Terry Crosby Is Responder Of The Week

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Terry Crosby is a paramedic with Grant County EMS, but for the 26-year veteran of Grant County EMS, it’s more than that – it’s a family affair of service to the community.

This week’s Responder of the Week has been married to Grant County Fire Chief John Crosby for 44 years and is also the safety officer for the fire department. And not only is her husband the fire chief, he’s also been a paramedic since 2000 – but Terry’s got a year on him – she started in 1999.

Their daughter Robin has also been a full-time paramedic since 2017.

“It’s been a family thing,” said John Crosby.

Terry joined the fire department in 1999 and signed up for the EMT class the same day.

“It’s been kind of crazy,” Terry said.

Terry said the biggest change she’s seen in 26 years is the camaraderie.

“The entire community, we’ve got such a great team,” Terry said. “We’ve got the fire department, we’ve got EMS, we’ve got the police department, the sheriff’s department, our hospital, and even our road and bridge department, our city department. When disaster strikes, everyone helps.”

When disaster strikes everyone works together as a team.

“It used to not be like that,” Terry said. “It was pretty, ‘Well it’s our area, our department.’ Now, it’s a part of the goal. The people here, that’s our goal is to help them, and we all come together as a team to try and reach that goal. That’s probably the biggest difference I see as a whole.

“It’s very, very rewarding to watch that happen, it really is,” she added.

John is not the reason Terry joined the fire department.

“Terry always helped at the fire department even though she wasn’t on the fire department,” John said. “When I started as chief, I built the officer corps up and I gave them the power to talk about things, and we make decisions as a team.

“She was helping a lot at the fire department and the officers, they said ‘Terry, you need to join the fire department.’”

John said he was not for that, at first, but that changed.

“I had an interest, it was extremely appealing to me because of the – it’s not that I’m an adrenaline junky – but it was something where I can help somebody, I can give back to my community, and that had an appeal to me I really wanted.”

The officers overrode John and said Terry could join if she wanted to.

“He was like, uhhh, okay,” Terry laughed.

Just like John, the most memorable and extreme calls she’s worked have been weather related.

“I think it’s the ones which put us as firefighters or EMS personnel in peril,” Terry said. “It’s not so much of going there and doing the job, it’s the surroundings we’re having to work in.

“Those are the ones I think really stand out, because it makes you think, ‘How could I do my job and stay as safe as possible?’ Even EMS, the jobs are inherently dangerous just because of what you do, we’re working in the field as medics and it’s a lot of things to try and control. But for the most part that’s not a problem, it’s when weather’s involved which you can’t control.”

John said there have been some close calls over the years where first responders could have been hurt. Fires, wind, and snowstorms are dangerous.

“Getting to the calls, being able to function when you can’t stand up either because the wind is blowing so hard or the rain is so deep that you’re having to walk and swim in the water,” Terry said. “You can’t stand on the road because it’s so slick and the wind is pushing you off.”

Dust storms are also conducive to static electricity, which presents an entirely different danger.

“There’s been a few occasions where we could have easily lost people, it’s just by the Grace of God it didn’t happen,” John added.

Terry said it’s a matter of keeping safe so the responders can help those who need it at the time.

Terry said she will retire at the same time John does.

‘After a while, it takes a toll on the body,” Terry said. “For us, we’ve got a really great support system so even though we’ve had calls the might have affected us a little bit mentally, more of our issues are physical. We’re not spring chickens anymore, and we want to have some retirement years where we can go and do some things and still be able to enjoy it and physically do that.

“So, we’ll probably retire here within two to three years and turn the key over to somebody else and say, ‘Have a go at it’ and wish them luck and walk away from it,” Terry said. “It will be hard, it’ll be extremely hard because we’ve done this for a long time.”

If you have someone to nominate for Responder of the Week, contact the Ulysses News at (620) 356-1201.