Baptism by Fire The tones dropped, that sound that cuts through whatever the hell you’re doing and grabs you by the spine. Then the radio cracked: “Baby not breathing.” And just like that, everything changed. There’s a shift that happens on pediatric calls—instant and heavy. Conversations die mid-sentence, nobody jokes, nobody drags their feet. You move faster, but it feels like the air got thicker. We didn’t say much. We didn’t need to. We grabbed our gear and got in the tru

Corrections, Trauma, and the Road to EMS When I turned 30—actually, about a month before I officially hit 30—I stepped into a world most people will never really understand. Corrections. Not the version people think they know from TV. Not the dramatized version where everything has background music and somehow wraps up neatly before the credits roll. The real thing is messier than that. Louder. More unpredictable. And a hell of a lot heavier. It’s concrete walls and steel doo

Figuring Out Life Before the Uniform People like telling the exciting parts of their story. The parts that sound good when you say them out loud. Promotions. Weddings. Big life decisions that make you look like you’ve got your shit together when you summarize them in a sentence or two. My life between 22 and 30 didn’t really have any of that. No big career moves. No awards. No milestones worth posting about online. If someone had been watching my life from the outside, it p