The Mississippi State Department of Health held a ceremony to dedicate a memorial in honor of emergency medical services personnel who died in the line of duty.
Among those in attendance at the department’s Jackson campus were State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves.
During the ceremony, attendees paused to remember the 23 fallen whose names are etched into one side of the stone and steel memorial. On the other side of the memorial, a Biblical passage from 2nd Chronicles 15:7 that reads, “But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded,” is displayed.
Tuesday’s observance highlighted a presentation of the Emergency Medical Services Honor Guard and bell ceremony, which was rung as each name was called.
“We are so proud to have the memorial on our campus and to have been charged with its stewardship,” Edney said. “It is particularly important to recognize the inherent dangers of working in EMS in the field. We don’t take the service of our EMS professionals for granted, and we certainly don’t take the sacrifice that has been paid by these brave men and women who are on the monument today for granted.”
Mississippi has more than 5,000 licensed emergency medical service professionals, including emergency medical technicians, paramedics, dispatchers, flight medics, and first responders, who serve across all 82 counties. Every year, they respond to over 500,000 emergency calls.
These calls include major car crashes on rural highways, heart attacks in small towns, natural disasters that strike without warning, and everything in between.
“These are the men and women who responded to the call, not knowing what they would face but knowing that someone in our state needed help,” Reeves said. “They served with courage, with compassion, and with an unwavering commitment to saving other people’s lives. This memorial is more than just stone. It is a symbol of sacrifice. It is a promise that we will never forget.”
