Where are you from? I was born at St John’s in Jackson.

What is your role in the department? Career staff out of Station 6.

How long have you been a part of JH Fire/EMS? I think I joined as a volunteer in 2019. 

What made you want to join JH Fire/EMS? After leaving Arizona, I was on SAR down there and wanted the adventurous job set that Search and Rescue was giving me but I wanted to get more into the career-based aspect of it. I was working at the hospital at the time and Doctor Smith suggested that I apply to become a volunteer and at the time, there were all the ads in the paper, so I just did it. I was hired full-time this last summer (2022).

What are your current certs? Fire 1, Fire 2, Redcard, Paramedic, Hazmat Awareness and Operations, Rock Rescue Technician, Rope Rescue Technician, and Swiftwater Rescue Tech. The last three were only for Arizona Mountain Rescue though because the fire service (NFPA) doesn’t recognize any of it. I’m also a Phlebotomist technically.

What are your future goals in the department? I’m honestly looking to be the best firefighter/paramedic that I can be before trying to go up in the ranks or anything like that. I really like my current position and I don’t want to even think about taking a leadership role until I feel better with where I’m at. I just really like what I’m doing right now and for the longest time, I wanted to be able to say that I’m a full time firefighter/paramedic and I did that and I’m happy where I’m at. My goals are to get better at what I’m currently doing. Eventually I want to be a critical care paramedic and hopefully I’ll have that done in the next couple months and I’ll be able to apply that here. But yeah, just being the best that I can be in my current role.

What do you do in your free time? I don’t have a lot of free time right now because I’m working full time at the hospital, so in total I’m working 86 hours a week right now. But any free time that I do have, even 10 at night when I get off at the hospital, I go outside and enjoy Jackson, have fun with my dog. My biggest thing is getting him outside and having fun with him. Skiing, doing fun adventures, spending time in the mountains with my friends.

Favorite part of your job? I think it would be the ability to change the scenery of my office. My office is technically the outdoors, it’s the streets of Jackson and people’s homes, it’s not the same place every day. Being able to not have the same setting in front of me and to call that my workplace is probably my favorite thing.

What is the most satisfying or rewarding part of your job? Probably the cause and effect of medicine and working in emergency medicine, being able to do something immediately that causes relief or changes someone’s discomfort. Being able to make an action for that person that makes them more comfortable or that could drastically improve their outcome or save their life is one of the most satisfying things for me.

What advice would you give new recruits? Never stop learning. 

What do you wish you had known when you started? I wish I knew more about what the job actually was, and how cool it actually is. People don’t really know that. Like Search and Rescue, they really make it known how cool it is, but you don’t really know how cool this job is until you end up in the back of an ambulance with a trauma patient and a helicopter on the side of the road and you’re like ‘damn this is badass, I never thought I would be in this position.’ I wish I knew what these people actually did on a day to day basis. Like people know what paramedics are, they know what firefighters are, they know what EMT’s are, but no one really knows what they’re doing on a daily basis when they drive around town. I didn’t know that even when I became an EMT, like in the hospital I didn’t even know what the Fire/EMS folks did. Like I get it, they brought me patients, but what were they doing outside of that?

What is the most valuable trait for someone in the department? Be calm and be kind.