Unsung heroes of the Emergency Department

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. -- In Hollywood, emergency departments are frantic, dramatic, even outrageous.

But the real deal is something much different, and the people that can make the biggest impact are those we don't hear about on TV.

People like Joshua Wolf at RiverBend and Bryan Normann at McKenzie Willamette, emergency department techs.

"We all kind of pitch in and do everything, so we all pitch in and stock rooms, do the cleaning, and make sure everything is flowing the way that it should be," said Wolf.

"It includes walking patients to the bathroom, to cleaning beds, to providing IV access," said Normann.

Techs can have the first contact with patients; they're the people that start IVs, and the people that carry trauma sheers.

"They'll cut through pennies," said Wolf.

Wolf also volunteers as a paramedic, meaning he's first on the scene in emergencies.

"When you first come on scene...you're thinking, what's the worst case scenario?"

Just this spring, Normann saved a life when a patient was crashing.

"His eyes kind of rolled back in his head and his blood pressure dropped," said Normann. Minutes later, a code blue.

"So we ran back down, had a bunch of people in there, but I kind of knew my role, everyone knows their role," he said. "So I went up there and just started doing compressions."

Normann did chest compressions -- over and over -- for ten minutes as a cardiologist went to work.

"And we got a pulse back and came back and the cardiologist was able to do the rest of his thing," said Normann.

Those chest compressions may have saved the man's life.

"[The cardiologist] said my direct actions were the ones that were able to do the most impact."

From walking patients to the bathroom, to saving their lives; that's just another day on the job.