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WEST POINT — Justin Meacham talked about how his military service in Iraq prepared him for what he is experiencing now as a paramedic in Lee County. Being a paramedic is something that comes naturally to Justin. It’s a field in which he has much experience. He’s a 2001 graduate of Lanett High and was in Iraq during the first decade of the 21st century. Being with the U.S. Marines in Fallujah was a harrowing experience for him.

Fallujah is located in what’s commonly called Iraq’s Sunni Triangle. It had long been a hotbed of support for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his tumultuous control of the country. It’s located a little more than 40 miles west of Baghdad, and was the scene of bloody fighting in 2003 and 2004. It took two battles for forces from the U.S. and the United Kingdom to dislodge insurgent forces from the city of more than 200,000 people. Military analysts consider the taking of Fallujah in the Iraq War the toughest engagement U.S. forces had been in since the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968. More than 60 percent of the buildings in the city had been damaged or destroyed by the spring of 2004.

Meacham said that being there during that period had been a bad experience for everyone involved. There was a lot of suffering and death, and it didn’t end in 2004. It was later occupied by ISIS in 2014 and it took two more years to move them out.

Meacham’s being in Fallujah took place more than 20 years ago now, and he doesn’t dwell on it much. What he went through there can affect what he does today as a paramedic. It comes down to doing a job you have been trained to do in a very stressful situation.

Paramedics are like combat soldiers in that they are drawn to situations where they are around badly injured people who might be dying. “Your job is to do all you can to save their life,” Meacham said. “You can’t let it get to you.”

Paramedics are trained healthcare professionals who provide advanced emergency medical care to individuals in critical or life-threatening circumstances. They respond to emergency calls, assess patients, administer medications, perform advanced life support techniques and transport patients to hospitals for further care. They work closely with other medical professionals and first responders, playing a crucial role in the pre-hospital care system.

Meacham has been at the East Alabama Medical Center (or East Alabama Health) since 2019. He’s certified as a flight paramedic but has yet to serve on a helicopter crew.

There are some success stories a paramedic experiences they will never forget. “There’s one case I worked with when I helped get a badly injured young woman to the hospital and the emergency room staff told me she wasn’t going to make it,” Meacham said. “But she did, and she’s now in her final year in nursing school. She made it because of the quick response she received when she was injured. It’s being involved in that kind of success that makes what you do worthwhile.”

“It’s intense out there,” he added. “It’s not like what you see on TV. I remember one day when we got a call about a child in distress. A five-year-old was drowning in a wading pool. Sadly, she was one of those who didn’t make it. That same day my little girl, who was six at the time, was at a swim meet. I couldn’t get it out of my mind that she could one day be in something like that.”

Meacham sees a parallel between being a soldier and a paramedic: “No one likes you unless they need you.”

“You have to do all you can to maintain your professionalism,” he said. “There are times people will call an ambulance when they don’t really need one, and you have to deal with that.”

He was with an ambulance crew on one shift when they got a call at 3 a.m. They were expecting the worst when they drove there, but when they arrived, they found a woman standing on the front porch with a suitcase in hand. “She just wanted us to take her someplace,” he said. “You have to be careful with some people. They are looking for pain medication and will try to steal your drugs if you’re not careful. During Covid, people would try to steal gloves and masks off the truck.”

Being a paramedic has had some ups and downs for Meacham, but he’s young enough to pursue another career. He’s looking at enrolling at Auburn University to study building science and construction. “My wife’s dad is a math teacher, and he’d been brushing me up with calculus and trigonometry,” he said. “Drug math is very different from building math.”