Meile Is Responder Of The Week

Chris Meile has been around the world in his 31 years of service as a paramedic.

It all started as a volunteer with Grant County EMS and moved on to the fast-paced world of a responder in Tulsa, Okla.,  and Oklahoma City to a flight paramedic caring for patients around the world.

Now it has come full circle as the hometown boy is back with Grant County EMS, bringing his three decades of knowledge and experience to the next generation of EMTs.

“I originally started here back in 1994,” Meile said. “Then moved away, and things brought me back here a year-and-a-half ago and I started there in January of this year as a paramedic.”

From his humble beginnings as an EMT Basic, Meile moved to a fast paced 911 system in Topeka as a paramedic for American Medical Response. He received his EMT Intermediate certification and achieved his paramedic certification.

“Over the course of the years, I just advanced through other things and jobs,” Meile said. “I worked in a hospital as a patient care tech in Topeka, I then went on to work as a chief medical person in charge, or remote paramedic offshore for about three to four years, before I got the call one day to work for a flight service doing flight paramedic stuff - that was back in 2012 and that’s what I’ve done since.”

When he first became a flight paramedic he was based in northern Arizona in the Navajo Indian Reservation, providing critical care transports from the reservation to Flagstaff, Phoenix and Albuquerque, NM. By 2021 Meile’s company transferred him to Bermuda, where he spent six months before going to Phoenix, where he provided flights across the country and as far as South Korea for medical patients and trauma patients.

“That comes with maintaining several levels of certification, being cross certified in multiple states and in our case we were certified in the UK as medical staff,” Meile added.

He returned to Ulysses in 2024 to help his mother, Pam, who was experiencing some challenges from surgeries.

“I was not planning on going back and working on an ambulance but still do the flight stuff, we were still PRN with the company,” Meile said. “But we no longer have a base out in Arizona, they closed it down due to contracts, so I was looking to go part time and wound up getting roped into working full time for Grant County EMS. It’s where I started and where I’m at now.”

When he first started as a flight paramedic, he was more focused on Arizona-New Mexico area, but graduated to international flights, which brought a unique set of rules.

“I’ve kind of seen everything,” Meile said. “We’ve flown patients where we’ve had those who have literally walked onto the aircraft and were just there because it says they needed medical escort for medical providers, and we’ve flown critical patients for four and six hours who have a ventilator on them.”

The last flight he flew with his flight partner Cheryl was to and from South Korea to pick up a U.S. citizen and return them to the U.S. The patient had suffered a heart attack and were stuck in the medical system there for months before being permitted to return to the U.S.

“That is probably the longest flight I’ve had with a critical patient, bringing them back here,” Meile said. “Everything went pretty well on our end.

“You get to see a lot of the country. But there’s a whole other aspect of it - extra training we have to go through. Whereas working on an ambulance most of our individuals here maintain paramedic certification trough the state, I’ve got to maintain a paramedic certification through a national registry which is a standardized program across the nation.”

And that’s just a few of the stories of his career and certifications he has to maintain.

Look for more on Meile’s international EMS career in future Ulysses News issues.