It's National EMS Week, a week to celebrate and honor emergency medical personnel like technicians and paramedics. These first responders certainly don't do it for the money. They have a passion for helping people and a commitment to saving lives.

"Helping people is genuinely rewarding," said Courtney Ivan, Deputy Director of Elite EMS in Hermitage. "You get to help people who sometimes can't help themselves."

People from all over have been taking the time to show their support this week. Smoky Martins BBQ in Hermitage has been offering free food to EMS workers.

"To me, I just love being able to reward my employees and my co-workers," Ivan said. "It's not about me, it's totally about them and it's the one week they get to feel special from everyone else in the community and their co-workers and their bosses and the hospitals for what they do."

Dr. David Shellenbarger is the Director of Emergency Medicine at Sharon Regional Medical Center and knows first hand just how important these first responders are.

"If it weren't for our partnerships and the work we do with EMS, we wouldn't be able to take care of heart attacks efficiently," said Dr. Shellenbarger. They help us get stroke patients to cat scan, get interventions done quickly. They really are like the key, the beginning of all medical care for our community, so they're essential."

But they can't help, if you don't call.

"We're open, EMS is still here," said Tom Perry, Director of Emergency Management and Security at Sharon Regional Medical Center.

Perry says during the Covid-19 pandemic, calls to 9-1-1 dropped significantly over fears that ambulances and the hospital wasn't safe. They want that to change.

"It is safe to get an ambulance and safe to go to the emergency department when you're having chest pain and other medical symptoms, we're still open and it's a safe environment," Perry said.

"I would rather somebody call 9-1-1 and not need us than to sit at home with some cardiac issue or stroke issue because they're afraid to go to the hospital," said Ivan. "It's safe to be in the ambulance, it's safe to be in the hospital, they are taking all necessary precautions so, definitely call us if you need us."

"Nervous that people are staying home with strokes and heart attacks and we've gone out of our way to make a safe environment. Separate triage areas, spread out waiting rooms, people waiting in cars if needed if its appropriate, so we are really going out of our way to make a safe place to take care of people," Dr. Shellenbarger said. Don't let coronaphobia keep you from getting good care."