I'm an EMT — These Are the 911 Calls I Can't Forget | Brendan Thomas Pt. 2
October 19, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readThe Calls That Stick: An EMT on Trauma, Compartmentalization, and What the Job Actually Requires
Brendan Thomas has been an EMT in Connecticut since 2020, working overnight shifts from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. in the Hartford area. He responds to everything — cardiac arrests, motorcycle accidents, overdoses, and routine transfers of patients from community hospitals to level one trauma centers. But the calls he can't forget are the ones where the system gives him no room to process what he just saw. After putting a sheet over a 21-year-old decapitated motorcyclist, he and his partner were dispatched a mile down the highway to transport a stable patient from an emergency department to a nursing home. "There's no room for the decompression," he says. "You just go on to the next."
How EMTs Actually Stay Calm on Scene
Thomas describes a specific mental preparation that happens before arriving at a high-acuity call. When dispatch reports "CPRs in progress," his "hair kind of stand up on your arms" — but by the time he and his partner reach the scene, they've already talked through roles: who does compressions first, whether the mechanical compression device (the Lucas, which he calls "the geezer squeezer") is already on, whether family or police are doing CPR. The planning itself becomes the calming mechanism.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:30) **Motorcycle Decapitation - The Call That Haunts Him** - Brendan is woken from a dead sleep for a 911 call that becomes one of the most gruesome scenes he's ever worked.
- 2 (07:04) **The Reality of Night Shift EMS** - Brendan explains the unique demands of working overnights, from call volume to the lack of downtime.
- 3 (08:35) **How 911 Calls Are Triaged and Transported** - Brendan breaks down the decision-making process for which hospital to go to and how lights-and-sirens decisions are made.
- 4 (13:39) **The First Time Driving an Ambulance** - Brendan describes the nerve-wracking experience of driving an ambulance for the first time, especially with lights and sirens.
- 5 (16:37) **Calls That Make Your Heart Race** - Brendan identifies the types of calls that still get his adrenaline pumping after six years on the job.
- 6 (19:47) **The First Call That Hit Home** - Brendan shares a story from his early days as a new dad that made him realize the emotional weight of the job.
- 7 (21:36) **Coping with PTSD and the Lack of Decompression** - Brendan opens up about the mental health toll of the job and the critical need for decompression after traumatic calls.
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Show Notes
Brendan Thomas returns to Locked In with Ian Bick, but this time he's sharing a completely different side of his life. After six years working as an EMT in Connecticut, Brendan has responded to emergencies most people could never imagine. From heartbreaking calls and disturbing scenes to the moments that still haunt him, he opens up about the reality of being a first responder, the emotional toll of witnessing tragedy, and what it's like carrying those experiences long after the shift ends. This episode takes you behind the ambulance doors to reveal a side of emergency medicine the public rarely gets to hear about.
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Watch part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24JRbCS9_L8
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Connect with Brendan Thomas:
https://www.instagram.com/bthomas_860?mdxt=YXBuaDZubjZoZ2Nu
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Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick:
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Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:43 Brendan's Background
03:31 EMT vs Paramedic
04:55 Night Shifts
07:02 Choosing Hospitals
07:53 Types of Calls
09:41 Ambulance Speed
12:03 First Time Driving
14:00 Heart-Racing Calls
17:04 Early Career Trauma
19:02 Emotional Toll
21:49 PTSD and Coping
23:43 Motorcycle Accident
28:54 Following Up on Calls
31:28 Motorcycle Accidents
33:00 Lucky Motorcyclist
34:41 Unnecessary Calls
35:45 Silly Calls
38:30 Hoarder House
43:38 Decomposed Bodies
45:46 Rude Patients
47:28 Grateful Patient
50:57 Unsafe Scenes
53:16 Fights with Kids
57:24 Lying Patients
58:40 Fentanyl Overdoses
59:59 Choking Calls
01:02:13 School Incidents
01:03:36 Public Misconceptions
01:04:07 Job Toll
01:06:31 Burnout and Relapse
01:09:17 Recovery and Therapy
01:12:13 Closing
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