We are proud of our NAEMT members and the important service they provide to communities. It is our honor to highlight them. "Member Spotlight" is a feature of NAEMT News, a quarterly newsletter created especially for our members. We are pleased to share it with you.
At age 19, Aaron Miranda wasn’t interested in spending weekends hanging out with friends or going to parties. Instead, every Friday evening, the rookie EMT headed from his home in San Diego to Rosarito, Mexico, to volunteer for a rescue squad. There, he’d spend the next 72 hours treating sick and injured locals and tourists. “About 80% of our patients were trauma victims, mostly car wrecks but also near-drownings and falls off the cliffs near the beach,” Miranda said. “I don’t ever remember using a map. We’d be told, ‘Go down the main street and turn right at the tree stump and left at the bolder and ask Juanita if they know where so-and-so lives.’ We’d turn our sirens on and hopefully someone would come out waving their arms.”
Twenty-five years later, Miranda still splits his time between the U.S. and Mexico. He’s a captain-paramedic for the Poway Fire Department near San Diego. He’s also an NAEMT instructor who teaches throughout Latin America; a trainer with the Rhino Rescue Team, which teaches specialized rescue techniques throughout Mexico; and chief flight paramedic for Airlink Air Ambulance, which transports critically ill patients from Latin America to hospitals in the United States.
Miranda spoke with NAEMT News about his experiences working in the U.S. and Latin America, why he became a certified flight paramedic last year and why the international exchange of EMS knowledge and education is so important.