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Connie Meyer, vice president of National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians; Tom Wilson, the national EMT-paramedic of the year; and John Hawkins from Laerdal Medical Corporation, the award’s sponsor.

In retrospect, it should come as no surprise that Tom Wilson, the national EMT-paramedic of the year, found out what he wanted to do with his life by accident.

As a high school senior, he was driving around El Dorado when he came upon a bad car wreck. A number of people were injured. Wilson, a lifeguard at the local pool, knew CPR and first-aid, so he stopped to help. He found the driver slumped over the steering wheel. She had a pulse, but she wasn’t breathing.

Wilson got her airway open and began rescue breathing until the ambulance arrived. The girl made it to the hospital but died there.

“I always wondered was there something more I could have done, something I could have done better,” Wilson said.

He never forgot the girl. And he never forgot the firemen who extricated the girl from the wreck.

“I saw these guys roll up in the ambulance, and they looked like heroes to me, running down the road,” Wilson said. “You know, here-they-are-to-save-the-day kind of thing.”

So, Wilson decided to become an emergency medical technician. He enrolled in school, graduated, got into an ambulance and started doing “the whole life-saving thing.”

“I thought that was just the neatest thing,” Wilson said.

Every day, he could make a difference. Every day, someone’s life might be in his hands. Every day, there was something new. The ambulance service never got boring; he loved it.

“It wasn’t like a regular 9-to-5 job,” Wilson said. He never felt like not showing up for work.

So, Wilson decided to get more training and become a paramedic.

Fast forward to 2003. Wilson was still trying to help people, still trying to make a difference, except then he was in Iraq as an army medic. He had an 18-month commitment to Uncle Sam, with six months of his service in Iraq.
Wilson was teaching some of the first EMT and first-responder courses in the country’s post-Saddam era, and his students were members of the Iraqi National Guard and other coalition forces.

In his spare time, Wilson was working on a plan to help military medics land jobs as civilian EMTs after they complete their active duty.

When Wilson returned home, Ken Kelley, Wilson’s employer and owner of ProMed Ambulance in El Dorado, nominated him for the 2006 Arkansas Paramedic of the Year Award.

There wasn’t any single dramatic rescue, no pulling babies out of a burning building or anything, that made Wilson outstanding, Kelley said.

“I guess probably the biggest thing is just his commitment to helping others in any way he can” Kelley said.

In addition to helping train ProMed’s new workers, Wilson keeps up with the latest medical research, Kelley said, and has used that knowledge to revise the company’s treatment protocols.

For instance, Wilson helped get 12-lead EKG technology — which gives emergency personnel a much more detailed view of what’s going on in the patient’s heart — from the hospital to the streets, Kelley said. Wilson then pushed ProMed’s medical director to adopt the technology.

Kelley nominated Wilson for the Arkansas award, and when he won that, Kelley nominated Wilson for the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) Asmund S. Laerdal Award for Excellence.

One would think the association would have plenty of heroes from whom to choose, but Connie Meyer, vice president of NAEMT, said the group struggles to get nominees. Paramedics and EMTs are an unassuming bunch, reluctant to draw attention to their deeds, Meyer said.

“Tom’s the same way,” Kelley said.

While modesty is not a requirement for being a good paramedic, Kelley said, personal sacrifice is. The long shifts mean workers often get to spend less time with their families.

In addition, a good paramedic has to have a strong medical background because of all the advances in technology, Kelley said. An ambulance is no longer just a fast ride to the hospital.

“You’ve got to have it in your heart. You’ve got to have it in your head. And you’ve got to have a willingness to serve,” said Kelley.

Wilson said compassion may be the most important quality for a paramedic.
“You pretty much have to treat other people or other people’s family as you would your own family member,” Wilson said.

Paramedics and EMTs have a limited time with patients, Wilson explained. There may be 20 minutes before a patient gets dropped off at the hospital, and the rescue workers may never see that person again.

But the paramedics and EMTs have a tremendous impact on the patients’ lives and the lives of their families in that brief period, Wilson said. The family members look to the rescue workers for help.

“Doing a good job, being compassionate, means a lot,” said Wilson.



January 2008

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