I Hate Blood… and I’m a Paramedic

I’m providing moral support while my girlfriend has a tooth pulled out… I don’t generally like anything to do with teeth, but I make the effort and I hold her hand while the Dentist starts to pull the tooth… the next thing I know, I’m waking up, and the Dentist is telling me not to worry…

“Lots of young men don’t like the sight of blood…”

I look up… and realise I’ve just passed out… I respond “Yes, but you don’t understand… what I do for a living?”

The Dentist smiles at me and says… “Oh, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a Paramedic” I answer sheepishly…

“Oh, I see your problem…”

I’ve always hated blood… and have always been prone to light-headness/episodes of dizzyness when I see blood… it wasn’t until I had been a Paramedic for a number of years, whenI finished a job in which a man had lacerated his carrotid artery, and I spent an intense 2 minutes trying to keep him alive until we reached a hospital (and had blood covering my goggles, face, uniform and entire back of the Ambulance, that I had this realisation… hey, I thought… “I hate blood! – In fact, I’ve always hated blood!”

So, how did I become a Paramedic? Well, I thought when I was younger that I couldn’t do first aid because I hated blood… so, I did a first aid course to get over it… unfortunately, it didn’t help… so I ended up volunteering at a local hospital during my last few years of highschool to somehow improve myself… and from that, I ended employed at the hospital, where, somehow… in an attempt to get away from all the blood one sees in a hospital, the only natural course of action was to become a Paramedic so I could leave the hospital…

Now,  seven years later, and I’m still a Paramedic that can’t stand blood… and yet I love my job…

How does this happen? I have no idea… I’ve passed out telling a friend about a job that I just attended… but while I was at the job, I can concentrate on my job… and don’t have time to really look at all that blood… and feel sick…