PULSE Magazine | June/July 2018 Issue PE

Senator Sanders and took his picture. It was pretty exciting to be in the presence of these law makers and have catch a glimpse of how truly hard their jobs can be. We met with Stephen Reynolds from Senator Cornyn’s office. Our conversa- tion was short, in the hall way and circled around any specific needs for EMS. Folks in our group made requests to chance the verbiage in the current healthcare laws and requested additional disaster relief for the coast of Texas. A small group of us was then given the oppor- tunity to have a personal tour of the US Capitol Building by one of

went into cardiac arrest. We placed the defib pads on him and delivered a shock. He was moved to the floor and com- pressions began. This was the first of multiple shocks we delivered along with multiple medications. When we were wheeling him across the hotel lobby he became very quiet suddenly, I asked him if he was OK and he gave me the thumbs up sign with both hands. I remember being amazed that he had endured so much up to this point and was still able to give the two thumbs up, I felt that he was definitely going to make it through this alive as he had a great spirit for survival. It really reminds me of how worthwhile and important our EMS jobs are when I follow up on patients who survive these events and go on to live great lives. RECOGNITION Meeting Governor Ridge in Washington DC was a great experience and it was wonderful to see how healthy and vibrant he was as if the event never even happened. He was very gracious and spent a long time talking with my family about Sen. Cornyn’s intern. We took the underground rail to the capitol and felt like we were in some secret tunnel not available to all. The in itself is an amazing building with so much US history that you can spend days and not get enough. Tuesday evening was Banquet and Awards time at the Empire Ballroom! The award was a beautiful crystal glass award given to each of us by the president of the AAA, Mark Post- ma, as we crossed the stage. The AAA made such a tremen- dous effort to make us feel like true stars at every step of this event. I can’t thank the them

enough for all their hard work to put together such an amazing celebration. Also a special thanks Rafael De La Uz our photographer that followed us. It was great to get to meet such an cool person and learn about his documentary film making career. And a sincere thanks to our Department for supporting and allowing us to travel to Washing- ton DC to receive this special award.

our lives before giving us a special award. It made me feel very proud to be honored like this. The AAA put on a great banquet and awards ceremony and treated us very well. It was great meeting so many other EMS people and learning all their stories.

Brendan Cluskey

RESPONSE The morning we responded on this call was fairly quiet, this was our first call of the day. Myself and my partner arrived first in the room and found the Governor sitting up in bed complaining of chest pain and feeling ill. He looked pale. When I began to place the first EKG electrode he began having full body seizure like activity and

10