Nicholas Mosley testifies on FDNY EMT pay and living conditions
Nicholas Mosley, an FDNY EMT, describes earning $12/hour after pension deductions for 90-hour pay periods, knowing 12-year EMTs still living with parents, and single mothers working overtime plus weekend gigs just to scrape by, questioning whether he's to blame for staying in a job with insulting pay.
My phone's at 1%, so I'll go quick.
Good afternoon, members of the council.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
My name is Nicholas Mosley.
I live in Ridgewood.
I'm an EMT for the fire department.
Two days ago, I had a call for a suicidal patient that had been holding for 12 whole hours.
That call came in at 1 p.m.
We arrived on scene at 1 a.m.
Throughout the day, the call was continually given to a unit, and then that unit was given a higher priority call.
For 12 hours, a person in the city suffering a mental health crisis on the verge of taking their own life was unable to receive the medical attention they deserved.
Now, in my area, we were experiencing a slightly busier than normal call volume, but the simple answer as to why this person didn't get the care they needed was because we don't have enough units on the street.
And the simple answer as to why there aren't enough units is because our pay is insulting.
My pension dividends started getting taken out of my checks two months ago.
For a 90-hour week period, I was receiving $1,050.
$1,050 every two weeks for almost 90 hours.
I'll save you the effort with the math there.
That's $12 an hour I am making to respond to emergency medical calls.
That number is absolutely insulting.
Out of the dozens and dozens of members I know on the job, I am one of two people I know who are able to pay for their own place, who aren't living at their parents'house.
I know people who have been in EMT for 12 years.
They're still living at their parents.
I know mothers, single mothers who are still living with their mothers, who work 10 hours of overtime a week and then do bottle service gigs on the weekend just to scrape by living at their parents.
Every single second you work.
with pay that low that forces you to struggle that much is an insult.
The fact that I'm a 26-year-old single person and I find myself working eight hours over time a week just to afford to live is an insult.
I don't blame half of the people who I came out of EMS with who have already left
the job to be treated better somewhere else.
I don't blame the other half of the people I came out of Academy with who are only here to go to fire in five years.
At this point, I worry maybe I am to blame for coming into work every day despite this insulting pay.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.