NYC to kick off EMS Week 2024, several hundred EMTs, Paramedics, and EMS Officers representing FDNY EMS, NYC Hospital EMS, municipal, Westchester County-based EMS, and private sector providers participated in a daylong five-borough EMS Week Car Convoy to protest the ongoing wage and benefit inequality between EMS and other First Responders,” states Paramedic Michael Combs, Vice President of EMSPAC. Since the beginning of the 2020 Pandemic, at least 120 EMTs and Paramedics have died on and off the job. 21 to suicide or self-harm. “The general public is unaware of the long hours of training and continuous education, the hardships and conditions in the field and on our bases, the dangers we face on the job, and the hours we put into this job to feed our families.