Note: The story below is an excerpt from our March/April 2015 issue. For the full story download our FREE iOS app or view our digital edition for FREE today!
Spending time in the stations among the responders, and being a tiny part of their actual work only deepens the awe and appreciation for the people who provide this service and protection for the rest of us.
David Hungate
While you and I live immersed in our daily affairs, expertly trained men and women throughout the Roanoke Valley wait in the shadows ready to respond on our worst days. By their ability and commitment we are endowed with a freedom we often don’t recognize, much like the obliviously happy child being raised in a loving home.
Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The hero will know how to wait, as well as how to make haste.” The first responders featured in this year’s Heroes issue do both with excellence. Their lives epitomize the promise they’ve made – service before self – whether responding to an emergency or walking through their every day. And while they characteristically shun the title “hero,” they also can’t help but live in any other way.
Captain and Medic John Ferguson Price III, City of Roanoke
For Fire Captain and Medic J.J. Price, the weave between his firefighting/EMS work and personal life is seamless. His father, Captain Johnny Price, fought fires with the city for 32 years, retiring in 1995, shortly after Price was hired.
“Daddy had been here forever. I knew it was a good job and a good career,” says Price while fondly describing his many childhood memories to include disciplinary sessions at the fire station when his mother, exasperated with her four sons’ naughtiness, would drive them from their home in Callaway, so in Price’s words, “Daddy could give us a whippin’.”Besides a legacy of firefighting, Price inherited a legacy of serving, too, primarily with the fire union’s charity, the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
“Daddy would take us anytime he did anything with MDA. The first memories I have are at Lakeside Amusement Park…we would partner up with a child and ride the rides together.”
Price serves as the Union’s MDA chairman as well as vice president. True to his nature, serving for Price is a family thing. Both daughters volunteer at MDA summer camp – the older as a counselor, the younger during daytime hours. His mother serves as camp nurse, and Price himself partners with a camper for the week – just as in childhood – forging relationships that have continued throughout the years.
Of course, Price has hit bumps along the way. There is his outspoken nature that initially kept him from promotion. And now the balance of captain duties: being one of the guys but being in charge, too.
Not surprisingly, Price’s most memorable experience as a firefighter isn’t emergency-related but rather the day his father pinned him to Lieutenant.
“When I got promoted to Lieutenant, Daddy got to pin me.” Price becomes contemplative. “It took me a long time to get it, but when I actually got it, Daddy got to pin me.”
Lieutenant Charles Mike Elston, City of Salem
Lieutenant Mike Elston is a self-described “adrenaline junkie.” This could account for his expansive list of Fire/EMS experiences: fighting forest fires out west, EMT and paramedic for LewisGale, adjunct faculty member for both American National University and Jefferson College of Health Sciences, teaching technical rescue operations throughout the East Coast, drum major on multiple Pipe and Drum Bands, and volunteering once a month (or more) in Prince Georges Co., Maryland, fighting fires for 24 to 72 hours at a time. Oh…and his day job: Lieutenant Elston runs the B shift for Salem’s Station 2.
Born and raised in Bluefield, Virginia by professor parents, Elston followed his mother’s footsteps to Charlottesville to attend her alma mater, the University of Virginia. An aspiring nursing student at Piedmont Community College, Elston focused his efforts on punk rock bands and rugby. One day Elston’s EMT instructor, John Burruss, invited Elston to come ride a shift at the firehouse.
“It derailed me altogether. It was all done.”
That one ride set Elston on a blazing trajectory that has not slowed in 28 years. And while Elston likes to blame his nature and instructor, his colleagues would say otherwise. Fellow firefighter, Roanoke City Fire-EMS 1st Lieutenant Robert Reid, calls Elston a “fireman’s fireman.” Reid explains that Elston goes above and beyond for the firefighters in the valley and across the country, whether he is teaching firefighters outside-the-box techniques in firefighting and rescue, or flying on his own dime to serve as drum major in Line of Duty Funerals or at the annual National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service. “Mike is…always striving to spread the knowledge and promoting the brotherhood and sisterhood.”
Whether it’s his addiction to adrenaline, or – more likely – his servant’s heart, Elston has no plans of slacking his pace. And why should he? With a 17 year-old son recently graduated from the volunteer academy who dreams of fighting fires alongside his dad (especially in Maryland) and new crops of firefighters excited to learn, Mike Elston has lots of aspiring left to do.
Paramedic-Firefighter Jonathon Wacek, Roanoke County
True to his nature, paramedic and firefighter Jonathon Wacek approached a career in fire and rescue taking careful steps. A native of Minneapolis, Wacek was tracking a paralegal career. He dreamt of research in law libraries working alongside lawyers. Instead, he filed papers eight hours a day.
“I was working right next to lawyers filing papers and I was thinking, ‘If they’re a lawyer and they’re doing this, then I don’t think I can do this.” He laughs easily at his 19 year-old naivety.
After a failed attempt with the Minneapolis Fire Department (where his odds were 100 to one), Wacek moved to Lexington and continued testing the firefighting/EMS waters. Roanoke County offered him his first opportunity. Wacek was upfront in explaining why he wanted to volunteer.
“I said I plan on doing this as a career, and I want my foot in the door and test it out and see if it’s right.”
Though Wacek would never share such details, he is well-distinguished among his peers. He has brought a number of patients back from cardiac arrest, including a woman in 2013 who suffered a heart attack in the parking lot of Clearbrook Elementary School (earning Wacek and his crew a spot on the local news). He has been recognized by the Bent Mountain Youth Center for Outstanding EMS Care and Service.
Clearly, Wacek’s pensive foot in the Fire/EMS Service door was the opening he was meant to walk through. Twelve years later, Wacek is not only fighting fires and answering EMS calls, but also serves as a Field Training Officer (FTO) for the county. Wacek considers building confidence in co-workers and students through teaching one of the greatest rewards of his work.
“We all get into this career because we want to help others,” shares Wacek. “Sometimes we know the ways we affect others and sometimes we never know, but what is interesting is that I never expected you would be so rewarded with the guys you work with and also by the people you train.”
Firefighter Darryl Johns & 911 Dispatcher Tina Johns, Botetourt County
“You see that picture on the wall?” Darryl Johns points to a yellowed snapshot pasted to what looks to be a certificate typed on a typewriter, hanging in an 8 x10 gold-trimmed frame. “That’s the reason I’m here.”
Johns is referring to the day – June 19, 1952 – his father, Charles Lindbergh Johns (better known as “Lindy”), helped dedicate the Eagle Rock Station to the service of the community.
Other than six years serving in the Army and then several more out west, moving around and fighting fires in places like Colorado Springs and Alaska, Darryl Johns has always called Eagle Rock home. He began “chasin’ lights” formally in 1977 at the age of 16. Now, he and his wife of 24 years, Tina, help keep the all-volunteer Eagle Rock Station fit and ready for serving its 160-square mile run area.
Tina is a former first responder and current 911 operator for Botetourt County – 19 years and running. Hers is the voice Darryl often hears when a call comes through his scanner.
“Oh, I like it,” smiles Tina when asked about her job. “It’s stressful!” She laughs when asked if that’s a good or bad thing, not quite sure how to express, both.
Because Eagle Rock is volunteer-operated, there is never anyone officially on-duty. However, no one is off-duty either. This makes operations at Eagle Rock less structured but certainly not less capable. Darryl even drives a fire truck to work at Gala Industries every day allowing him to bypass the station to answer a call.
With an all-volunteer staff, there is always a concern of a shortage of responders. But Darryl says it hasn’t happened yet. Despite this, he does recognize challenges moving forward, namely keeping people interested enough to serve at a smaller station and endure the ever-increasing state and federal regulations with regards to firefighting qualification.
The Johnses both admit to some drawbacks of volunteer firefighting. There is the constant hum of the radio scanner that Darryl insists having on 24/7 (even when there were babies in the house), and the inconvenience of being called out during family time. Darryl confesses that only once did he have reservations about answering a call: the day of his daughter, Taylor’s, Jr. prom. He did answer the call and fortunately made it back in time to see Taylor off.
“We’re proud of him, and yes, it gets aggravating, but he’s helping families,” says Tina with a humility that doesn’t recognize her part in helping families, too.
Besides, for Darryl, it’s the volunteer aspect that has kept him in for all these years. “I thought about taking a paid position in Colorado Springs…If I got paid to do it, I probably wouldn’t want to do it.” He looks at Tina and they both chuckle, knowing just how true this statement is.
Firefighter Larry Knighton & EMT Georgia Knighton, Botetourt County
When Larry and Georgia Knighton head out on a call with the dispatcher’s description of an “elderly person” at the scene, they often find that they are older than the elderly person they are assisting. The Knightons warmly describe themselves as the adoptive parents and grandparents to the rest of the volunteers at Eagle Rock, referencing their ages in every way except exact years.
Larry has been fighting fires for 31 years now. Georgia has been an EMT for 25 years. Both were the oldest students – mid-40’s – in their respective training classes. In January, they celebrated 50 years of marriage.
Larry, a Covington native, says he can remember receiving his first fire truck as a young tot. He was always interested in firefighting but the opportunity never presented itself, and if it did, he was too bashful to pursue it. Instead, he worked as a machinist in Newport News for 11 years out of high school, Georgia joining him for seven of those after they were married.
In 1972 the couple moved to Eagle Rock – near Georgia’s childhood home, Craig Creek – feeling like they had exhausted all the big city had to offer and ready to be near family. Larry still had his eye on firefighting but his shy nature kept him hesitating.
“It took me several years to gain the confidence to put my foot in the door,” he says with a boyish grin at his confession.
Unlike Larry, Georgia had not considered serving as an EMT until she was faced with the boredom of staying home after leaving her job in 1989 to help care for aging parents. Word of Georgia’s extra time got out, and soon the area’s rescue squad began asking – then begging – her to consider becoming an EMT.
Like Larry, Georgia faced reservations about learning alongside people much younger than herself, as well as her ability to pass the training. But her desire to stay active and the needs of the community won out.
Now Larry and Georgia are an imbedded stabilizing force at Eagle Rock. They talk of slowing down…but not really. They love being a part of the community and helping others in their deepest time of need.
“It’s amazing to go up to a door on a call and the person, who I don’t really know, says to me, ‘Oh Georgia, I’m so glad you could come.’ If I can give someone that comfort on the way to the hospital, well then…” Georgia’s words trail off, but her humble awe at how she and Larry have been able to love their neighbors these many years, comes shining through. I