Through translators, Portillo told EMTs that his face and back hurt and he felt nauseous.

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Professor RODGER KRAM (Biomechanics, University of Colorado Boulder): Marine-types, soldier-types, EMTs, that's sort of thing.

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Then he set out to provide the important stuff: EMTs, aid stations with food and water.

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EMTs carried their gear or pushed empty wheelchairs, followed soon by doctors in their white volunteer jackets.

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In about 10% of cases, either a member of the public or a policeman applies an AED before the EMTs arrive, he says.

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During the ensuing rescue effort, EMTs treated victims atop dinning tables at the Home of the Whopper, while draping intravenous drips across wall lamps.

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He leads a team of 2, 000 skilled volunteers -- EMTs who range professionally from "expensive lawyers to people who sell fish or shoes, " he says.

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Dr. Alasdair Conn, chief of emergency medicine, praised Boston's EMTs for equitably spreading patients across the city and not deluging any trauma center with too many critical patients.

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Israel Miranda, president of Uniformed EMTs, Paramedics and Fire Inspectors Local 2507, told city council members at a January hearing that the 911 technology denied service to New Yorkers during Sandy.

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Carin King, another volunteer with the service that runs the campus ambulance, told CNN that Collier "went out of his way" to get to know the student emergency medical technicians (EMTs).

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