Norman “Chip” Mainville has been in the fire service long enough to remember when personal protective equipment like masks and gloves were stuffed out of sight in an ambulance compartment, rarely used by emergency medical technicians responding to a traumatic scene.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and this is the first time I’ve had to gown up and wear masks and gloves on an emergency call,” says Mainville, a fire captain and EMT for the Harrisville Fire Department. “It’s standard equipment now.”
EMTs and paramedics are among the frontline healthcare workers responding to patients with the deadly coronavirus, a situation Mainville would have never imagined when he became a full-time firefighter in 2001.