Saluting ‘heroes among us’
EMTs parade from Worcester to Fenway
Emergency medical workers, who have been hitting it out of the park, were honored at Fenway Park.
It was all part of National EMS Week — a celebration that has taken on extra significance this year because of the coronavirus crisis.
A fleet of more than 50 ambulances from across the state — a “Convoy of Champions” — traveled from Worcester’s UMass Medical Center to Fenway on Wednesday, where the ambulances circled the warning track. The middle of the outfield had a large heart with the word “EMS” mown into the grass.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical roles of first responders, Dr. David Brown of Massachusetts General Hospital said during the ceremony.
“Your willingness to be on the tip of the sphere, serving our communities in their time of great need, has been inspirational during the COVID pandemic,” Brown, chief of emergency medicine at MGH, said from Fenway’s second base.
“Celebrating EMS Week just after cresting the surge of the pandemic seems highly appropriate and deeply meaningful,” he said.
EMS providers have led the way in meeting the surge in Massachusetts, Brown said.
“You have been on the very frontlines, putting yourselves at risk while evaluating ill patients, stabilizing them and transporting many to hospitals,” he said.
Gov. Charlie Baker in a video said the EMS professionals are “the heroes among us.”
“You are the frontline again in what we would all call the most significant global health challenge of the past decade,” Baker said. “You make our communities safer and stronger, you make our people better.”