San Marcos Hays County EMS holds an award ceremony

HAYS COUNTY — Heroes that perform lifesaving work behind the scenes were honored at the annual San Marcos Hays County EMS (SMHCEMS) awards banquet — the second since COVID-19 — held Saturday, June 10 at the Plum Creek Golf Course.

Numerous awards were given to honor employees of the company, with seven distinguished awards given to EMT of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Medical Director’s Award, Lieutenant of the Year, Paramedic of the Year, Employee of the Year and the Chief’s Leadership Award.

According to SMHCEMS Battalion Chief Jill Rosales, the EMT of the Year Award was given to Kayden Nichols, who was chosen by the training department.

“Kayden is an advocate for mental health, involved in many extracurricular activities and has a great attitude toward his EMS partners,” Rosales said.

The Rookie of the Year Award was given to David Hess.

“David Hess stays in constant contact, seeking feedback on how to improve and asking for clarification on things and constantly reviewing protocols,” she said. “He has been with the department for just shy of a year.”

Chance Wilson was honored with the Medical Director’s Award.

“[Wilson] picks apart our protocols and makes sure that there are no issues and that our protocols don’t ever contradict themselves from one to another,” Rosales said. “He has been teaching our new hire academy and developing classes on his own to teach. And then he does an extensive amount of research for new protocols and new medications that he believes we should carry.”

Anthony Liu received the Lieutenant of the Year Award.

“[Liu] revamped our company objectives, helped with the task list for protocol updates and goes above and beyond the minimum for lieutenants,” the battalion chief said.

The Paramedic of the Year Award was given to Camille Meyer.

“Camille was chosen for Paramedic of the Year because she goes above and beyond and is always trying to learn new things,” Rosales said. “She is an incredible patient advocate and has a genuine curiosity for medicine.”

Dakota Adamson was awarded Employee of the Year — an award that is given to an individual who stands out in leadership and, in Adamson’s case, tenacity.

“If there was something that he didn’t feel was either being done fairly or could be done better or could benefit more people than not, he challenged administration like, ‘Hey, we need to do this,’ and was persistent and trying to make everything better all the time, trying to better the company and having hard conversations with people here just to kind of challenge their knowledge and challenge their input into the company globally,” she said.

Jonathan McKane was awarded the Chief’s Leadership Award — the first of its kind — given this year.

“He organized what we call our peer support group and that encompasses the mental health of the entire department,” the battalion chief said. “So, if we have somebody who’s experienced a bad call, he’s their first point of contact, making sure that they’re mentally okay.”

The company utilizes Tanie Glenn, who specializes in first responder and military mental health. She has trained SMHCEMS employees to be the first point of contact before they enter her office.

In fact, McKane was one of the primary people within the company who insisted that they establish the group and it is funded by SMHCEMS.

This type of mental health benefit is becoming more necessary as first responder suicide rates are on the rise, Rosales noted.

“Car wrecks aren’t getting any less tragic. We have the fentanyl crisis in Hays County. I mean, those sorts of things wind up taking their toll when you’re the first person to see that on a consistent basis,” she said. “So, we’ve recognized the need for a long time. And he spearheaded that initiative within our company. Aside from that, he was promoted to captain last year and has taken the role very, very seriously and created all sorts of camaraderie amongst the crews and making sure that people have shoulders to cry on and people have a way to want to come to work and be functional.”

Lifesaving Awards were also given to individuals who tended to a patient who was discharged from the hospital and is functional.

“Usually, it’s something where they walk and talk out of the hospital,” Rosales said, noting that SMHCEMS recognized those who performed a lifesaving act from May of 2022 to December of 2022. “We have 15 incidents where a patient was in full cardiac arrest and was revived and discharged from the hospital.”

Lifesaving awards were given to the following individuals: Todd Trapp, Dakota Adamson, Jeremy Burton, Oscar Flores, Kelsey Manak, Robert Franco, Katelynn Gomez, Jeremy Kilpatrick, Nathan Lozuk, Chad Nettles, Elizabeth Ramos, Justin Vasquez, Jeremy Burton, Liliana Franco, Stacie George, Zevonnya Hicks, Patrick Devers, Rebecca Englar, Tamara Jones, Timothy Martin, Kelsey Manak, Madison Puryear, Joshua Bacak, Jason Makusztak, Ellen Obermeier, Maxwell Wible, Bryan Wilson, Jennifer Taylor, Ernest Torrez, Kiersten Leander, Jordan O’Briant, Veronia Lien, Lydia Lopez, Kayden Nichols, Kelsey Manak and Sean Vajgrt.

Forty individuals received recognition for one year of service, including the following: Dawson Adrian, Stephen Baehr, Jacob Beasley, Kayla Cochran, James Cooper, Patrick Devers, Rebecca Englar, Shannon Flowers, Randall Follis, Liliana Franco, Stacie George, Katelynn Gomez, Ryan Hartman, Jeffrey Hennes, William Henry, Jeremy Kilpatrick, Michael Lara, Cambree Leal, Veronica Lien, Katlyn Longoria, Lydia Lopez, Nathan Lozuk, Jason Makusztak, Timothy Martin, Camille Meyer, Chad Nettles, Kayden Nichols, Jordan O’Briant, Darrell O’Brien, Katherine O’Fori, Madison Puryear, Pamela Reynolds, Jennifer Taylor, Dylan Thompson, Stacy Van Pelt, Tiffany Wang, Morgan Whitener, Chance Wilson and Kendall Zumwalt.

Eighteen individuals were recognized for five years of service, including: Dakota Adamson, Dustin Conger, Alexander Holy, Gregory Humphries, Joshua Jakubec, Nicole Kelley, Kiersten Leander, Kelsey Manak, Emilio Martinez, Joshua Martinez, Jonathan McKane, Sarah O’Bringer, Justin Payne, Zachery Phillips, Robert Sanchez, David Smith Jr., Wes Trapp and Sean Vajgrt.

Eight individuals were recognized for 10 years of service, including: Zevonnya Hicks, Suh Hughart, Faith Hunter, Tamara Jones, Robyn Orr, Beatrice Robinson, Jill Rosales and Maxwell Wible.

Seven individuals were honored for 15 years of service, including: Daniel Combs, George Davis, Robert Franco, Jesus Martinez, David Sanders, James Swisher and Matthew Weinberg.

Finally, Scott Robinson and Johann Haire were honored for more than 20 years of service to SMHCEMS.

Rosales said it’s important to recognize the SMHCEMS employees because of the difficulty of the job itself — and it’s not getting any easier.

“EMS, in general, is really, really a hard job to do. And again, it’s not getting any easier by the day, especially through COVID; we were short-handed. There were days you would show up and hope that you could go home because you may not have relief and worked more hours than not and we’re just now rebounding from that,” she explained. “I felt that it was incredibly important to have an event where we can all sit down and gather together to celebrate each other’s accomplishments.”

The battalion chief added that none of this would be possible without a supportive community, who trusts SMHCEMS with their health and lives.

“I think it’s imperative that we thank the community for trusting us to take care of them because that’s one thing that people kind of forget,” Rosales said, noting that a lot of people forget about EMS when it they think of first responders. “Firemen drive the big fire trucks and everybody sees police, which you either love or hate, but EMS is kind of like the invisible [workers of the front line]. EMS has come a long way in the 15 years that I’ve been at this company. I know my crew, I know their names, I know their kids’ names, I know their spouses’ names. And that’s something that this close-knit community affords us the ability to have.”