Honorguard - Sedgwick County, Kansas Emergency Medical Service (EMS)

Honor Guard

Photo of Sedgwick County EMS Honor Guard

General:

The Sedgwick County EMS Honor Guard officially organized on April 13th, 2005. Currently and since its inception, there are 17 active members who are all full time and part time Paramedics employed by SCEMS.

Background:

For several years now, a few SCEMS paramedics have sought to create an Honor Guard to appropriately represent our service in honoring deceased friends and family. Unfortunately due to budget constraints, their efforts had been unsuccessful, leaving these few medics to attend funerals of fellow public service employees on their own, unofficially representing EMS.

Early in 2005, a Paramedic Lieutenant Jay Finney, employed at SCEMS for 8 years died. While his death was not in the line of duty, it had a major impact on many medics as well as fire fighters, police and other community service members, not to mention friends and family. His funeral was highly attended as a sign of respect and honor to his memory and dedication. Wichita Fire Department and Sedgwick County Fire Department were represented by their respective Honor Guards as well as the United States Marine Corps; although most of Sedgwick County's Paramedics were in attendance of the funeral, we did not have an official Honor Guard nor did we have any protocol for such an event. In light of this, several Paramedics began to reevaluate the need and possibility for an EMS Honor Guard. A few months later through the generosity of EMS administration, what before was only a considerate thought was now a reality.

Purpose:

Since the official organization of the SCEMS Honor Guard, in light of Lt. Finney's death, the Honor Guard wanted to ensure that the spirit of honor, reverence and respect would not be an afterthought of our organization. Since the inception, several members have worked together to describe the purpose of the Guard so that its mission is clear and perpetuated. The following are the five-fold purposes as outlined by the Sedgwick County EMS Honor Guard policies and procedures:

The purpose of the Honor Guard is to represent Sedgwick County EMS in an effort to show our respect, gratitude, pride and integrity as a public service of the community.
To honor and respect SCEMS employees, public servants and lay people by a showing of our service’s decorated, uniformed participants.
To create unity among public services including the Fire Departments, Police Department, Sheriff Department, and other public service and public safety entities.
To portray an image of discipline and professionalism and to teach non-Honor Guard personnel guidelines for conduct at uniformed events requiring such conduct (i.e. funerals, parades, special events, etc)
To raise public awareness of EMS as a part of the services provided and dedicated to the interests of the community.

Honor Guard Pin:

This is the Commendation Pin that is given only to Honor Guard members. This pin can be worn on all uniforms as an outward display of pride, honor, unity and remembrance.

Honor Guard Procedures

U.S. Flag and Flag Folding Information

http://www.usflag.org/foldflag.html

Visit the the Sedgwick County EMS Honor Guard site for more information.