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Why did I Choose to work in Healthcare recruiting or within the field of Healthcare?

Why did I choose Healthcare? This is an easy question for me to answer and it all boils down to one experience, an intense one at that, which occurred in a remote part of Colorado. It was the summer of 2010, and a few close friends and I went to stay at a cabin on the Western Slope of CO. This cabin is OLD, hardly has running water, an outhouse located in the backyard, no electricity and wood burning stoves to cook and heat the home with. We were sleeping in our tents in the yard opposed to staying in the cabin if that gives you an idea to its accommodations. Our intent on this trip was to get away for the weekend, hang out, hike around and go to swimming holes – aka – there were no plans. There is no cell service here, no house phones but a single CB Radio located at one of the 10 or so cabins that are in the “town.” The CB radio is linked directly to the closest Fire Station, which is by no means close, to communicate to first responders any significant occurrences.

It was early afternoon, a few of us had gone off into the woods with a Metal detector strolling around to see what items we could unearth. As we are walking in the woods adjacent to the dirt road, which is a ROUGH 4X4 road, we notice a truck flying towards the cabins with the front and rear bumpers crushed and being dragged underneath and behind the vehicle. As we are the first people the driver sees, he stops, panicked and out of breath and immediately states what occurred. He was climbing one of the local peaks with a friend where he was behind an individual ascending the peak by himself. This individual gets to the top, hangs out for a little bit and begins his descent. During his descent, something went wrong, and he lost his footing resulting in a fall of over 500 feet.

Immediately recognizing what occurred, this man descended to his truck at the base of the mountain while his friend remained behind with other climbers to decide a plan of action and assist in real time pointing out to rescuers where the man is located. It took him over an hour to get back to his car and near an hour of driving to get to where we were. Immediately, our friend whose cabin it is left the conversation ran down the street and Radioed to the fire department to start the rescue process. The CB radio initiated Flight for Life to be sent to the location and all local support in the area to be activated. It turned out that local support on the Eastern side of the mountain was able to get to the area first, but it was determined that due to the remoteness of the ravine and time of day they could not get to the climber until the following morning. The climber ended up passing away due to injuries sustained from his fall.
What struck us all at the end of the day when reflecting was the teamwork, coordination, sacrifice and execution performed by strangers all in an attempt to save the life of a fellow outdoorsman. Many of us went on to work in healthcare, healthcare staffing and continued to stay current with First Responder Certificates if it was us faced with the responsibility of saving another enthusiast life.

To this day whenever I work on a travel nurse assignment with an ER doctor, I think of the lives that could be saved by placing the right doctors into the right assignments across the country.

A Little About Myself

A little bit about myself is that I am born and raised in Southern Connecticut, moved to Colorado for college where I majored in Anthropology and Economics. I have an affinity for being active, playing Hockey once a week, Soccer and the outdoors which is the most prevalent activity to date since my relocation to Colorado. I have two older siblings, Annie who is an Occupational Therapist based out of Philadelphia and my Brother Adam who is an illustrator and muralist based out of Greeneville, SC. I currently reside in Gilbert, AZ where I live with my Better Half, Shayna and our newborn son, Weston. Oh, and I cannot forget the four dogs! Morty and Piper who are Jack Russel along with Gracey and Penny who are Poms.

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