The idea of working as an ambulance EMT is becoming more and more attractive. So much so that it’s beginning to motivate me to get a Driver’s License.

Two things: 1. While even most emergency cases might not be life threatening in the time spanning the ambulance ride, some certainly are, and EMT is one of few professions where your actions can be so immediately perceived as a barrier or passageway between life and death. 2. I expect that within a couple years of this type of work, I’d begin to think of strangers as mere bodies, not people. Or, at least, first as bodies, second as people. Personal friends I’ve known for years would retain their character and depth of person, and new people I got to know well would develop these qualities over time, but everyone else I would perceive as vessels of blood and water. I would see them as objects of remarkable complexity, with inputs, outputs, fluid pressure variability, bearers of interconnected systems, etc.