{"id":97175,"date":"2018-11-06T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dealing-with-painful-loss-bayfield-emt-finds-his-calling\/"},"modified":"2018-11-06T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T12:00:00","slug":"dealing-with-painful-loss-bayfield-emt-finds-his-calling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dealing-with-painful-loss-bayfield-emt-finds-his-calling\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with painful loss, Bayfield EMT finds his calling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Upper
Upper Pine River Fire Protection District Chief Bruce Evans congratulates Dan Miller, right, on May 17 after he received a promotion to captain. Miller, who decided to become an EMT after his 2\u00bd-year-old son died in 2007, will soon move to Iowa to be closer to family.<\/span>Courtesy of Upper Pine River Fire<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Eleven years ago, Dan Miller tragically lost his toddler son, Thomas. But in his journey to deal with the boy\u2019s death, he found his true calling \u2013 working as a paramedic and firefighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a life-changing event,\u201d Miller said at a going-away party for him Sunday night at Moe\u2019s in Durango.<\/p>\n

He will leave Upper Pine River Fire Protection District<\/a> and Bayfield on Nov. 13 for Ankeny, Iowa, to be closer to family. He will work as a firefighter-paramedic for the Ankeny Fire Department.<\/p>\n

Miller was watching football with his 2\u00bd-year-old son on Nov. 10, 2007, when the toddler began choking.<\/p>\n

The family was living in a rural area about 6 miles from Bayfield. Miller had training as a lifeguard and began working to free the obstruction from his son, who had almost immediately passed out.<\/p>\n

Now, Miller said he realizes that by the time the emergency crew arrived at his house his son had already gone too long without oxygen to be saved.<\/p>\n

The Upper Pine crew managed to get a heartbeat, but Thomas died about 15 minutes after being flown to Children\u2019s Hospital Colorado in Aurora.<\/p>\n

After their son\u2019s funeral, Miller and his wife, Heather, decided to take time off from work. They visited family and friends from Nebraska to Florida to help them deal with their loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were headed back home, we had to pull off the road multiple times to let the waterworks out. We were just crying, but somewhere in the middle of Tennessee, I pulled off the road, and I said, \u2018Heather I want to be an EMT.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller said when he returned to Bayfield, he went to the Upper Pine River Fire Protection District office to thank paramedics and firefighters who had tried to save his son and to ask how he could pursue a career as a paramedic.<\/p>\n

Rich Graeber, then Upper Pine\u2019s chief, said an EMT class had just started. It had met three times, but he was able to get Miller in. In addition, Graeber told Miller that Upper Pine would pay for his classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a family. These are my brothers and sisters. I\u2019ve been all over training people, Japan and Brazil, and it\u2019s always the same,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n

The first class Miller attended was about how to clear difficult airways with children. That began Miller\u2019s journey to help him understand what happened the night his son died.<\/p>\n

The next year, when Miller earned his fire certification, he said he realized that not only had his effort to become a paramedic and firefighter helped him cope with the loss of his son, it also led him to his true calling.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, this horrible thing happened to me, and I just wanted to be there to help people when they\u2019re most in need. I want to be there to help them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Vito Ciccarelli, who joined Upper Pine in early 2017, credits Miller with helping him find his stride as a paramedic.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a brand new EMT, I wasn\u2019t confident in my skills,\u201d Ciccarelli said. \u201cDan spent hours in the back of an ambulance with me going through basic EMT skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ciccarelli said every opportunity during a shift, Miller, his supervisor, would ensure he was in a learning environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just a great EMT mentor who became a good, good friend. As an EMT you\u2019re on a lot of calls, and a lot of bad calls, and that\u2019s where that true brotherhood comes out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Miller is quick to help young EMTs deal with the trauma they see, and he is an advocate for mental health for young EMTs as they navigate the psychological demands of their jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cDan Miller is the heart and body of what you want in a firefighter and a paramedic,\u201d Ciccarelli said.<\/p>\n

Upper Pine River Fire Chief Bruce Evans said some people become paramedics and firefighters because that is what their parents do or because it is a good, stable job. But the reason that drove Miller into the field, painful as it was, created a great paramedic and firefighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cDan Miller is a guy who came to work every day, and never once worried about himself,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, life comes full circle. For Miller, that circle showed itself Saturday when his old car \u2013 the one he drove to Southwest Colorado 30 years ago \u2013 showed up at a firefighting training class.<\/p>\n

It was an inexplicable coincidence. It was Miller\u2019s last day with Upper Pine, and firefighters planned to remove doors from a beat up, old jalopy as part of a training exercise to re-create rescue skills needed during an auto accident.<\/p>\n

Miller had gotten rid of the Honda Accord years ago. But Lon\u2019s Automotive of Bayfield delivered the car for the drill.<\/p>\n

\u201cDan had sold it, and randomly it shows up on his last day for the training,\u201d Evans said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of freaky.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

looks to next chapter in career in Iowa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1152,13,714,1370],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-97175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-emergency-incident","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-human-interest","tag-upper-pine-river-fire-protection-district"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97175"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=97175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}