The hospital's Emergency Department Physicians Group donated three police-type mountain bikes and DeFeo BMW, a local dealership, gave two. Cicala said being in a crowd on bikes makes a big difference to people. The larger the event, the more people we send. It's a boost to paramedics, too, who earn notoriously modest pay for their unique expertise and dedication. You deal with death as part of the job.
Paramedics do their job, then disappear.
Paramedics who work for hospitals are called for more serious calls. They require two full college semesters and 1,000 hours of clinical training on the road compared to 120 hours in the classroom for EMTs. They are the only emergency workers able to administer intravenous heart medications to stabilize the heart and do advanced airway techniques to intubate patients, among other duties. Arriving on a bike to administer treatment is different, but the team has gladly adapted. Last week, team members attended classes at Jamaica Hospital in New York City to better learn how to ride the bikes safely, how to repair them, and what kind of equipment to carry and where.