These first responders beat COVID-19; now they're back at work
The new coronavirus doesn't care about a blue uniform or a shiny badge. It has sickened thousands of America's first responders and killed dozens more. But many have recovered, and they're going back to work — back to the crime scene, back into the ambulance, back to the jail.
Police, firefighters, paramedics and corrections officers are just a 911 call away from contracting COVID-19 and spreading it to their families. They fear that picking up extra overtime shifts may expose them and their families to additional risks. And then they pull on their uniforms and go back to work.
Some of their stories from the front lines of the deadly pandemic:
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"THE RISK" | HARRIS COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPUTY RAVIN WASHINGTON
Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Ravin Washington next to her patrol car, Spring, Texas, April 17, 2020. (AP/David J. Phillip)
In Deputy Ravin Washington's squad car, risk rides shotgun. The threats she faces on her solo patrols around Houston are usually more immediate than reports of some new unseen virus. But after battling her own case of COVID-19, Washington has to rely on not just a badge and gun but also a mask and gloves to stay safe.
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"THE GUILT" | FDNY PARAMEDIC ALEX TULL
FDNY paramedic Alex Tull, who recently recovered from COVID-19, outside EMS station 26, the "Tinhouse," in the Bronx, N.Y., April 23, 2020. (AP/John Minchillo)
Paramedic Alex Tull of the New York Fire Department feels out of breath after walking up a few flights of stairs and has a cough that just won't quit. But after two weeks convalescing at home, he had to get back to work in the Bronx. Without definitive proof that he's immune from spreading or contracting the disease again, Tull fears his nagging cough might infect his partner or their patients.
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"THE HOTBOX" | AURORA POLICE CHIEF KRISTEN ZIMAN
Chief Kristen Ziman at police headquarters in Aurora, Ill., April 20, 2020. (AP/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Aurora, Illinois, Police Chief Kristen Ziman spent hours in a cramped conference room strategizing on ways to keep her 306 police officers safe from the coronavirus. Turns out, they needed to stay away from the chief. Ziman, along with a patrol commander and the city's mayor, likely contracted COVID-19 during those strategy meetings.
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"THE LINE" | L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF'S CUSTODY ASSISTANTS SONIA MUNOZ AND CHRISTOPHER LUMPKIN
Sonia Munoz, left, and Christopher Lumpkin, Los Angeles County Sheriff's custody assistants at the Twin Towers jail, Los Angeles, April 16, 2020. (AP/Chris Carlson)
Los Angeles County sheriff's custody assistants Christopher Lumpkin and Sonia Munoz likely contracted the coronavirus working shifts in the 184-bed inmate hospital ward at the Twin Towers jail. Lumpkin is back to working in the ward, but Munoz — 10 pounds lighter and her thick uniform belt tightened to its last notch — has been transferred to an office gig where she can line up three bottles of hand sanitizer on her desk.
Read more of their story here.
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Associated Press videojournalist Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, North Carolina, and senior videojournalist John L. Mone in Houston contributed to this report.