I would like to take a moment to publicly acknowlege and say 'Thank You' to my friends who work for Boston EMS. On Monday, when other people were running for cover, these men and women were running towards the smoke and the noise. Those who volunteered to work the Marathon did so figuring that they would be handing out blankets and Vaseline to a few crazies with nipples rubbed raw from running for 5 hours. Instead, they were thrown into a scene of unimaginable horror.
You can train for a Mass Casualty Incident but all the training in the world cannot prepare you for bombs blowing people up as they walk down the sidewalk. You cannot prepare for finding young children riddled with shrapnel. You cannot prepare for losing your footing on bloody sidewalks.
In almost every picture you see of the carnage that happened on Boylston Street there is someone in a brown uniform helping strangers without regard for their own safety. Two bombs had just gone off and no-one knew if there were more bombs to come. These folks ran towards the smoke and the noise. I know every one of those men and women; I’ve had the honor of working with them for the past 15 years. We were fortunate where I work, we only got a handful of victims and every one of them walked out the door. We were lucky, they were lucky. Not everyone was that lucky. The men and women of EMS and the ER staffs throughout the city rose to the occasion and performed admirably in extremely tough conditions. These people will be dealing with the emotional toll of that day for a long time.
Boston will rise above this. This city has too many people like the men and women of Boston EMS, people who run towards the smoke and the noise.
PTN