Emergencies don’t always take Christmas off, which means the people whose job it is to respond to those emergencies can’t either. Law enforcement officers, emergency room nurses, firefighters and paramedics could potentially be on shift — frequently for 24 hours — on December 25, when most other people are opening presents and drinking coffee with family. At Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle in Columbus, about four people will man the ambulance service in addition to the nurses in the emergency room, said ambulance services director Chris Bourland. At Columbus Fire and Rescue, about four firefighters will spend Dec. 25 at each of the five stations in the city, and regular patrols of Columbus police officers will be out in addition to the handful of officers working overtime at DUI checkpoints Christmas Eve and the early hours of Christmas morning.
Starkville
Some law enforcement officers, firefighters and other emergency responders will report to work today in Starkville, too.
“Would I like to be at the house on Christmas Day?” asked Shedrick Hogan, a paramedic and the assistant manager of the ambulance services at OCH Regional Medical Center in Starkville. “Of course I would, but I know somebody has to come in to make sure that things get covered in case something happens to somebody.”
Hogan has worked at OCH for about 26 years. He hasn’t worked every one of those Christmases, but he has worked plenty and he will work this one.
When he doesn’t work Christmas, he spends time with his family, especially his daughter who is now 15. They unwrap presents, eat and occasionally visit relatives.
This year, they’ll unwrap presents Christmas Eve, Hogan said. Then the next day, he has to be at the hospital at 8 a.m., where he’ll be until 8 a.m. Monday.
Switching shifts
Holding Christmas on a different day is pretty typical for paramedics, police officers or firefighters working Christmas.
“The older guys are used to it, and we either have Christmas before or after the 25th,” said Marco Rodriguez, an engineer with Columbus Fire and Rescue, who works at Fire Station One.
Capt. Richard McBride, who also works at Fire Station One, will have Christmas with his family on Monday this year to accommodate both his Christmas schedule and the Christmas Eve schedule of his son, an emergency medical technician in Monroe County.
He and Rodriguez said sometimes firefighters switch shifts with each other. They know a year in advance when they’ll be working, so often younger unmarried guys without their own families will switch shifts with a firefighter with small children. The unmarried firefighter will take the Christmas shift, so the dad can be home opening presents with his kids, and the dad will take the New Year’s Eve shift, so the unmarried firefighter can go to parties with friends.
A normal day…sort of
For those working on Christmas — usually about four at each of the five stations in Columbus — it’s business as usual, Rodriguez said. They check equipment and prepare for calls. But they also try to make the atmosphere festive, McBride said. They’ll eat together and play Dirty Santa, a Christmas game where everyone brings a gift and goes in a circle picking them out, occasionally stealing a gift someone else has unwrapped if they like it.
“Of course, you’ve got a fire department family and then you’ve got your home family,” McBride said. “So your fire department family, the guys try to get together and do a little something, eat, exchange a few gifts.”
It’s the same at the hospitals, Bourland said. If the ER nurses aren’t busy with patients, they and the paramedics get together and share food.
“Here, we tend to eat a lot,” he said. “Eat a lot and bring food and stay pretty busy. We do get to sit down a minute, we tend to just hang out, because we are a family here. We’re here about as much of the time as we are with our other family. It is our family away from family.”
But if he were with his own family, he’d be drinking hot cocoa or hunting with his kids, he said. Still, he knows someone has to be at the hospital for families with sick or injured members — especially around the holidays.
“We’re still going to have sick people,” he said. “Somebody’s got to stay here and take care of them.”
‘We’re here’
Hogan feels the same way. One memorable Christmas Day several years ago, a man in Starkville had a heart attack. Hogan and the other paramedics on duty responded and had to provide him with medical attention on the scene, even using defibrillators.
“About six or seven months later, the guy came back up here and thanked all of us,” he said. “That was pretty cool, him actually taking the time out of his schedule to remember us.”
It’s usually pretty quiet for him on Christmas — “knock on wood,” he said — so if they’re not busy at OCH, they’ll be watching football and eating together.
“We’re here in case something happens,” he said. “We will be coming.”
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