Growing up, the first person that I can remember idolizing as a hero was a British RAF pilot. His name was Douglas Bader. Bader was an athletic, slightly rebellious man who lost both of his legs in the crash of his airplane in 1931. He was discharged from the RAF, but rejoined in 1939 and subsequently commanded the first RAF Canadian Fighter Squadron. Bader developed unorthodox battle tactics, taking the fight to the enemy out over the English Channel, rather than waiting for them to engage over targets in Britain. He was criticized by some, but ultimately his tactics allowed him to shoot down 23 enemy aircraft from the cockpit of his Hurricanes and Spitfires, saving untold numbers of lives in the process, making him the fifth highest ace in the RAF. And he accomplished all this through tremendous physical and mental adversity. (For a good account of his life read Paul Brickhill’s book, Reach for the Sky, published in 1954.)

After that, I had a series of hockey heroes: Paul Henderson, Dave Keon, Stan Makita, Bobby Baun, Borje Salming, Bobby Clarke, … well, the list goes on. And, as mentioned in a previous column, I also had television heroes: Johnny and Roy, Steve Austin (the Six Million Dollar Man, not the wrestler), Thomas Magnum, Kojak. Okay, some were heroes, some were just kind of cool guys that I wanted to be like.

The word hero has many meanings and connotations. It can mean the lead character in a story or a poem. It can mean someone who distinguishes themselves through great achievements in battle or sport. A hero can be a demigod; someone larger than life. In mythology, the word hero refers to “a man, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits, and favored by the gods; a person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life: soldiers and nurses who were heroes in an unpopular war; a person noted for special achievement in a particular field: the heroes of medicine.” (Dictionary.com definitions.)

While these are all admirable ideals, traits and qualities, I increasingly saw them being abstracted and exaggerated by the media at every opportunity in an effort to obtain more viewers or readers. People doing good deeds for strangers, often involving only the smallest amount of risk, are labeled heroes every day by news programs in an effort to get you and I and the masses out there to tune in at 6 and 11. And the news consuming public, in part out of their hunger for it, in part because they are so blasé about real information (and therefore need to be jolted with hyperbole, fluff and eye candy), eat it all up.

Certain groups and professions take that public hunger and manipulate it for their own benefit. And again, the media, in their thirst to create news and not just report it, lap it up and dish it out like so much gruel on our wide-screen plasma entertainment systems. It makes me cynical.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but in the 80s, Bonnie Tyler sang a song called “I Need a Hero”. The lyrics speak to the need to find, create and elevate mere mortals to lofty heights: Where have all the good men gone / And where are all the gods? / Where’s the street-wise Hercules / To fight the rising odds? / Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed? / Late at night I toss and I turn and I dream of what I need / I need a hero!

In emergency medical services, for the most part, we don’t look for heroes. In fact, we shun heroes and the search for them, even amongst our colleagues. In my many years in this business, more often than not I have seen paramedics walk away from the cameras and the lime light, preferring to remain anonymous, to shun the spotlight, even following the most amazing of incidents and circumstances. Some of this, of course, is a legitimate fear of the camera and shyness. Some because in most agencies, the front line paramedic isn’t even permitted to speak to the media. I think this policy is unwise, but it’s not my call. If we don’t speak on our own behalf, I know who will speak. And it won’t be on our behalf. So, while I don’t believe we should become shameless self-promoters, I think it behooves us to be more media friendly, if for no other reason than to ensure that somebody will get the story right.

Paramedics are not like police officers and firefighters. Health and safety legislation in all provinces distinguishes us from them, in part, by allowing paramedics and EMS workers to stand on the sidelines (figuratively speaking) and not put ourselves in harm’s way, unless somebody’s life is directly threatened by our inaction. So it sometimes goes against the grain when one of our own risks his or her life in an effort to save someone else. I have seen that reaction and it bothers me. And I have heard of paramedics receiving written reprimands for doing the same things that police officers on the same call were doing, where those same police officers received awards for bravery. This is nonsensical in the extreme! We need to welcome and acknowledge—and indeed reward—such acts of bravery and courage. But our fear of heroes causes us to pause.

Am I on a hero quest? Do I wish to see paramedics play the hero game? My answer to those questions is an emphatic “No!” The hero mentality is a liability on this job. The individual that seeks to set himself up as a hero or saviour is destined for disappointment—or worse—death or injury to himself and, possibly, to others around him. We do very little to screen out such individuals from employment in EMS. Arguably, not doing so has already cost people their lives.
It must be considered dangerous—psychologically speaking—to demand hero status of oneself. I know of at least one case where it would appear that failing to live up to this ideal caused a new paramedic in Ontario to commit suicide a number of years ago. And the label “hero” can carry with it expectations of infallibility that no one can live up to. Take, for example, the case of paramedic Robert O’Donnell. Most of you probably won’t know his name, but Robert O’Donnell was one of the key individuals involved in effecting the rescue of Jessica McClure, the 18-month old child who became trapped inside a well in Midland, Texas, in 1987. It took rescuers, including O’Donnell, fifty-eight hours to free “Baby Jessica” from that well. Co-workers describe a progressive withdrawal from work, peers, and life in general as besetting O’Donnell in the months and years following the McClure rescue. O’Donnell committed suicide eight years after those events in Texas. While the decline in his health is possibly best characterized as an extreme case of post-traumatic stress disorder, it is also possible that his psychological make-up made him more susceptible to becoming a victim to its ravages, and according to friends and co-workers, that may have included issues of performance and heroism.

Five for Fighting may have said it best with lyrics from their song, Superman: It may sound absurd … but don’t be naïve / Even heroes have the right to bleed / I may be disturbed … but won’t you concede / Even heroes have the right to dream / It’s not easy to be me.We need to stop using the term hero so much in our society. But we also need to come up with more ways of recognizing and acknowledging true excellence in the work performed by people in EMS. What we do every day is worthy of recognition by our peers and by the communities we serve. Frequently, paramedics perform great feats of bravery and displays of courage under the most demanding of scenarios where the average person would have crumbled. These deeds need to be rewarded and recognized for what they are. Heroics? Maybe. But, in a society where such terms are bandied about with such reckless abandon, the word hero and its derivatives may become meaningless and get relegated to the junk heap beside “grass roots” and “the new normal”.