In This Episode A reader tells how she was inspired to change her life. And that leads to a powerful thinking tool: running scenarios can save your life. I’ll show you how, and tell the story of how they probably saved my life.

Tweet
Jump to Transcript
How to Subscribe and List of All Episodes
Show Notes

* The earlier episode I mentioned: 027: Think… or React?
* The story of the deer that jumped in front of me on an ambulance call: The Risks of Emergency Responses.
* The other story I mentioned about someone hitting a bear.
* Menu of all EMS Stories in this blog.

Transcript
Welcome to Uncommon Sense, I’m Randy Cassingham.
This is a requested re-issue of a first-season episode that was spurred by a letter from a reader. Kellie in Pennsylvania wrote, “I want to thank you for being such an inspiration with your stories about being a medic. Every time I read a blog post about your experiences, it stirred something inside of me. I became a certified EMT last week.”
She closed with a smiley face, and now I have a smiley face. But that was a pretty brief note from Kellie, and I wanted to know more. I asked her if she was volunteering on the side or what. She replied, “I’m actually hoping to make it a full-time career. The school I went to provides the program in partnership with the local EMS. After doing a few field shifts with them as a student, I realized that I really wanted to be part of their team. So I busted ass in school, graduated top of my class, and after interviewing with one of the people present when I won my award for the best grade, I have a tentative full-time offer from them.
“I’m just waiting on the state to put in my credentials for my certification to drive the ambulance, and they are moving at the speed of government. And then I can hopefully get an official offer. I’m being super cautious because I don’t actually have that official offer in hand yet, but I’m so excited and happy because I’ve dreamed of being in EMS for years ever since I started reading This is True and following you, and I’ve worked so hard to make this happen. I actually took a huge leap of faith and quit my full-time job so I could focus 100% on school, even though it was all night classes, and my wonderful husband has worked super hard to make that possible. I can’t wait to start.”
She later confirmed she got the job.
When my wife, Kit, and I got certified, we had to keep our full-time jobs: This is True readers needed their newsletters! And I needed to pay my mortgage. Because I had been certified as an Advanced Life Support medic before, and worked in the field full-time for about six years, it was pretty easy for me to re-certify at a lower level, even though there had been a 20-year hiatus. Still, things change in medicine in 20 years, so I did have to read the book. I had to learn what was new and what the local protocols were. Still, both of us wanted to be part of serving the community in a way that we could.
It isn’t something you just go to a weekend class and then ...