By Captain Paul Mellamphy
With it being Patient Safety Awareness Week 2026, I wanted to highlight one of our supervisors who places the utmost importance on safety. Lt. John Hill has been in EMS since 1990 and has unfortunately experienced more than his fair share of injuries, while also witnessing others suffer injuries that were entirely preventable. I spoke with Lt. Hill to hear his perspective on safety and how his experiences have shaped his approach.
Lt. Hill spent over five years in the United States Marine Corps. It goes without saying that members of the USMC are trained to maintain peak physical condition and are instilled with standards that keep both their mental and physical readiness at the highest level. After committing to reenlist, Lt. Hill suffered a serious back injury after falling over concertina wire. This resulted in multiple epidural injections, which are not always successful, and ultimately cut his military career short.
Lt. Hill later moved into EMS, volunteering from 1990 to 2000 while also working as a professional long distance tractor-trailer driver. Including being in several driving competitions resulting in third place in South Carolina! In 2000 , he transitioned to full-time EMS. Seven years later, in 2007, while treating a patient in the back of an ambulance, his partner fell asleep behind the wheel. This resulted in the vehicle leaving the road, causing no vehicle or property damage, but Lt. Hill’s injuries were far from minor. He required multiple surgeries, including procedures involving cadaver bone grafts and titanium implants. This was obviously not an injury or surgery that someone recovers from overnight.
What stands out about Lt. Hill is that he openly shares these experiences with younger EMTs and paramedics in the hope that his story helps them develop better safety habits and creates a stronger safety culture within our company and throughout the EMS community. He is determined to turn a terrible experience into something positive.
As he joked during our conversation, “I’m old for a reason.”
Lt. Hill believes that many incidents occur when people get an adrenaline rush and begin to rush to a scene. The mindset, he says, should not be to hurry, but rather to move with purpose without developing tunnel vision. If we do not make it safely to the patient, then we cannot help them.
He frequently sees preventable mistakes, such as someone guiding a vehicle while standing between the ambulance and another object where the driver cannot see them. Another common issue occurs when crews attempt to navigate tight spaces without stopping to reassess whether the ambulance will actually fit.
Lt. Hill also mentioned a site he reads regularly, the EMS Memorial, which tracks line-of-duty deaths and injuries. According to EMS Memorial and CDC data, EMS professionals experience the highest injury rates in public safety, exceeding those of police officers and firefighters, with injury rates more than four times higher than the national average.
Statistics like these are sobering and should make all of us pause and reconsider our choices during daily operations.
I am sure you would agree that Lt. Hill’s experience is worth its weight in gold, and we are fortunate to have someone with that level of knowledge and perspective willing to share it with the rest of us.
