Paramedic Alexis - "Flowers"

02/14/23 • 19 min

Stories From the Road: First Responder Stories

“We meet so many people in a single shift and, after a while, it does accumulate, but we may be the only first responders someone sees, let alone the last person they see or the last voice they hear on this earth.” - Paramedic Alexis
Flower petals and stems lay strewn about the seats of the car Alexis was photographing – along with brain matter and blood. Her eyes scanned the car’s mangled interior, and she wondered how the call, dispatched as a low-level trauma, could’ve ended up being this: a man fighting for his life, his car wrapped inextricably around a light pole after being clipped and spun by another driver who fled the scene. Upon learning the flight team would be unable to fly because of weather, Alexis headed to help her team transport the man to the hospital – but not before noticing a small card that had been dislodged from the bouquet and plucking it from the wreckage.
Join former paramedic/firefighter and host Phil Klein as he welcomes returning guest Paramedic Alexis. She recalls the rainy day in rural Louisiana nearly a year ago, when she and her partner were blindsided by the severity of an accident that they initially believed could be no more than a fender bender. She shares the heartbreaking note scrawled on the bouquet’s card, her endeavor to find and share the message with its intended recipient, and how its sentiments prompted Alexis to share a very important message of her own with her husband.
Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this story from Alexis, be sure to listen to her other episode, “Two Floors Up” from season four! Please take a moment to give Stories From the Road a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you use to listen. Visit www.storiesfromtheroadpodcast.com for more content.

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Previous Episode

Chief Scott - "Three Weeks, Three New Babies"

“It was a really unique situation because this girl was actually carrying – as a surrogate – the baby for her sister who couldn’t have children, so this was like a super important pregnancy. It had to succeed .” - Chief Scott

Twenty-five years. Fifty deliveries. Three weeks. Three new babies.
Many first responders find that obstetric emergencies are more often studied in the classroom than experienced on the job and, when they do occur, they’re usually few and far between. For Scott, however, a three-week period of his career involved the birth of not one, or two, but three babies. Precise timing was imperative for the calls, which ranged from a pregnant woman in cardiac arrest, to a woman experiencing an uncommon pregnancy complication, to a woman giving birth within just two minutes of Scott’s arrival. Fortunately, all delivered a happy ending to three very grateful families.
Welcome back to season five of Stories From the Road. We're glad you're here! Join host and former paramedic/firefighter Phil Klein as he kicks off the season with returning guest Chief Scott, who has been involved in the delivery of 50 babies – the only statistic he has tracked during his two-and-a-half-decade career. He shares how he’s been privileged to keep in touch with the families and the children he helped during those weeks, and he describes the collective joy among first responders who get to share in being a part of life’s miracles. For Scott, these are the calls that help him persevere through difficult situations and remind him that what he and his fellow first responders do truly matters.
Our seasons are only as good as your stories! Click here to learn more about how your story from the road could be featured in an upcoming episode. If you enjoyed listening to this episode with Chief Scott, be sure to check out his other episodes including "Mentor" from season three and "The Iron Worker" from season four.

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Next Episode

Paramedic Nick - "Since I Walked Away"

“I remember shutting my locker door and then my intuition, my gut instinct, was that was the last time I was going to shut my locker, and I had this like really uneasy feeling of, ‘Ooh, that was really weird. Why did I think that?’ Because that’s not normally a thought that would come to my mind.” – Paramedic Nick

You signed up for this. It’s a phrase that seems to be pervasive among fire departments and police stations across the country – a mantra uttered to justify witnessing the incomprehensible and being asked to fix things that sometimes just can’t be fixed. For Nick, it also served as a message that complemented lessons from his childhood and convinced him to repress the complex emotions he was experiencing as a first responder. This, along with the loss of friends to line-of-duty deaths and suicides and the overwhelming weight of the daily decisions he had to make, led to anger, outbursts, insomnia, nightmares, and the eventual realization that he could take his desire to help others in a much different direction.
Join former paramedic/firefighter and host Phil Klein as he shares the mic with Nick, a former paramedic/firefighter turned best-selling author, podcast host, and founder of the brand Building Grit. Nick has made it his mission to use the insight he gained from his 18-year career and his journey fighting PTSD to help other first responders with their mental health battles. By sharing his experiences, Nick hopes to empower others to tell their own stories and contribute to a greater dialogue around the importance of mental health.
Click here to learn more about Nick's work and to purchase his book, Building Grit: How to fight the fires of PTSD and come out stronger on the other side.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Stories From the Road! Please take a moment to give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, or whichever platform you use to listen. Visit www.storiesfromtheroadpodcast.com to check out other content and episodes.

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