Everyday for the past 30 years, Kelowna paramedic Kevin Brown has made a difference in peoples' lives.
"It's a real privilege to do work I love, helping people in distress and working with the colleagues I do at the station, in the ambulances and at the hospital," said Brown.
Brown worked as a paramedic for 28 years in Sparwood, Nanaimo, Vancouver and Kelowna before retiring.
Retirement only lasted four months before he returned part time.
"I couldn't stay away," he said with a laugh.
"After almost 30 years this job is part of my life and who I am."
Kelowna paramedics in ambulances rush out to an average of 1,650 medical emergencies every month, including car accidents, heart attacks and drug overdoses.
Paramedics always wore gloves and glasses to treat and transport patients.
But in these COVID times, personal protection equipment has been upgraded to gloves and face shields.
Plus, dispatchers try to do a pre-assessment of patients over the phone to warn of any potential cases of COVID and paramedics do their own screening upon arrival.
"Basically, we treat every patient as if they have COVID to keep everyone safe," said Brown.
"I know of two patients with COVID that I personally transported to hospital."
In all, 115 paramedics work in Kelowna at three ambulance stations--Keehn Road (where Brown works), downtown on Lawrence Avenue and West Kelowna.
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