Answering the call

One call haunts Jim Culbertson.

It's a call that the paramedic for the Cape County Private Ambulance Service describes as "the worst ever." It's the one that cost him a dozen nights of rest and still upsets him four years after it happened.

The woman who called was hysterical and said something like, "My baby's not breathing, I can't wake him up."

It was a year after Culbertson, now 34, had changed careers to become a paramedic.

He had never seen a case of sudden infant death syndrome before.

He had certainly never held a dead baby in his arms, one he really couldn't help.

"That one stays with me," said Culbertson, who lives in Sikeston, Mo. "The ones with kids always do."

The Cape Girardeau County ambulance service is celebrating its 35th year in 2003. The service formed in 1968, taking a job that to a lesser degree was handled by funeral homes whose main service was to pick up dead bodies.

It is owned by the Russell family: physician John Russell and his wife, Susan, as well as lawyer Joe Russell and his wife, Hertha.

The ambulance service receives about 14 calls a day and last year fielded 5,500 calls with seven ambulances out of its North Kingshighway office and an office at the Jackson Fire Department.

Serving on the ambulance can break your heart, but it is also rewarding, said Culbertson. The other 35 emergency medical technicians, or EMTs, and paramedics who work for one of Missouri's oldest private ambulance services will also attest to that.

"In the end, you're helping people," Culbertson said. "That's what's good about the job."

"It's not an easy job," said Tami Kiefer, who became operations manager for the ambulance service last July. "We have to have the ability to adjust to any given situation. We never know what we're going into. Anything can happen."

And it usually does.

People 'hug you or hit you'

The calls run the gamut. The paramedics have seen families killed by drunk drivers. Horrific automobile accidents. People badly burned -- or even killed -- by house fires. They've treated head wounds and gunshot wounds, people who have been assaulted and those who did the assaulting.

But those are the worst-case scenarios. Kiefer herself is a 10-year veteran of emergency work as a paramedic -- which takes another 18 months of training after becoming an EMT.

She said most calls are for medical assists -- an elderly woman falls, a man is short of breath or having chest pains, transporting patients from one hospital to another or from a nursing home to a hospital.

Regardless of the call, Kiefer said that people's reactions to the EMTs and paramedic are as drastically different as the calls can be.

"People want to hug you or they want to hit you," she said. "We go from being counselors to doctors to punching bags. Remember, we are seeing these people who are usually in a bad way."

Dealing with those situations on a daily basis takes its emotional toll. The paramedics and EMTs are a close group and they talk it out with each other. They also are offered counseling.

They also rely on a defense mechanism: a healthy detachment.

"It's OK to have feelings, but you can't wear your feelings on your sleeve," said Barbara "Bobbi" Strohmeyer, who has worked for the service for almost two years. She says emotions are always a factor.

"What's the point of doing what we're doing if you can't sympathize? That's what we're there for, to offer care and compassion."

Being a paramedic and EMT also can take its toll on family life.

"You work 24 hours at a time," Kiefer said. "You're away from home quite a bit. But you adjust and make the most of the time you have with your family. And you also only work 10 shifts every 28 days. So that can be good."

'Good outweighs the bad'

The paramedics and EMTs insist it's a good job and more rewarding than tense.

"It's exciting," said Angie Moyers, a paramedic who has been with the service for seven years. "I've wanted to do this as far back as I can remember."

Moyers also loves working with people.

"I thoroughly enjoy it," she said. "How many people can say that they help people who are sick feel better? Dealing with elderly people is also satisfying. One time I transported a woman who was 103 years old. Sometimes just really neat things happen."

Culbertson, the paramedic who still is haunted by the SIDS death, doesn't regret going into this line of work, either.

"The good outweighs the bad," he said. "I am very gratified when we pick somebody up who is hurting and they are feeling better by the time they're at the hospital. That makes it a good job."

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137