구급대원: 죽음에 대처하는 방법과 정서적 회복력

### 구급대원 업무의 감정적 풍경: 슬픔과 삶의 연약함에 대처하기
* 🚑 매트, 브릿, 조지는 구급대원으로서의 경험을 공유하며 **지난 2~5년 동안 빠르게 변화하고 격렬했던 업무의 특성**을 강조합니다.
* 💔 이들은 **직접 감독 없이 신속하게 사고**하고 중요한 책임을 처리해야 하는 긴급 통화 중 혼란스러운 환경을 설명합니다.
* 🗣 중요 사건 스트레스 디브리핑을 통해 구급대원은 고강도 출동 후 자신의 감정을 표현할 수 있으며, **사람마다 슬픔에 대처하는 방식이 다르다**는 점을 인정합니다.
* 😂 유머는 다른 사람들이 부적절하다고 여길 수 있는 상황에서도 **웃음을 터뜨리는 경우**가 많기 때문에 이들에게 중요한 대처 기제가 됩니다.
* 🔍 나중에 개인적으로 공명하는 통화를 떠올리며 **자신의 가족에 대한 기억과 상실감에 대한 경험**을 떠올리면서 작업의 감정적 영향이 드러날 수 있습니다.
* 👥 이들은 사망 현장에서 가족을 지원하는 것이 중요하다고 강조하며, **슬픔에 빠진 사람들이 필요한 도움**을 받을 수 있도록 합니다.
* 🌱 이들은 경험을 통해 **슬픔은 삶의 자연스러운 일부**이며, 매 순간에 대한 감사함과 존재의 연약함을 더 잘 이해할 수 있게 되었습니다.
* 🙏 궁극적으로 이들은 일터에서 죽음을 예측할 수 없는 상황을 목격하면서 **삶에 대한 감사와 사랑하는 사람을 소중히 여기는 것의 중요성**에 대한 메시지를 전합니다.

구급대원들은 죽음과 슬픔에 대처하는 법을 배우고, 삶에 감사하며 사랑하는 사람들을 더 깊이 소중히 여깁니다.

my name is Matt. I'm a paramedic. I've been with American Medical Response for almost 5 years. My name is Brit. I've been a paramedic for 5 years. My name is George. I've been a paramedic for now 2 years. When we are actually working on calls, it's really fast-paced. It's intense. There's a lot going on around you. It can be kind of hectic, kind of chaotic, but it's a lot of fun, a lot of independence, a lot of thinking on your feet, not having direct supervision, and being responsible for some pretty heavy stuff at times. We have calls that are pretty high intensity, maybe like multiple casualties or children or big heavy things. They have a critical incident stress debriefing where they get all the agencies in that were involved with that scene. You just sit down at a table, and people just kind of say how they feel. Everyone deals with pain or grief differently, and as

employees. We do the same thing. Um, you know, it's generally easier because we're not emotionally involved with any of the patients that we're dealing with. And you'd kind of have to be able to detach yourself emotionally and just fall back on this training that we have gotten, you know, just doing our jobs, physically assessing people, and trying to help in any way that we can. Um, and then we deal with our own emotional baggage afterwards with the debriefings and that kind of stuff. It's kind of sick, but we make a lot of jokes. All of us do. We have a, if you don't have a kind of a twisted, sick sense of humor before you start doing this, you'd end up having it. I think that's pretty common through all of Emergency Services is you tend to laugh at a lot of things that probably most people wouldn't laugh at. I think that's probably the biggest coping mechanism during it, uh, when it's

actually happening. You kind of, you don't really, at least for me personally, you don't notice it as much as until afterwards when you have quiet time. You kind of sit there and go, and when it kind of sinks in, and 'cause when you're in the moment, at least for me, it's uh, you kind of just do what you're supposed to do, and you don't see or it doesn't register a lot of the things that are happening around you. I mean, a register is on a, like I guess you'd say a technical level, you know um, but as far as emotionally, you, that part kind of just gets shut off until you have time to kind of sit down and really kind of absorb what whatever it was that just happened. And that's usually for me, that's when things start to correlate between, you know, stuff that may have happened in the past in my personal life and stuff. Um, I mean, there's always calls that you run on people, and you kind of, it hits a different nerve because you

know it. It person might look close to your mom or resemble your mom or have the same accent as your mom, and you see, you know, the pain, so you think of your own family and stuff like that, and how much pain that, you know, and you're grateful that they're okay and things like that. So yeah, there's always times that something's triggered something inside of you. It's just kind of how you deal with it afterwards is the big thing, you know. I've been fortunate not to have anybody what I'm really, really close to pass away, and you know, my first experience with death on a call, it, you know, it was a younger person. I believe he was in his 50s or something like that, and it's just kind of interesting 'cause, you know, you always hear about someone older passing away. You really don't think of it as the younger, so you know, it made you appreciate life a little bit more and cherish your friends and your family, and you know, you want to keep them close.

and tell them I love you, and you know I care about you a little bit more. I was seven when I lost my first grandparent, and uh, it was uh, it was a really uh, very surreal experience going going watching the the family grieve and going to the funeral, and and I really didn't comprehend the the long-term ramifications of having lost my first grandfather um, and having lost other grandparents since. There's a very emotional component to you know losing a family member and and that you can't really um put into words when you're comparing it to to death on the job um, you. It's always a very detached um focus that you have when we're going into another person's home and we're dealing with death in another person's home. You you don't allow yourself to to buy into the family's emotional because we can't um, we have a job to do while we're there, and that has to be our primary focus. Everybody wants to see kind of what's going on, what are they doing, you

know and human n you know human nature. We're all curious. We all want to morbid curiosity, exactly. We all want to find out what's going on, and if it's happening to someone else, it's a lot easier for us to detach. I mean, that's kind of like BR was saying with our job. People just detach themselves and go look at them, go, Oh, ew, look at that. Oh, but 'cause it's not related to you, it's not your family, who cares? It's just another person out there generally. Fire captains or police officers will try and separate family from the victim, especially if it's an emotionally charged scene. Sometimes it gets really emotional in there, and you have to ask for more people to come in to help the paramedic separate that. But you know, as soon as someone passes away, we're the first ones really to kind of come up to you, and you know, we try to tell the person we will stay on scene as long as it takes to make sure that that person gets their

assistance either if they need a priest or, you know, just an ear, a family member, just anything. We're there, and we'll stay on scene as long as it takes to make sure that that person feels supported at that time. You know, it's taught me that everyone does grieve differently. You know, everyone goes through all the stages of grief, but they don't go through them the same, and there's no right or wrong way. And, um, it's made, it's made my experience have made it easier for me to speak about death, and, and, you know, it's made me, um, come to grips with, with death, and that families deal with it every day. Uh, and most of us don't see that. Most, most of us only have a handful of days in our lifetime where we'll have to deal with something like that, and it takes that stigma away from death, death, and you understand that it's just a natural part of life, and you know, everything has to start, and everything has to finish. You never know when your time

here is done. I mean, there's SP it so many times where you see people that are one minute driving along, having a wonderful, you know, Valentine's Day weekend, and the next minute, one of them is dead 'cause they crash the car just coming home to your family every night and, you know, giving your wife or your husband or, you know, your significant other a kiss, or your kids, you know, or whoever it could be, even your dog, you know, just appreciating every second you have 'cause we've seen things that has happened to young kids, we've seen things happen to old people where, you know, it doesn't matter if it's your time, it's your time, and so you just hope that you have one extra day, and you know, every day, you're, you're, I at least feel blessed and, you know, thankful that I have one more day and enjoy that and live it out to the fullest.

Paramedics, Death, and Dying

AStarlitNightSky

구급대원은 급박하고 격렬한 업무 환경에서 스트레스가 많은 상황과 다수의 사상자를 처리하는 경우가 많습니다.

구급대원들은 힘든 출동 후 중요한 사건 스트레스 디브리핑을 통해 자신의 감정을 처리하고 서로를 지원합니다.

구급대원들이 흔히 사용하는 대처 방법 중 하나는 유머를 사용하여 트라우마에 대처하는 것입니다.

화자는 그 순간에는 사건을 완전히 처리하지 못하고 나중에 조용한 시간에 감정적 반응이 드러나는 경우가 많다는 것을 반성합니다.

특히 가족을 닮은 사람과 통화할 때 개인적인 기억과 감정이 어떻게 촉발되는지 설명합니다.

화자는 통화에서 처음으로 죽음을 경험한 이야기를 나누며 젊은 사람을 잃은 충격과 그로 인해 삶에 감사하고 사랑하는 사람을 더 소중히 여기게 되었다는 점을 강조합니다.

가족을 잃고 죽음에 대처할 때의 정서적 영향

어린 나이에 조부모를 잃는다는 것은 장기적인 정서적 영향을 미치는 초현실적인 경험입니다.

다른 사람의 가정에서 일어나는 죽음을 다루는 전문가는 자신의 업무에 우선순위를 두어야 하므로 냉정하게 집중해야 합니다.

인간의 호기심은 종종 죽음의 감정적 영향으로부터 멀어지게 하여 공감하기보다는 관찰하기 쉽게 만듭니다.

애도 기간 중 지원 제공의 중요성

연사는 도움이 필요한 사람들에게 귀를 기울여주거나 다른 형태의 지원을 제공하는 등 곁에 있어주는 것이 중요하다고 강조합니다.

또한 사람마다 애도하는 방식이 다르며 애도의 단계를 거치는 데 옳고 그름이 없다는 점을 강조합니다.

이러한 경험을 통해 화자는 죽음을 받아들이고 죽음을 삶의 자연스러운 일부로 이해하여 죽음과 관련된 낙인을 없애는 데 도움이 됩니다.

사랑하는 사람을 떠나보내는 비극적인 사고에서 보듯이 인생은 순식간에 바뀔 수 있습니다.

가족, 친구, 심지어 반려동물과 함께하는 모든 순간에 감사하는 것이 중요합니다.

하루하루를 축복받았다고 느끼고 삶을 최대한으로 즐기는 것은 소중한 관점입니다.