Before the uniform, there was a version of me learning how to survive.

After the uniform, there is a version of me who shows up when survival is happening in real time for someone else.

Both of those people are me. They just never expected to meet.

I grew up on stories about a wreck that happened before I was born. How the scene looked. How chaotic it was. How they flew my grandfather out and that’s what saved him. How my grandmother died on impact.

I didn’t know it then, but those stories planted something in me. A quiet understanding that when everything falls apart, strangers in uniforms step in and change what happens next.

I think that’s where EMS started for me.

Years later, life taught me a different lesson. What it feels like to be the one on the floor. What it sounds like when your voice breaks from begging. What silence feels like when it should be filled with footsteps.

That’s where survival started for me.

Now I wear the same kind of uniform I grew up hearing about, and I walk into rooms where someone else’s world has just come undone.

Sometimes I recognize the look in their eyes.

The flinch.
The too-quick “I’m fine.”
The way their body is bracing for something that already happened.

I never tell them I understand.

But I do.

EMS didn’t make me strong. It just gave my strength somewhere to go.

Every time the tones drop, I go. Not because I’m fearless. Not because I’m a hero. But because I know, deep in my bones, what it means when someone shows up — and what it means when no one does.

This blog is where those two lives meet.

The one that learned how to survive.

And the one that now responds to survival in progress.

There will be hard stories here. There will be dark humor. There will be moments from the front seat at 3am that make no sense to anyone who hasn’t lived it. There will be honesty that isn’t polished or inspirational.

Just real.

Because I survived something that should have broken me.

And now I answer 911 calls.

That’s where this story begins.