News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Beth Mitchell and Jeremy Ast are now serving regular shifts at the Sisters firehall as the Sisters-Camp Sherman Rural Fire Protection District's newest paramedics.
Though hired recently, the pair have been serving the district as volunteers since 1995.
According to fire chief Don Rowe, they scored as the top two out of nine candidates on the civil service test required for hiring, which spoke well of their Central Oregon Community College education and of the fire district's training.
"Our training officer (Ken Enoch) was pretty happy, showing that our office had some pretty good training," Ast said.
Ast, 22, and Mitchell, 26, each won scholarships to go through the COCC applied sciences program in emergency medical services. They are close to completing an associate's degree in structural fire science, as well.
It is somewhat unusual for an aspiring paramedic to get hired in his or her home town, but high scores and good timing in hitting the district's hiring cycle landed Ast and Mitchell their spots on the roster.
Mitchell had been interested in the fire service for some time when she responded to an advertisement for a basic firefighting class for volunteers. She was talked into volunteering and she found herself on a career path.
"Basically, I just wanted to help people, give something back to the community," she said. "At first, I wasn't really sure this is what I really wanted to do, but I really enjoyed it."
Ast's jump into firefighting and emergency medical services owes a lot to happenstance.
"I was going to ride in a fire truck in a parade," he recalled. "Ken Enoch jokingly said I had to fill out a (volunteer) application. Dave Moyer, Jr. talked me into (actually) filling it out and I started volunteering.
Emergency medical training soon grabbed his interest.
"I just kind of jumped into it, really enjoyed it and decided that's the direction I wanted to go in," he said.
Becoming a paramedic required a great deal of work and study and dedication. But the profession promises more than the usual share of job satisfaction -- and it never gets dull.
"You never know what's going to happen in a given 24-hour period," Mitchell said.
The paramedics work in shifts, 24 hours on and 48 off. Sisters has two paramedics on scene 24-hours a day.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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