It was midnight on Friday and I was at home. Just as I started to watch my favorite movie, I was startled by a noise only a volunteer can appreciate, the sound of my pager at an obnoxious volume. I immediately grabbed my keys and ran out the door. I turned on my flashing blue light and drove to the garage for an emergency call. Within minutes, we arrived at the house where a patient was having difficulty breathing and stabilized him enough to transport him to the hospital he chose - naturally the farthest one with the most traffic lights.

By the time we arrived, his condition had worsened and doctors realized he was a priority patient. Wow, I thought, what if we hadn’t been there when he dialed 911? On the long ride back to the garage, I pondered our impact on the community. As we pulled in and documented the call, I looked at the clock; it was 2:30 a.m. I quietly left to return home, my eyes beginning to close and my body exhausted.

It’s interesting how a community expects an ambulance full of volunteers when they dial 911, at any hour of the night. They expect that when they take a walk in the park, it will be clean. They expect that their community will be perfect, like out of a storybook. But a community would be in trouble if there weren’t caring people willing to sacrifice their time.

When I first joined the ambulance corps, it was for the adrenaline rush that I knew would be even better than the greatest moment in sports. And when I began riding with my town’s finest, I realized that being relied on in a person’s most desperate time of need was more than just a rush. Knowing that one person, and one crew, could change the fate of total strangers is something no softball game can compare to.

Besides the satisfaction of helping others, there is a feeling of camaraderie every time I step foot in headquarters. The respect that each ambulance corps member gives is something rarely experienced by high-school students. As a crew, we must overcome many challenges, which is much easier if we appreciate each another.

People say that volunteering provides one of the most amazing feelings but it is clearer with each shift that there is no better feeling, it is in fact the best feeling in the world.