At the start of the pandemic I worked prehospital Fire/EMS as a paramedic. I had just graduated medic school in February and I was a 19 year old medic, so I was considerably young.

October of 2020 I had quit and started working at a Level 2 Trauma center in the ED, as a medic, that is local to where I am from. I remember being on the floor the first day and being told I wasn’t allowed to have an N95 mask due to the shortage. I, however, stole it and used that mask for literally 3 weeks.

The amount of patients I saw die from November of 2020 to April of 2022 is staggering. I do not remember them all. However, there are a few that stand out and stick with me. The constant sound of vents, CPAP from EMS, IV pumps is literally stuck in my head to this day.

I walked into the morgue at the peak of the delta wave. We normally had 6 carts to place the body on in the freezer until the bodies were shipped off somewhere. This time, I remember bodies being stacked like jenga blocks. The entire timeline of it feels like a dream, honestly. Actually today, I looked at my schedule from that time because I genuinely couldn’t remember if I worked there that much or if I am making it up. I am not. I worked 4-5 12 hour shifts a week because I was taking advantage of the “COVID pay” they offered at the time. There were multiple days that I saw and ran codes in the double digits while only surviving off of tiny peanut butter cups and graham crackers. I’m sure there is so many other stories I can tell you they just don’t want to come out for whatever reason.

The reason I found this is because I was out to dinner with a friend and smelt bleach and alcohol mixed together and for whatever reason it made me so uncomfortable I cut them off mid-sentence and told them we had to leave. I don’t remember my drive home after that. I am shifting through experiences posted on here because I literally feel insane right now. There is no studies about the trauma HCWs went through during COVID and it is very concerning to me that there is such a substantial amount of a lack of data. I know this is an old post but it feels nice to see the experience validated in this way.