Primum Non Nocere means “first, do no harm”. It is the guiding phrase for medical ethics and oaths. It is also the name of the non-profit organization that helps EMS workers nationwide. Their website states that they aim to support pre-hospital providers during despair, desperation, and need. They have testimonials that give you a glimpse into the lives that they have touched. EMS workers out of work due to an injury got the support they needed to pay the bills or buy groceries. The idea for the foundation started when one EMT was finally fed up with the lack of support for EMS workers.
Louis Cazzetta is the founder and board member of PNNF. He has also been in EMS for a long time. “I’ve been in the EMS world since 1988. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, and a couple of months after my 18th birthday, I became an EMT. I started volunteering in Brooklyn. Volunteering back then, we were just like the frontlines, and they treated us like such, not the way it is today, even in New York City, ’cause the staffing was so little.” Louis found that EMS was where he wanted to be and eventually committed to working full-time, but the first spark toward PNNF came from a side job.
“I was a DJ also at the time, and we did a lot of parties for people who were hurt, injured, or sick. We would do what they call a 10-13 party. In New York City, a 10-13 is someone in trouble. So, a 10-13 party is when we got a whole bunch of people together, and we’d give the person a couple of thousand dollars, but that’s it.” Louis went on to explain that this was something he kept noticing, “Overtime, I just started seeing that that was it. As I was getting more involved in EMS and I got up to supervisor and then management and different things, I started seeing more and more. We have people that there was no safety net for them.”
People who hold higher positions also struggle to help their employees, “Even when I was a director of an ambulance agency in New Jersey, things were happening to people, and I was like, how do we help them? If anything happened, it was just us; we’d have to band together and do something because if we don’t, nobody does,” Louis said.
Eventually, watching the issue continue with no one doing anything, Louis decided it was he who needed to step up. Much like the idea for this magazine, the “let’s do it” moment happened in an ambulance. Louis said, “One day in 2015, I was sitting in my ambulance, and I said that’s it, I’m gonna do something. I contacted a couple of my lifelong friends who were involved in EMS and a couple who were not. By the way, I am always coming up with crazy ideas. They (his friends) were like, what idea do you have now? And they actually loved the idea.”
From there, they had to pick a name. Louis called Ted (Charles) Rawley, a founding member who sits on the board of directors, for ideas. At the time, Ted was looking at his paramedic jacket. Louis said that when paramedics graduated, often, they would get jackets made that had their class name on them. On Ted’s jacket, the words Primum Non Nocere were etched. Louis looked at those words, part of the hypocritic oath, and it clicked. That’s the name they’ve been looking for. “Then a good friend of mine, Sean O’Sullivan, who is a lawyer and I’ve known him since college, started the process to get our 501c3 and everything done. We got the 501c3, I think, in February of 2015, but we didn’t really start doing much until 2016,” Louis said.
The foundation’s website lists three different programs and sponsors two memorial scholarships. Louis said though there are other programs, you can truly break them into two: the scholarship and the charitable acts they do for those in need. “Basically, helping EMS providers, including EMTs, paramedics, volunteers, private or city doesn’t matter, but it has to be an emergency medical provider, with a need,” Louis says that most of the time, a need is a sick or injured individual who needs extra help to take care of themselves and or their family. PNNF looks at how they can take the burden off those people’s shoulders.
Most of the time, the people they reach out to help respond with not ways they can help just them but rather the people around them. They supply food, payment on utility bills, clothing for their family, and even food for pets at times. They do not donate money or direct cash but rather provide necessities.
An example of a life they recently touched was an EMT who was diagnosed with breast cancer; she had to travel from Pennsylvania to New Jersey for treatment, which equates to about 100 miles. Her husband is also an EMT; he continued working, and she took a leave of absence due to her illness. To help, the organization sent her $300 in gas cards.
So, how does the organization know what would best help these people? Louis interviews every person individually; he wants to know what is going on and what they need the most. As for how he learns about those who need help, most of them get referred to him by others he has helped or who are a part of the support network. He calls those who send recommendations for people who need help stars of life. Soon, they will have an application on the website for people to apply for help for themselves directly.
If you have someone you know who needs help, you can reach out to the organization and recommend them, but Louis recommends you make sure that the person you recommend knows you are doing this. He does not cold-call people and says part of this is because people in EMS are a special type and don’t often want to admit they need help. He doesn’t want to surprise anyone and make them defensive, wondering who told him about their lives.
The other focus that PNNF has is two scholarship programs for EMS providers trying to further their education in the EMS field. The first one is dedicated to his friend Ted Rawley’s mom and stepfather, who both passed away.
The second scholarship is dedicated to one of Louis’ old students. Elena Vitale was a student in his EMT class who would always sit in the back of the room. She struggled through her first round of the class and ultimately could not pass at the end; instead of giving up, she immediately enrolled in the next class. She engaged more, sat up front this time, and eventually passed the course. She started working for a local private ambulance service and even started nursing school. Elena was about to graduate nursing school when she died in a house fire.
Louis promised Elena’s mom that he would do something in her name and created the scholarship. Since COVID-19, they have not been able to give out this scholarship but are hopeful to have it back up again in 2024. This scholarship will help students with things like books and other supplies, and the organization hopes to be able to sponsor students in the future throughout their whole program.
The organization has assisted 101 emergency medical providers and their families nationwide. 95% of donations go directly to funding providers and their families. If you want to help, you can donate on the organization’s website. If you are located near Waxhaw, North Carolina, they put on fundraising events, including a whiskey tasting and a paint and sip event.