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I'm very glad you and the nearby opioid addicts were able to help that person.

Regarding the EMTs yelling, could they have been trying to clear people away, to be confident the scene safe for themselves (one of the first steps I've heard some first responders have), or to get access to the patient? Or maybe the opioid epidemic is wearing heavily on them, though they keep doing their job?

(I looked into EMT-B training a while ago, and it's a really difficult, scary, and severely underpaid job. I probably couldn't do that job for very long, emotionally, even if I could afford it financially. Ironically, the compensation for being an EMT, helping people, seems unfortunately backwards, by societal value, with a lot of software jobs I'm considering right now.)

I agree with you re: the bottom point about EMT's salaries. It's the same with teachers; they're one of the most essential parts of society, and they're paid so little.

An example: in Georgia, just picking a random county, teachers make around 20,000~60,000$ a year, leaning more toward the lower end. It seems that importance to society and salary are negatively correlated...

You can look them up here: http://open.georgia.gov/openga/salaryTravel/list

Also, a somewhat-related video I watched recently (a fantastic channel, by the way:) https://youtube.com/watch?v=VOAaFyv_shY

> they're one of the most essential parts of society, and they're paid so little.

They can somehow hire enough even at this salaries, and appear to think that's enough. Quality of education is hard to measure, and it takes very long to measure, much longer than a typical election term.

Agreed, however the turnover is terrible. With the low wages and tough working conditions, the department I worked had 15 EMT-firefighters when fully staffed, which was pretty much never. We averaged a little over two and a half new hires a year the time I worked there, nearl 17 percent turnover, every year. Ran into a former coworker a the grocery store a few months ago, he told me an entire shift just quit, a third of the department. That is no way to run a business.

> I agree with you re: the bottom point about EMT's salaries. It's the same with teachers.

It toils be interesting to see if these problems were related. Eg invest heavily in education and teachers, and would the demands on EMTs fall?

>> I agree with you re: the bottom point about EMT's salaries. It's the same with teachers; they're one of the most essential parts of society, and they're paid so little.