It is strange to see this opinion voiced by an EMT. There are millions of people in this country that grew up in a world without EMTs. If you were hurt or sick you had to get yourself to the hospital or rely on the police getting you there. Police obviously weren't able to properly handle these situations from either a training or equipment perspective. This resulted in countless people dying unnecessarily. That was seen as an obvious failure and eventually a job was created to bring medical attention to the scene of an emergency and remove police from the handling of these medical issues.

We have already made this transition once. Police are no more able to handle someone experiencing an emergency mental issue as they are able to handle someone having a heart attack. Why not change the system to get the proper people on site as fast as possible?

99 Percent Invisible recently did a great podcast on the early history of EMT services and ambulances.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/freedom-house-ambulan...