The National EMS Memorial Bike Ride: Motion Is Lotion

September marked my 15th year doing the National EMS Memorial Bike ride, along with similar rides in Canada—often two or more a year. Why do I continue to do it?

I ride to remember the fallen, the injured, and the first responders dealing with mental disabilities from doing the job that they love. I ride for the ones I know. I ride to give voice and recognition to those no longer with us. This ride is challenging, but so is doing the work we do, with the inherent dangers that go along with it. And it is the right thing to do.

Each year I travel back to Colorado with fellow bicycle riders and friends for this annual event. Accompanying me on the 2021 trip were riders Robin Weeks, Donna Brown, and Leo Pon, with Robin’s husband, John Weeks, as a wingman. This ride is organized by Steve and Becky Berry, and they do a great job scouting out routes that are not only safe for the riders but have stunning views and vistas to lose ourselves in. This year we started at the Aspen Snowmass ski area and ended in Morrison, Colo. for a final service. Along the way, as always, the riders stopped at numerous squads and were hosted for meals. Air medical services also contributed the occasional flyover.

This year New Hampshire lost a fine young EMT, Cyndel Sue Roberts Donoghue—a member of the Webster Fire Department and an EMT student I helped teach. She was a bright student with a great future, engaged to be married…and gone too soon.

Indelible Marks

As my friend Mike often reminds me, it’s all about the journey, and this Colorado trip was an amazing one!

Mike asked me to write something about the ride, and I chose to reflect on why I ride. The EMS Memorial Bike Ride is more than a cycling event to me. I think as riders we all enjoy the physical challenge, the camaraderie, and the overall experience of being on our bikes. But as I see it, on this ride the bike is the conduit, the channel that brings me to where I connect with the mission.

In the simplest of terms, it is to bring awareness to those who have sacrificed everything. We honor those selfless individuals and stand beside their loved ones who are forced to recalculate their lives in unimaginable ways. We read the names of the fallen every day. Details of real lives are shared that bring us to tears. We may or may not know these individuals personally, but we care about them and those left behind.

It is during the quiet moments when I work through the most challenging parts of the ride that I connect with these families. When my body hurts or my mind weakens, I hear a voice that reminds me those families and friends are living in pain that will never go away.

This year those families have lost EMS loved ones to COVID, to helicopter crashes, and to vehicle collisions. We can’t bring their loved ones back, but we can be there to honor and celebrate their lives. Each one has left an indelible mark on us. Let us find some comfort in knowing how truly brave they were.

—Donna T. Brown, EMT/FF, Rangeley, Maine

Physical, Emotional Challenges

July 3, 2015: A Flight for Life helicopter based at St. Anthony Summit Medical Center in Frisco, Colo. crashed moments after takeoff, literally in front of its hangar. Pilot Patrick Mahany died, and two flight nurses were seriously injured, one burned over 90% of his body. A memorial park has been created to honor them. We held a reading of the names of the fallen first responders in this park. There were so many names this year the list was divided up among the five rides happening simultaneously. Each represented a particular area, and names were read daily at each stop.

The rides are challenging both physically and emotionally. In Colorado our ride starts at 8,000 feet elevation. It traverses through canyons, high plains, and four different mountain passes: Vail, Loveland, Keystone, and Squaw. The highest point is 13,000 feet. The air gets thin, and for sea-level riders it is hard to catch your breath at times. The emotional difficulty lies in remembering the people for whom you’re riding. Tears often freely flow down our cheeks. Prayers go out, often asking for help in making a final climb.

My friend Robin states this more appropriately than I do.

A World of Deaths and Injuries

Why do I ride? It’s a simple four-word question. Yet the answer is far from simple.

There are two reasons, really: physical and mental. Physically I feel better when I have completed a strenuous ride. Mentally I feel better knowing I have ridden remembering those who cannot. Mentally, as I struggle up a hill or tire after 30–40 miles of warm-weather pedaling, I remember, by name, department, and occupation, some of the 18 dog tags I now carry. I remember, by name, personal coworkers: EMT John Hescock, police Chief Mike Maloney, and my first EMS line-of-duty death, National EMS Memorial honoree Chuck Atteberry. Heavy on my mind this year was Cyndel Donoghue, an EMT, firefighter, and the girlfriend of an extended family member.

Even now that I am retired, I continue to reflect and remember those calls of heartache. As I drive the roads in my town, I pass places where I remember my first cardiac arrest and CPR, my first suicide, my first family in anguish and disbelief that its wife and mother went to walk her dog and succumbed to a cardiac event, never to return. I could continue the list as I drive the same roads, day after day. They take their toll, and sometimes I withdraw and become silent as I sink into my world of deaths and injuries.

Riding with fellow providers with similar memories, we may not speak of our individual thoughts, yet we share knowing we each have them. Riding a bike provides an opportunity to mentally heal while celebrating the lives of those we’ve lost.

—Robin Weeks, AEMT/FF (ret.)

The Long Walk Home

Studies have shown from the time of Hannibal to the first world war, PTSD was not that prevalent. One reason is thought to be the long walk home: Troops spent time together and decompressed through talking to each other about their experiences. Recently the same has been found with veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. There are now several groups taking veterans on long hikes in places like the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail. After three months on the trail, they are in much better mental places.

Where am I going with this? If people became more active, like through riding a bicycle, and joined in on a ride with similar people with many of the same perspectives and issues, who knows? Maybe something magical could happen. It has happened before. But this also takes buy-in from the departments and service owners working with their employees to attend.

My Canadian friends have a saying: “Motion is lotion.” I like to think it is lotion for the mind and mental well-being, along with the physical well-being. So grab a bike, start riding, and I hope to see you on the next ride.

Mike Kennard, EMT-P, I/C, has been in EMS for more than 44 years. He is  a retired paramedic from Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.H. and also served as assistant chief with the Nottingham (N.H.) Fire and Rescue Department. He is an avid bicycle rider and supporter of the National EMS Bike Ride. Contact him at grumpy1medic@gmail.com.