EMS Tribute

Joseph Treadwell delivers his Utah EMT of the Year Award Acceptance Speech

Salt Lake City, UT, May 21, 2007 - Joseph Treadwell, a firefighter-captain with Murray Fire Department, was awarded the Utah EMT of the Year Award at the EMS Awards Ceremony today, largely for his efforts on a tragic incident that occurred Christmas Eve 2006.  Joseph’s comments serve as a tribute to EMS personnel everywhere, and demonstrate the emotional highs and lows, the sense of duty, and the honor that defines this service of saving lives.

The Utah EMT of the Year Award - Acceptance Speech: Capt. Joseph Treadwell

"I would like to accept this award for all of those who have spent most of their lives serving our cities and towns in this world we know as EMS.  It is both privilege and duty that carries us onward.  And although I am the one recognized today, my peers with tenure in this profession know very well the price and the reward of our service.

They have heard the tones go off late at night, and known by the slightest change in a dispatchers voice they’ve heard a hundred times before,  that this call is different.

They know the feel of arriving on a scene of twisted metal and leaking anti-freeze. Quickly assessing the carnage amongst the deafening silence of the one’s who do not cry out for help.

They know the helplessness in waiting for the extrication to release this deadly metals grip so you can do what you’ve trained day after day for.

They have experienced the emotional evisceration that erupts when you discover the lifeless patient in your arms is only seven years old and feels just like the daughter you hugged when you left for work that day.

And perhaps they too have pleaded with God between rescue breaths, the one prayer they waited their whole career to use, “Lord please let me heal like Jesus did…Please Lord it’s Christmas Eve… just let me heal like Jesus did.”  

And then to gather your scattered gear amongst the stained white sheets and ask yourself why…until someone mentions something about a drunk driver. And as those words scream in your head, you never even hear the roar of the helicopter taking off. 

To know what it’s like to go home the next morning with aching hollowness inside, yet you smile and try to hide your family from the pain of what you’ve seen. But each time your  seven year old daughter hugs you that day, or sings her Christmas song ,you feel the wind suck out of your body as you’re reminded that there is a father grieving  at that very same moment…begging to feel those little arms around his neck just one more time.

And then another day comes, the uniform goes on, the ache  is still there and will be for awhile, it all comes with the career we’ve chosen.  But ironically you can’t ever imagine giving that duty to anyone else; to leave this community would be far more painful.

My fellow lifers in EMS, I am honored to stand among you and accept this award on all our behalf’s.   

Thank you."

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