Profile: Gabriel

The first impression I had upon meeting Gabriel wasn't much of an impression at all. I don’t think I noticed, upon first glance, any of the things about him I now consider most notable. Those things are the very things that make him a walking contradiction. Every conversation I had with the guy broadened my comprehension of one of the strangest people I've ever known, full to the brim with conflicting narratives.

Getting to know Gabe is like sitting down with a picture book where none of the illustrations match the stories. For example, you might look at the image of this small man, his full height scarcely clearing my own shoulders, and assume he is lacking in matter of strength. You would be wrong. In fact, Gabe tells me one of the greatest moments of his life was that of his graduation from the fire academy, where he proved every doubter wrong, proved that he was as capable at 4'11 as anyone who wore the fireman's jacket in an XL. 

Being first introduced to his soft voice and kind, unassuming demeanor, and then finding out he's also a badass-- a firefighter, an EMT, a member of our local disaster relief tactical team-- you're left trying to reconcile these two diametric extremes. And even then, you would've only scratched the surface. Soon enough you'd experience his theatrical whimsy, a love of performance never quite outgrown from childhood. In him you meet an actor and musician whose local fame makes it impossible for him to walk undisturbed in public. And beyond even that is a man with a love of the culinary arts, experimenting with gluten free baking so I (a sufferer of Celiac disease) can be included at block parties and potlucks. This is a man who plays violin, covers Sinatra, bakes cookies, rules over Munchkinland in a silly cape, and then goes to work the next morning ready to run into burning buildings.

The story of how Gabe came to be a firefighter dates back decades. "It all kinda started when I got my first radio," he told me once, over coffee and breakfast sandwiches. "That was what first planted the seed, and allowed me to get familiar with public safety." As the story goes, the tow company that his mom worked in advertising for had a police scanner in their office, and when the owner noticed how much this kid, then only eleven, loved listening to it, he gifted Gabriel with the first of many radios he would go on to own throughout his life.

Without the influence of that radio, Gabe might not have become a first responder at all. In fact, his life might have taken another turn entirely. As a teenager, he became very interested in science, and in particular meteorology.

"I became a weather spotter for a local TV station," he says. "I heard that the National Weather Service had a program called SKYWARN. I thought it was the coolest thing and I wanted to be part of it, except I wasn't eighteen. So the only way to get accepted into the program was if you were also a HAM radio operator."

"HAM," or amateur radio, requires a baseline knowledge of how radio systems work, and a license from the FCC. So Gabe went to a friend of his (you'll notice this phrase becoming a recurring theme in his story, as he is one of those people who seems to have friends just about everywhere) who was part of a local amateur radio club, and with some help he was able to study for and pass the exam required to become a licensed HAM operator. This new certification (yet another theme you'll soon notice-- his 20-page resume lists five pages of certifications) now under his belt, he became a SKYWARN spotter.

the first gift I ever gave him was
one of these signs for his garage

"When there were severe thunderstorms or those types of severe weather events," he says, "I'd be on the radio, relaying warnings... telling people what was going on. I had my own office in the house."

It was through the aforementioned radio club that Gabe got his first taste of the public safety field. "I saw the med teams working and I said, that's really cool, I wanna do that," he says. From there, Gabe approached another friend of his, a firefighter from his hometown, who suggested he take a first responder class.

"The way I saw it at the time, it was very advanced. Almost like EMT-level stuff. The two-week course was very exciting. For a seventeen-year-old kid, it was a lot." After receiving his certification, he found himself doing double-duty for the marathon, working both communications and medical. "They loved it because it was one more skill they could use. If they didn't have a HAM on the med team, they'd put me on it because I could do both.

It was around this time that two things happened: First, Gabe joined a local CERT team. This put him in contact with many people from the field of emergency response, and over the years he got more and more deeply involved with his local Emergency Management Agency. Second, he announced to his mother what he really wanted: to become a firefighter. She, however, was less than enthusiastic about the idea. It was too dangerous, she told him. He could get hurt, or killed.

"That turned into... the only real (argument) we ever had," he explains. In the end, they compromised. No firefighting, but Gabe would pursue a career in his dream field through dispatch.

"I was happy with that for a while, volunteering here and there. When I was eighteen I got my first real job doing advertisement... (but) it just wasn't fulfilling to me. I wanted to get paid to do the medical and communications stuff." In an attempt to widen his dispatch horizons, Gabe took on a dispatch position with a private ambulance company.

"Looking back it was a great experience because you had cardiac arrests, traumatic arrests, lots of trauma stuff, childbirth, CPR-- you had that going on on regular basis. I figured if I could handle (that), I can handle anything." Two years later, he found a company a bit closer to home. It was slower-paced, but it would wind up getting him involved in EMS on an even deeper level.

The clinical education coordinator needed CPR instructors. Gabe, of course, volunteered, and took yet another class. Once he had his instructor certification, Gabe was given additional responsibilities, such as training new employees and recertifying the ones whose certs were about to expire. He also took over teaching CPR for schools, businesses, and outside agencies.

 After about three years of this, Gabe went back to his mom with a new proposition. If he was going to make enough money in this field to live on, he was going to have to become an EMT. She resisted at first, but Gabe can be very convincing. So he enrolled in a six-month EMT program and became certified. Now he was a CPR/first aid instructor, an EMT, and a dispatcher for the company, where he stayed for a total of eight years.

"When you're in private EMS as an EMT, the usual goal is to become a paramedic," he explains. "But paramedic school is expensive and it takes a long time. It's basically like going to college for a degree." Instead of trying to go up in EMS, Gabe decided to branch outward, expanding into police and fire. He joined a a volunteer organization that provided what is called "fire ground rehabilitation" services. They would bring drinks, snacks, blankets, sometimes a mobile warming station to combat extreme cold-- anything that would help the responders on a difficult scene.

In 2016, Gabe became involved with another charity: a 5K. It was this involvement that inspired his boss at the ambulance company to say, "You do too much." This he tells me with a laugh, and then continues: "So anyway, I became the first aid coordinator." It started out small, since the race had never had a first aid unit before.

    

"The first year it was just me with my equipment and my first-in bag," he says. "The second year, I recruited some of my EMT friends to help. I bought an AED, acquired O2 tanks... got the whole thing set up with radios. I would be at the finish line, with a friend posted at each checkpoint... Every year it would get bigger and bigger."

In fact, the scope of this project would exceed all expectations. By 2019, "we had course coverage from start to finish, lead and tail vehicles, response teams on bikes. I coordinated with AMA radio to provide communication, and I would meet beforehand with EMS coordinators and fire departments. I pulled some strings and was able to get them dedicated ambulance coverage, for free-- which is unheard of... It was basically like running a non-transporting ambulance and emergency medical response service."

One day, Gabe was working a detail with the ambulance company when he met a member of another local Emergency Management Agency. "At the time, it was not in a good place," he explains. "Vehicles were broken down, certs were expiring, morale was down-- nobody was doing anything."

As his boss had once said, Gabe did (and to this day still does) "do too much." The last thing he needed was another place vying for his unpaid labor. So naturally, what he said was: "I don't really want to take on another volunteer thing, but... bah, whatever. So I joined."

"We did a lot of work," he recounts. "Got the vehicles out of the bunker, which had a problem with constant moisture, leading to rust. So we... got to work." Tirelessly he worked to renew old certs, fix up the ambulances, replace old equipment, and boost the lacking morale of the agency.

Since then, the EMA has gotten new vehicles, taken on new members, and built up a list of events they work.

"Those two events are two of my greatest accomplishments in EMS," Gabe says, gazing off into the distance. I let my eyes follow his and see nothing myself. But whatever it is he's seeing makes him smile wistfully. I've never known Gabe to boast, despite having much to boast about, so hearing him talk about something that he takes this much pride in makes me grin, too.

By now, private EMS was getting to Gabe, so he decided to try his hand at police and fire dispatch. As an intermediate step, he took a security job for a medical facility. The nature of the facility made it a necessity for even the security staff to be first-aid trained, but they had no capacity for in-house training, and the pool of applicants who came pre-trained in both medical and security was shallow. But as soon as they figured out that Gabe was a CPR/first aid instructor and certified first responder, they put his skills to work, and he set about rescuing yet another struggling agency.

"Remember that first responder class I took when I was eighteen? Well, now I'm teaching it," he grins. "Had to get certified to do that too, but we fixed the staffing issues because now we could teach and recertify in-house. I think that's #3 on the great accomplishments list. Took yet another organization that was struggling, fixed their problems and made it better."

With this accomplishment under his belt, it's an easy transition into police and fire dispatch, and in a small town (population just shy of 7,000), he finds his "favorite place in the world." This town means the world to Gabe, even now, after years of working alongside the people who would eventually become like a family to him. For Gabe, somebody for whom "family" meant just him and his mom, that was a big deal. He finally experienced through that town the joy of having cousins and uncles in the form of officers and Sergeants, brothers and sisters in their team of dispatchers and firefighters.

"Finally, I'm in freeze mode," he says. "I'm not looking for any more jobs, just enjoying what I've got. Then, suddenly, my mom died."

The air chills noticeably as he says this, and he again looks out into the distance. I wonder if now it's his mother he's seeing on the other side, and not for the first time, I wish there was something I could say. There's really no right response to something like that. But he only pauses for a moment before bringing the conversation right back home.

"About six months after she passed away, I decided that there was now nothing stopping me from becoming a firefighter." The single most important person in his life, the person who cared about him so much that she begged him not to do something so risky, had died, and now he was determined to see his dream through.

"I sat down with the fire chief and explained my interest." The chief told him that, if Gabe could pass the fire academy, then the town would hire him as a firefighter on the spot. In the meantime, though, would he consider working for their EMS? He accepted, and, "about a year later, there was an opening at the fire academy. I left the private ambulance company at that time, because I couldn't do both. For once in my life, I said, I'm doing too much."

    

"When I'd been working in private EMS, I'd always been told I was too short to be a firefighter," he admits. Then his face splits into a grin so wide, it's almost comical. "So graduating from the fire academy-- passing the physical, the exams and tests and graduating-- it was gratifying. To prove those people wrong. To say, yes, I can be a firefighter."

Things seemed to be going well, except for the fact that firefighters are criminally underpaid, especially in a small town's volunteer department. "Although I love this, I love being a firefighter, love all that I do... I still had to do something to make a decent income. So I turned to some friends, who recommended Regional, where I met you!"

For Gabe, the idea of regionalized dispatch was downright odious. Community-oriented, small-town Gabe turned down their initial offer, in spite of the competitive pay. All he really wanted to do was keep on at the fire department as a dispatcher and EMT-firefighter, and the security job as a training coordinator. It wasn't until the second time they approached him that he begrudgingly accepted, dropping his other roles down to part-time or per diem.

To be honest, as much as I know he detests it there, I am personally so grateful that he took the job, because it's not every day you get to meet people with stories like his. It's Reginal I have to thank for introducing me to one of my best friends, and for that, I will never not be grateful.