A few years ago, I decided to talk to the other volunteers in my firefighting department about their experiences. Why did they become volunteers? How did firefighting change them? What did volunteering mean to them?
I’m sharing some of the videos now as part of a series I’m calling Firefighters: Who We Are. You may have seen some of them on my Facebook page. Some have also been shared by the National Volunteer Firefighter Council.
Now I’m sharing some of them on this blog.
This first interview is with my friend and mentor Sheila Beuler. Sheila was a volunteer with the Hondo fire district, my department, before she was hired by the Santa Fe City Fire Department as a career firefighter and paramedic. She recently retired as a Captain after 20 years.
In this video, Sheila talks about a call early in her career that dramatically changed her view of life.