Photo By Senior Airman Victoria Nuzzi | Station Chief Christopher Padilla, 432nd Mission Support Squadron, stands for a...... read more read more
Subscribe
The call came in while Station Chief Christopher Padilla, Capt. Sean Conely, Lt. Joshua Valdes, Christopher Ambrogio and lastly Lt. Carl Lambert, 432nd Mission Support Group, were on shift. The call on Aug. 20, 2024, was for a fentanyl overdose where the patient had been rendered unconscious.
After the call came in, Lambert located where it came from, once all personnel were loaded on to Engine 22, he drove them to the location in Indian Springs, Nevada.
The Creech Fire Department has a mutual aid agreement with the Clark County Fire Department for Indian Springs. This means that the Creech Fire Department responds to all medical, fire-related, vehicle accident calls and other emergencies in Indian Springs and the surrounding highway. This mutual aid agreement was put in place because the Creech Fire Department is the closest fire station to Indian Springs, with the next closest station being thirty minutes away in Las Vegas. On average, the Creech Fire Department answers 350 calls a year for Indian Springs and the highway.
“Everybody knows what to expect when you go on a call like that,” said Ambrogio. “When you run multiple calls with the same team and they all perform at a high caliber, things just click on scene like they did during that call.”
Upon arriving on the scene, they found a family member administering CPR on the unconscious patient, and they quickly got into action.
“I recall entering the residence and recognizing the gravity of the situation, realizing it was time to take things seriously," said Conely.
Valdes quickly began attaching monitors to the patient to check for a pulse as he directed Conely to take over CPR. Once a faint pulse was detected, Conely transitioned to using a bag valve mask to provide rescue breathing. Valdes then prepared and administered a dose of Narcan. Observing that one dose of Narcan was taking effect slowly, he decided to administer a second dose.
“The patient came around quickly after the second dose,” said Padilla. “Once you start seeing the patient wake up and speak, you know you are going to have a positive outcome from the call. It’s not over but there is a sigh of relief.”
After the two doses of Narcan, Ambrogio introduced an IV and checked additional vitals including blood pressure, pulse and respiration rate.
As this was happening, Padilla monitored the scene for safety of his firefighters while calling for ground transportation to transport the patient to a hospital in Las Vegas. Additionally, he calmed down the family member as the call was taking place.
An ambulance arrived on the scene approximately 45 minutes after the firefighters were alerted. The patient was loaded onto the ambulance and the firefighter's part of the call was over once the ambulance doors shut.
“After a call for me, there is a still zone,” said Conely. “During the drive back, we will usually talk about, whether it was something simple or not. We critique ourselves whether it was a positive outcome or not. Once we get back to the station, our advance EMTs will resupply what they used and the driver and I will get back to the truck to make sure all our gear is ready to go for next time.”
For their life-saving actions, all five were awarded the Civilian Achievement Award from the Department of the Air Force on Jan. 23, 2025.
“A lot of us have responded to calls and saved lives; this award is a testament to everyone's dedication to the job,” said Conely.
Padilla sees the award as being not just for this call, but for all the calls he’s responded to over the last 25 years. He says everyone in this department has been on calls like that one and this is the one that happened to get noticed.
Padilla, Valdes, Lambert and Conely are all former active duty Air Force and each had over twenty years of experience in the career field. Ambrogio was a volunteer firefighter in the civilian sector until four years ago when he came to Creech and was employed by the Air Force.
“My family was proud of me when they saw me being presented the award,” said Ambrogio. “It was nice for them to see all of us as a team. People always talk about the fire department being a family and it is moments like that where my team and I are up on stage representing the whole department that you can see it is like a family.”
| Date Taken: | 03.06.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.12.2025 11:14 |
| Story ID: | 492426 |
| Location: | CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA, US |
| Web Views: | 14 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Creech Firefighters awarded for lifesaving response, by SrA Victoria Nuzzi, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
