen for me during my senior year of high school in 1976. Became an EMT before I graduated and went on to paramedic school in 1978.