As many of you are aware, Meuser, Yackley & Rowland, P.A. is responsible for representing literally hundreds of individuals who have suffered from the effects of PTSD, more commonly known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Quite frequently, those individuals will come from professions such as police and fire, but more and more we are seeing those who are coming from the emergency medical service areas. Those individuals, such as paramedics, emergency medical technicians, dispatchers, and others who are directly involved with traumatic events but may not necessarily come to mind as those who can or would be exposed to trauma leading to PTSD. Today I want to talk about those individuals, because those individuals and their injuries and conditions are just as serious and important as those of the other first responders such as police and fire.

On January 1, 2019, a new law went into effect that may drastically change the way work-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) claims are handled in Minnesota. For PTSD injuries that occur on or after January 1, 2019, there is a presumption for first responders that their PTSD is work-related.

Working as a paramedic, EMT or EMS poses inherent dangers, especially during the Coronavirus pandemic. As part of your duties, you are required to go into homes that are not your own and administer hands-on medical assistance to individuals in need.

As Coronavirus-related restrictions phase-out, more Minnesotans, including a significant number of healthcare workers, including nurses, are contracting Coronavirus (COVID-19). In fact, on May 20, 2020, the Star Tribune reported that “health care workers constitute 1,949 of Minnesota’s 17,029 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19.” [1]