Should EMT’s and paramedic’s pay be equal to firefighters? Absolutely. In the city of New York the EMT and fire department often respond to the same calls, although the EMT and paramedic’s are responding to more calls then the fire department.

The chief of EMT’s at the time in New York stated that assaults on EMT’s and paramedics increased by almost fifty percent from the year 2015 to 2018. Only aware of the information about the victims, the information about the surrounding is unknown upon arrival. Not many people know that when an EMT responds to a drug overdose, the patients who are sometimes confused or aggravated tend to use an act of violent after being “revived” with the anti-overdose (narcan). This breaks the victims high which tends to become aggravated and hostile. Often times a victim will strike the EMT’s being unaware of the situation. Assault towards medical treatment is very common on a daily basis, especially if the victim doesn’t want to seek treatment. With first hand experience as a volunteer firefighter, I experienced an incident where we walked into a house and there was a guy on the ground with a needle in his arm. When the anti-overdose was in effect the victim woke up, they assaulted the EMT and told us to get out of his house. In 2012 an EMT’s responded to give assistance to a victim when they had no choice but to peel off when they began to be shot at. Although they aren’t the people who are rushing into a blazing hot building to rescue someone, they are still on scene to take care of any victims or firefighters with any sorts of injuries. In 2018 more than eighty percent of the 1.7 million incidents to which the department responded were medical, according to department officials.