The Shield of Silence
A common question a young neophyte asks is, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?”
It sounds simple. Curious. Almost innocent.
From their perspective, it is an attempt to understand what life as a medic is really like. A way to peer behind the curtain. There is often excitement in it, a hunger for something raw and unfiltered, a story that feels larger than ordinary life. Underneath the words is a quieter request. Help me experience something unfamiliar. Show me what this job truly costs.
The response comes fast. A tightening in the chest. A rehearsed deflection. A flash of irritation that surprises even the medic carrying it. The shield rises automatically.
That shield is often made of shame. It presents as indignation, anger, bitterness. Not because the question is offensive, but because it touches something fragile. It presses on memories that were never meant to be entertaining. It reaches toward moments that were survived, not collected.
That reaction is protective. It is learned. It is armor built over years of exposure to things the human mind was never designed to repeatedly absorb.
The worst calls are never a single image or moment. They are a dense layering of facts, emotions, and meaning. Pride in the care delivered under pressure. Joy in rare, sacred moments of connection. Grief for lives altered or lost. Exhaustion from the relentless pace. Honor in fulfilling the duty. Guilt that lingers long after the call ends, whispering that maybe more could have been done.
These emotions coexist. They do not arrive neatly separated. They are carried home, tucked away, compartmentalized just enough to allow the next shift to start.
Over time, the shield hardens. What begins as protection slowly becomes a wall. A wall that keeps the public at a distance. A wall that prevents others from seeing the full humanity of the person wearing the uniform.
When a medic deflects the question, what they are often saying is, I don’t want you to experience what I experienced. I don’t want to hand you images that will follow you into your quiet moments. I don’t want to transfer this weight.
At the same time, the public reinforces the silence. We say we do not want to see this. We say protect us from the gore. Protect our children. Protect our sense of normalcy.
We reinforce a powerful social contract. One of the most reliable contracts in modern society. When you call 911, someone will come. They will enter your worst moment without hesitation. They will bring skill, order, and calm. They will solve the problem.
The unspoken terms of that contract are just as clear. Do not show us too much. Do not trouble us with the emotional cost. Do not ask us to sit with complexity. Carry it quietly. And those are terms aren’t entirely true. It’s casting the public in a movie they don’t have the script to.
We ask emergency services to absorb the chaos, then disappear back into silence.
The problem is not that we carry a shield. The problem is the kind of shield we believe we are required to carry.
The shield was never meant to be silence.
The shield is meant to be honor. Service. Care. Witness.
When we move past the initial discomfort behind that question, a deeper story emerges. A story that is not about shock or spectacle. A story about what it means to be present in the most vulnerable moments of another person’s life. A story that builds trust rather than eroding it. A story that allows the public to understand not just what emergency services do, but who we are.
Right now, we struggle to tell that story.
We are caught between privacy and visibility. Between humility and recognition. Between honoring the work and avoiding the appearance of seeking attention. In that tension, we default to silence. We reduce our experience to war stories or clinical summaries, neither of which captures the truth.
We are not lacking experiences worth sharing. We are lacking the language and courage to share them well.
Move beyond the worst images. Move beyond the tally of bodies and blood. Speak instead about the privilege of being invited into a human tragedy. Describe the quiet act of sitting on the floor with a new widow, offering nothing except presence while she weeps. Describe the weight of being trusted with someone’s final moments. Describe the discipline required to remain calm when everything inside you wants to break.
These stories matter. They humanize the work. They strengthen public trust. They honor the profession without exploiting it.
Storytelling is not self-indulgence. It is stewardship.
It is an art. An essential skill for building the next generation of emergency services. If we do not teach how to carry these stories with integrity, they will either rot in silence or spill out in unhealthy ways.
It is time to pick up a different shield.
One that protects the injured and the grieving in their most exposed moments. One that allows the public to see the dignity, restraint, and professionalism of the work. One that replaces silence with meaning.
The shield was never meant to hide us. It was meant to show what service looks like when done well.