A paramedic needing emergency help at an EMS appreciation event may sound like something you'd only see on TV, but that exact situation unfolded in Chatham earlier this week.
Chatham-Kent EMS was participating in the national Paramedic Services Week, with a BBQ and open house Wednesday at headquarters.
According to primary care paramedic, Amy Larsen, the staff was having lunch when a call for service came in. She went to grab her keys, but that's when she heard one of her coworkers might be in distress.
"I heard my partner Sarah saying 'are you OK? Are you OK?' and then she alerted me that something was wrong," Larsen said. "I turned around and one of my coworkers had a complete airway obstruction."
Larsen said it can take a minute for someone to lose consciousness when their airway is completely blocked, so the situation became pretty serious. She then got behind the choking coworker and waited for instructions from her partner.
"I couldn't see his face so she [Larsen's partner] was telling me what was going on in front. I just kind of wrapped my arms around him and prepared to do the Heimlich maneuver." Larsen said. "Once my partner told me to start I thrusted once and a little bit of food came out. I thrusted again, a bit harder, and a big glob of food came out and he started breathing again."
Even though situations like this are what Larsen was trained for, she said this one was particularly stressful because it was a coworker and friend.
"I'll say if he was going to do it, he did it at the right place," Larsen said. "I've never had to do that on a co-worker before and I hope I never have to again."
Larsen said she fully understands the irony of the situation and said the department was able to laugh about later in the day.
"The first thing I did was force him to give me a great big hug because I was pretty happy he was OK," Larsen said. "Because we're paramedics and that's what we do, we all joked about it later. That is kind of how we move on and get over things. We were all teasing and laughing about it later on, but it was a very serious situation."
There is another BBQ and open house Friday, June 1 at the headquarters from 11am to 2pm. The event is open to the public and Larsen said she hopes there's no repeat of Wednesday's situation.