Medics tell of pressure, few rewards

WANTED: Self-starters who can take high stress with low pay, handle a daily grind coupled with bouts of life-and-death intensity and deal compassionately with all types of personalities — plus complete state-required training.

An average day for a city EMT or paramedic includes all of the above — and never have the dangers of the job been as visible as they were in the death last week of Yadira Arroyo.

Arroyo, 44, a 14-year FDNY emergency medical technician with five children, died Thursday in the Bronx at the hands of crazed career criminal Jose Gonzalez, according to authorities.

The dedicated and selfless way she performed her job — and the gruesome horror of her death — perfectly illustrated the two extremes of her demanding career, several colleagues told the Daily News Monday.

“The job is very stressful — mentally there’s burnout syndrome,” one veteran medic said. “We turn around and 80% of the calls, its BS, and then you get that one call and it’s something terrible.”

Studies have shown that working as a paramedic or EMT generates higher stress than that experienced by firefighters and police officers.

Medics are paid much less than other first responders, records show. After 14 years on the job, Arroyo’s base pay was $48,153, records show.

By comparison, city firefighters with five years on the job make about $85,292 — and that’s without the minimum overtime guaranteed by their union. A cop with 51/2 years makes $59,588. And a sanitation worker, after a half-decade on the job, pulls in $69,339.

“Most of our members cannot afford to live in the city where we serve,” said Israel Miranda, head of Local 2507, which represents emergency medical technicians. “There should be some sort of salary equity.”

EMTs, as a result, often rely on overtime and second jobs to make ends meet. Arroyo herself was working an overtime shift the day she died, sources told The News.“People work two, three jobs and depend on overtime,” said a retired medic who asked not to be identified. “The cost of living has skyrocketed. People often work hurt because you can’t afford to lose the overtime.”

EMTs and paramedics often spend time acting almost as taxi services for people who call 911 — even when there’s no emergency.

“You have all this training, and you find you’re not responding to real emergencies,” the retired medic said.

“This happens every day, and it pounds away at you,” he added, noting that his biggest fear had always been hitting a pedestrian with his ambulance on an emergency run.

Despite the fact that medics are there to help, it’s not uncommon for people to scream at them or resist their attempts to care for the stricken person.

“You gotta be like a negotiator and keep tempers down,” the retired medic said. “When you knock, you don’t know what’s behind that door.” The scenes can be horrific. “You’d see poverty at its worst,” he said. “Child abuse. I had a whole family of kids burned with an iron that supposedly fell off the ironing table seven times.”The job becomes extremely intense very quickly.

For the active-duty medic, the pediatric cardiac calls were the most difficult.

“You’re dealing with three patients — the baby, the mom and dad,” he said. “And when you lose a patient it’s horrible. You go home saying, ‘Did I do everything I could have?’”

Medics have been caught in shootouts and tossed like rag dolls by PCP-crazed addicts.

“We get mistaken for police officers a lot, out on the jobs,” said a second active-duty medic with about 20 years on the job.

“It’s very dangerous. We’re in stairwells, and it’s dark and people hear radios . . . They think we’re cops. Sometimes people start throwing things at us.”

And being on the street in a mobile office has its rewards — and its challenges.

“A doctor or a nurse in the ER, at least they have a roof and four walls around them,” the FDNY medic said. “We’re giving medical care from the back of an ambulance in all kinds of weather — sleet, snow, whatever. You just have to be able to deal with whatever the call is regardless of conditions.” The work does have its benefits.

“The good part is sometimes you get to go home and say, ‘Hey, I saved a life today,’ ” the 25-year vet said. “It’s one of the best feelings in the world.”