When Randy Jones got his start as an emergency medical technician in the 1970s, he wore a smock and a clip-on tie that reduced the chances a patient would grab hold and strangle him. With few job prospects in the tiny Kansas town where he grew up, the rush of running to emergencies in an ambulance felt like God's work. Jones remembers wearing blood on his shirt like a badge of pride.
Then, in the early hours of New Year's Day 1979, he plowed through a snowstorm to a call he can't forget. Jones says he heard screaming a block away. A young couple had returned home after a night out and found their child unresponsive. A fireman passed the baby to Jones. He did mouth to mouth. The parents' wailing continued, but there would be no resuscitation, no reviving, no heroic lifesaving. That night, he replayed the call, trying to figure out where he might have gone wrong. Later, after seeing other infants die with seemingly no explanation, Jones began having nightmares about running code blues on his own children.
