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It was the busiest period in the history of EMSin NYC, FDNY Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Frank Dwyer toldFox News. Calls surged to [the] high 5,000s and over 6,000. The highest one-day number of 911 calls was6,500 on March 30. Paramedics don gowns, gloves, goggles and N95 masks before they enter a home. Six percent of the FDNY’s 4,400 EMS workers are currently on COVID 19 medical leave. We had never seen anything like this before, in terms of magnitude and severity, The Queens-basedparamedic said. In those four weeks, it was really bad. I would finish a call, hit the available button, and Id immediately get another cardiac arrest. It was just like rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat for 16 hours, come back eight hours later, and do it all again. When asked what the hardest part of that four-week stretch was, the paramedic said,Not being able to save most of these people. This was a very dark period for me because no one was coming back, we werent able to resuscitate anyone. I got close once, but that person died too.It was just something I had never experienced at all during this job. It wasmentally exhausting and it was emotionally fatiguing. Dwyer told Fox that the FDNYs Counseling Services Unit (CSU) is available for all first responders. During the pandemic, CSU messaging has been provided to field units on a daily basis, including being sent directly to computers on board ambulances.