At 7 a.m., roughly an hour before the end of my shift as a paramedic in Pittsburgh, my colleague and I were dispatched to a patient who was violently vomiting and not alert. We arrived within 10 minutes, grabbed our gear and approached the front door.
While walking up the front steps, I couldn’t help but notice my legs ached and my head hurt − more pressure than pain. I knew this pressure because I’d felt it many times on this job. It’s exhaustion due to lack of sleep − inevitable with this type of work, just part of the job.
