Diary Of A Pandemic: Life On The Front Line
“Tomás” a Los Angeles firefighter on the frontlines of the pandemic. Illustration for palabra. by Jon Williams
A first responder looks back on a year of frontline work in a pandemic. At first, everyone was on edge, working against an unknown threat and under uncomfortable safety precautions. After thousands of COVID-19 deaths, protecting community and family are now this firefighter’s top priorities
Los Angeles firefighter Tomás has spent more than a year on the front lines of a global pandemic. He’s worked through almost daily exposure to the novel coronavirus that triggered a national lockdown. And now he’s convinced that his community will emerge from a long state of emergency with a greater appreciation for life and democracy.
It’s not that he’s political, but Tomás has seen a few things in the year since he became palabra’s first contributor to the series, “Diary Of A Pandemic,” which has amplified individual voices and told stories of people in vulnerable communities who have struggled during the COVID-19 crisis.
For palabra., Tomás remains an anonymous observer since he’s not an official spokesman for his department in suburban Los Angeles.
“We took some of our freedom for granted,” Tomás said in an interview, outside of his home, east of downtown Los Angeles. Who would have thought, he added, that the average American would have to consider limits on shopping in a store, or gathering with friends, all for personal safety.
After a year of responding to call after call where exposure to the virus was a given, Tomás has come to appreciate the scope of the public health disaster that struck Los Angeles and California.
Tomás said he realized life had changed when the new personal and public health protocols he and his fellow first responders adopted became second nature. It was a sobering experience, he said, being exposed daily to COVID patients. Tomás he’s learned how to be more cautious on the job. He also quickly realized that he was responsible not only for his own health but that of his family and friends.
One of the biggest challenges for the veteran firefighter was learning how to be effective as a first responder without giving up his personal safety.
A high-risk job
“I’m exposed to COVID-19 patients all day, and (my family) is not,” Tomás said. “I was just kind of more concerned about how it would affect my family, potentially giving it to them.”
On paper it seems that Tomás has reason for concern: According to the California Department of Public Health, California had 3,606,882 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 59,372 reported deaths in mid-April. Tomás lives and works in a predominantly Latino community and officials said Latinos have had the most confirmed cases with 55.6%, as well as 46.8% of the confirmed deaths. According to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, 40,023 healthcare and first responders had been confirmed with COVID-19 in Los Angeles County as of April 8, 2021.
A patient is treated by a Los Angeles first responder during the pandemic. Photo by Ringo Chiu via Shutterstock
These are scary numbers. But Los Angeles County statistics show that 43.4% of the deaths among first-responders were people who worked in skilled nursing and long-term care facilities. Among firefighters and paramedics the infection rate has actually been low, at 0.8% of the COVID-19 cases. The good safety report for fire fighters was possible because, from day one, no one in the department took the virus and personal protection for granted, Tomás said.
When Tomás’ team gets dispatched, his coworkers ask a number of questions before they enter a home or approach a vehicle.
Tomás has made it safely to this point in the pandemic despite some close calls, Tomás said. There have been incidents where either dispatchers forgot to ask for -- or people in need did not divulge -- the information needed up front to determine the COVID risk in a situation.
“There’s been … times where we showed up to the house with just a face mask and it turns out people inside are COVID-19 positive. (When that happens) we have to pull back out, put on goggles and a full gown, head to toe,” Tomás said. “That has happened to me, where I have to obviously report the call to my supervisors, and then go get tested. I (would) wait the proper amount of days and go get tested.”
Safety first
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention geared and recommended all protocols that Tomás and his department have had to follow for more than a year now.
“We’ve been treating the patient as if they were possibly infected and wearing our full protective equipment,” Tomás said. “When we deem that they are not a COVID possible patient, then we can go ahead and dress down by taking off our gowns, but we leave on our goggles, face mask, and our gloves on.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, it was routine for a number of fire department employees to be exposed and then be left in isolation until they were able to be tested.
"They pretty much had to isolate themselves for seven to ten days in a hotel room by themselves," Tomás said. "I would just try to stay away as much as possible. But it's hard to do that when you're living in the same house."
Tomás on the job in Los Angeles. Photo by Karla Gutierrez
Or, Tomás added, when you’re working in the same firehouse. He recalled one incident when an employee was not sure whether he was exposed to the virus. Tomás said department protocol called for him to stay away and isolate at home until he was sure he wasn’t infected.
“What he ended up doing was coming back anyway because he had to work overtime,” Tomás said. “He wore a mask all day long so that he wouldn’t expose anybody, and he tried to isolate himself at the station while still on the job. Some of the guys found that uncomfortable. It was kind of like ‘What the hell are you doing here? You should be at home, not here, potentially exposing the rest of us.’”
Tomás said wearing a full, protective gown in the field felt weird at first. It was something different. But he and his station mates have grown accustomed to the changes, and now the odd gear feels routine. When the pandemic first hit, Tomás said that all of his team’s calls were “100% COVID-19 related.” As time passed, the ratio has come down to around 50% COVID-related.
“We had to remind each other, ‘Hey, make sure you put on a gown, make sure to put on your goggles.’ … We’ve been doing it so consistently that it’s become the norm,” Tomás said.
Personal safety as a priority reminds Tomás of something that will stay with him beyond the pandemic: Because so many of the people he has seen affected by COVID-19 in the last year had underlying physical conditions, he’s preaching healthy living to friends and family.
"We noticed a trend that people … with compromised immune systems are affected the worst, like diabetes or high blood pressure,” Tomás said. He wants his community to make good health a priority, and to “stay healthy and exercise.”
Doctors are not telling people even the basics, like take more vitamins or do more exercise. “They're just telling them ‘take this medicine,’” and that, Tomás said, has not been enough against the dangerous COVID-19 virus.
---
Karla Gutierrez is palabra’s first intern. She’s a fourth-year journalism student at California State University, Long Beach. She’s been a reporter for the Daily 49er, DIG en Espanol, and The Renegade Rip. She has also served as executive producer for the campus television program, Campus Connection. Her career goal is to become a broadcast producer.