For EMTs crowded into ambulances, the coronavirus is always in the air Updated: January 25 Published January 25
Emergency medical workers Trenton Amaro, from left, Joshua Hammond, Thomas Hoang and Charles Navarro are crammed in an ambulance as they treat a patient in Placentia, Calif., Friday, Jan. 8, 2021. EMTs and paramedics have always dealt with life and death they make split-second decisions about patient care, which hospital to race to, the best and fastest way to save someone and now they re just a breath away from becoming the patient themselves.(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
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For EMTs, every ambulance passenger is a potential COVID-19 threat: We don t have the luxury of being 6 feet apart capitalgazette.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from capitalgazette.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In ambulances, an unseen, unwelcome passenger: COVID-19
Jan. 25, 2021 at 8:39 am
STEFANIE DAZIO, Associated Press
It’s crowded in the back of the ambulance.
Two emergency medical technicians, the patient, the gurney and an unseen and unwelcome passenger lurking in the air.
For EMTs Thomas Hoang and Joshua Hammond, the coronavirus is constantly close. COVID-19 has become their biggest fear during 24-hour shifts in California’s Orange County, riding with them from 911 call to 911 call, from patient to patient.
They and other EMTs, paramedics and 911 dispatchers in Southern California have been thrust into the front lines of the national epicenter of the pandemic. They are scrambling to help those in need as hospitals burst with a surge of patients after the holidays, ambulances are stuck waiting outside hospitals for hours until beds become available, oxygen tanks are in alarmingly short supply and the vaccine rollout has been slow.