1/ “Nobody wants to know about what I do. People might pay us lip service and say we’re heroes, but our stories aren’t the kind anyone actually wants to hear about.” #COVID #coronavirus washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06…
2/ “We’re taught in this culture to shun illness like it’s something shameful. We’d rather pretend everything’s fine. We look the other way. That’s what’s happening in New York.”
3/ “We just had 20,000-some people die in this city, and already the crowds are lining back up outside restaurants and jamming into bars. This virus is still out there. “
4/ “I’ve been... trying to revive people, consoling their families — but you can’t even be bothered to stay six feet apart and wear a mask, because why? You’re a tough guy? It makes you look weak? You’d rather ignore the whole thing and pretend you’re invincible?”
5/ “Some of us can’t stop thinking about it. I woke up this morning to about 60 new text messages from paramedics who are barely holding it together. Some are still sick with the virus. At one point we had 25 percent of EMTs in the city out sick.”
6/ “I’ve got five paramedics in the ground from this virus already and a few more on ventilators. Another rookie EMT just committed suicide. He was having trouble coping with what he was seeing. He was a kid — 23 years old. He won’t be the last.”
7/ “Do you know how much EMTs make in New York City? We start at $35,000. We top out at $48,000 after five years. That’s nothing. That’s a middle finger. It’s about 40 percent less than fire, police and corrections — and those guys deserve what they get.”
8/ “Heroes, right? The anger is blinding. One thing this pandemic has made clear to me is that our country has become a joke in terms of how it disregards working people and poor people.”
9/ “It felt like watching a bomb go off in slow motion. You had time to see who was going to get hit and who had the ability to escape. I saw in Manhattan, on the East Side, people clearing out of the city to set up shop in the Hamptons or rent property upstate.”
10/ “The business class packed up their computers and went off to work elsewhere. Meanwhile, the rest of us were huddling with no ventilators, like fish in the barrel.”
11/ “we’re supposed to be this great society, and this guy can’t even miss one paycheck. There’s no safety net. The system we have is broken, and this 7-year-old is seeing her dad get CPR. ... I did 14 cardiac arrests that day. I didn’t save anybody.”
12/ “The thing about being a paramedic is you need to have some reservoir of hope. This job is the ultimate backstage pass. It can make you believe in humanity, but it can also suck the humanity out of you. You see death, suffering — grief in its rawest forms.”
13/ “I don’t have that much faith in what we are anymore. America is supposed to be the best, right? So why aren’t we united at all? Why aren’t we taking care of each other? The virus is hanging around, waiting for us to make more mistakes, and I’m afraid that we will.”
14/ OUR HEROES DESERVE BETTER. WE OWE THEM OUR 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 & RESPECT. #COVID #corovavirus I wear a mask because #IRespectYou.
This is TODAY. NOW. 
Thanks @sshepherd_phd for sharing this: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
