In honor of National Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Week, May 18-24, San Diego Medical Services Enterprise (SDMSE), the county’s largest ambulance provider, will soon be hosting a fundraiser, “Paramedics at Your Service.”
The event will be held Thursday, May 22 from 5 to 8 p.m. at Oggi’s Pizza and Brewing Company, 2562 Laning Road at Liberty Station in Point Loma.
Organizers said the restaurant will donate 15 percent of all dine-in, take-out and delivery proceeds (excluding liquor sales) to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Foundation (SDFRF), www.sdfirerescue.org, a public charity that helps raise funds for the firefighters, lifeguards, paramedics and emergency medical technicians who serve the community.
“What we hope to do is leverage the amount of money that we can give to provide better technology and better equipment,” said John Jondall, SDFRF president.
“The people that actually go on the street and do the job can provide a better level of service more efficiently and safely.”
According to SDMSE spokesperson Reema Makani, who is organizing the event, organizers wanted to bring public awareness to these heroes of the community.
“We thought a fun way of doing that would be to partner with a local restaurant and have some of our paramedics shadow the servers to have a chance to interact with the restaurant’s patrons,” Makani said.
Jondall called it a more casual and less pressurized environment.
For SDMSE paramedic Mike Roman, it sounded like an exciting opportunity to be out in the public and have the company seen in a different light. More than anything, he said he thought it sounded like fun.
“Most of the time when our uniform is seen, it’s seen either on 9-1-1 calls or for special events such as marathons,” Roman said. “They know that medical is going
to be there for runners and police officers are going to be there for traffic control. It’s not every day that you see a uniform inside a restaurant. It basically shows that when we put on the uniform, we’re people too.”
He hopes that people won’t hesitate to ask questions about what emergency medical service workers do and even express interest in the same job field.
As a supporter of the fire department, Makani approached Oggi’s about collaborating during EMS Week and learned that owner Robert Waldon is a former firefighter who lost his home during the recent wildfires.
“I spent a day and a half fighting fires in the north part of Poway with my brother because there were limited resources and we did what we could with our neighbors,” Waldon said. “Then on the east part of Poway, in High Valley, which is where my house was, we spent a good four or five hours as the fire burned in through my canyon trying to protect my own home. Eventually it succumbed to the fire.”
He was a paramedic and firefighter with the Orange County Fire Authority for 12 years and left in 2000 to move to San Diego. He worked for Motorola, implementing security, dispatch and mobile applications for fire, police and EMS but retired in April 2007 to open his own restaurant.
“It’s a brotherhood,” Waldon said of the firefighters. “I know those guys all worked hard [during the wildfires] and I know they were spread thin and did what they could, so this is a way for me to support them and thank them.”
For more information, call Oggi’s at (619) 876-5000.