The two decades that Tom Ulrey has worked as a paramedic have shown him gruesome scenes of human injury that he said usually make for the worst day of a person’s life.

But as he explained, working on an ambulance for Freeport EMS for the past eight years is rewarding, too, because he and his colleagues get to provide some reprieve on the worst day of their callers’ lives.

These aspects of the job can lead to high turnover in the field of EMS because as Ulrey put it, “the money’s just not there with the current funding model” agencies have. While he said wages have increased in the past two to three years, that amount may not be enough to offset the stress of the high intensity situations EMS workers experience.

And those high intensity situations are definitely going to arise in the line of work Ulrey and his colleagues are in. There may be other supports needed for ambulance personnel, like funding for counseling services or mandatory mental health days off. The staffing shortages EMS agencies have suffered in recent years show that more supports are needed to keep people in the job.

Because, as much as Ulrey said he likes serving an important role in other’s lives, that doesn’t necessarily pay the bills or negate the negative effects of stress or pressure.

If there is a sign that there is another issue with keeping EMS agencies staffed, it’s the scenes Ulrey described to the Butler Eagle. It may be time to look into further staff supports before even more paramedics and EMTs leave the job.

— ET