“Are you clear?”

Those are three words an emergency medical technician never wants to hear from dispatch. It means one thing: someone is in trouble and they need help. 

It was my third day and I was standing in the back of the ambulance, cleaning up from the last call. The crew I was working with looked at each other as the radio pinged with a priority 1 code 3 call. Where I work, priority 1 means you’re going to an emergency room and code 3 means get there as fast as you can, no holds barred. The driver flipped on the lights and sirens, and made a 180 degree turn on a busy four-lane road. I was thrown to the opposite side of the ambulance and quickly grabbed my seat and buckled in.

When we got to the nursing home, we realized the room we were heading to was far away. We sprinted with the stretcher across the halls for what felt like forever. When we arrived at the right wing, we realized we were running at full speed toward a COVID-19 wing. We were not told whether our patient actually had COVID-19 or why he was in a COVID-19 wing, but we didn’t stop, we didn’t think twice. I unzipped the plastic contaminant cover and we ran straight in.

When we walked into the room, the man in front of us was barely breathing. We quickly got to work: moving him into a better position to get some air in, giving him oxygen and getting vitals. We got him on the stretcher as quickly as we could and got him to the nearest emergency room. To this day, I have no clue if he survived.

On our way out of that nursing home’s COVID-19 wing, I looked around while we were running. Around me, people were suffering. These were people who healed beyond the intensive care unit stage of a serious COVID-19 infection and were now in the next phase: healing and learning to live the rest of their lives after surviving a deadly virus.

In my year working as an EMT-B doing patient transfers for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients, I met hundreds of people learning to live post-COVID-19 infection. They were past what most people think is the “hard part.” They were out of intensive care and out of any “true danger.” I’ve seen the same look in so many people’s eyes as I walk them out of a hospital. The look of realizing their life will never be the same. Some of the elderly patients I cared for may remain in a nursing home for the rest of their lives. I’ve met people who got COVID-19 and could no longer walk. Many of my patients went from living relatively independent lives to now being permanently dependent on someone else.

This pandemic may feel long gone to some but unfortunately, it’s not. Though omicron seems to be more mild for those who’ve received their vaccine, the strain a new variant puts on the health care system can’t be overlooked. Hospital beds are filling up, health care workers are being asked to pull extra shifts to manage the influx of patients and many staff members have to quarantine because they are contracting the virus.

Only about a quarter of Americans are fully vaccinated and have received a booster. As tired as we all are of wearing masks and staying six feet apart, rushing a return to normalcy only makes it more likely that we’ll end up with new restrictions. So, keep your masks on and above your nose, get your booster, have that uncomfortable conversation with your unvaccinated friend or family member and maybe skip that concert or sporting event. I promise you the discomfort is worth not ending up in the back of an ambulance.

Jane Leff is a McCormick senior. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.