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Home > About Us > Corporate Citizenship > | |||||||
| Volunteering to Save Lives January 2003
If you live near Amherst, New Hampshire, and see a medical emergency vehicle, it may be Shaun Morrissey rushing to a possible life-and-death situation. He received his Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) Basic license in 1981 and has been volunteering for the past 20 years. He began at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts, then took an overseas assignment with MITRE at Headquarters US Army Europe and volunteered at the 130th Medical Station Hospital in Heidelberg. His most recent position as Deputy Chief began in 1997 when he joined Amherst Emergency Medical Services as an EMT. EMT training prepares one for all sorts of unexpected emergencies. Morrissey's team once had to treat a man while the fire department dismantled the car around him. The driver had hit a moose that landed on the car roof. In another incident, a man accidentally kneeled on his samurai sword while watching the Olympics. Now as Deputy Chief, Morrissey is responsible for training and preparation for large-scale incidents and weapons of mass destruction. Additionally, he recommends and chooses the mass casualty incident system and the appropriate products his team will be using. MITRE people are aware that he is an EMT, so when a group of programmers wanted to do large-scale computer processing to select out events that they were interested in (i.e., biological and chemical) they called Morrissey. Since most programmers don't have medical training, they asked him to attend certain courses then whittle the material down to a two-hour briefing. Shifts for the Amherst Emergency Medical Service are broken into day and night 12-hour periods. Some weeks go by without anything happening then five calls come within 24 hours. Morrissey's shift is Monday night. Everyone knows his volunteer schedule and tries to work around it. When MITRE duty calls, he swaps with other volunteers. Morrissey maintains this schedule for the satisfaction of making a difference in peoples' lives. He's the sort of person who stops at accident scenes and helps if someone is in need—being an EMT enables him to offer medical assistance. "You are electing to become one of those who prepare," he says. "You choose to say that if there is a voice crying out in anguish and in pain, you will show up, bind up the wound, and begin the process of transport to definitive medical intervention." Morrissey reminds us that it's essential that EMTs move as quickly as possible. From the time of injury to the time the patient is in surgery should be less than an hour. So if you see a medical emergency vehicle with its siren on, please move out of the way and stop your car.
Page last updated: June 11, 2003 | Top of page |
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