He's been a firefighter-paramedic for most of his adult life. He's the guy who embraced the job with enthusiasm - its challenges, its rewards, its ideals. He fit in well at the station and excelled in his chosen profession.
He was plenty heroic during those years of "running in while others ran out." He searched for, and carried his share of victims to safety. He delivered a few babies and helped save more patients than he lost. He treated folks with compassion - mostly under less than ideal conditions. During his career, he faced smoke and flames, hurting patients, distraught family members and an occasional irate citizen. He started each shift knowing that he might face worse. Yet, he always showed up, believing to his core that showing up was essential. He did what firemen do.
Over the years, the job he loved exacted a toll on what was, after all, merely a human body. He'd taken too many running leaps off the fire truck, forced himself into too many contorted positions to extricate victims, done too much lifting and hauling and climbing. Still, he put off taking a desk job until he could no longer work safely in the field.
It turns out, facing limitations takes as much bravery as running into burning buildings.
The desk that allows him to continue his career also separates him from direct patient care, and to some degree from the rank and file of his fellow paramedics. Today he searches for, and finds ways to make meaningful improvements in policies and procedures. He works to insure that the department delivers quality care. He confronts politicians, irate citizens and co workers. He does it with diplomacy, and yes, compassion. He does it all while dealing with a body that stages an on-going protest.
For the past several years he has come to the office in pain: pain that limits how long he can sit, how far he can walk, how straight he can stand. He has kids in college, and goals for the department and a dogged stubbornness that has served him well throughout his life. He continues to show up because that's what firemen do.