Texas Tactical Medics Play a Vital Role
April 09—CORPUS CHRISTI—Corpus Christi fire Capt. Daniel Valdez traded textbooks for an ax and hose 11 years ago.
After serving five years in the Navy, he enrolled in college to become a math and science schoolteacher.
But that didn't last.
"This is a job I didn't picture myself doing," said Valdez, 37. "Once I started going through the academy I fell in love with the job. I think it's the best decision I ever made."
His momentum didn't end there. Valdez took what he considers the "next step up" in his career as a firefighter and paramedic. Six year ago he joined department's Tactical EMS team.
The team, whose members work and train with the Corpus Christi Police SWAT, dive team and bomb quad, accompanies police specialty units on dangerous calls.
The group of paramedics was assembled in 1998 to aid a critical need for timely responses to personnel injured on the job, battalion chief Mickie Flores said.
The standby medics are a key component to a response system that this year saved a police officer's life.
Valdez and firefighter Randy Lopez were honored for their roles in a Feb. 19 raid during which three officers were shot. Officer Andrew Jordan was the most critically injured.
Valdez received the department's Medal of Honor—the highest award given to a survivor of a hostile encounter—for leaving a safe coverage area to help Jordan when bullets pierced his leg and forearm during the narcotics raid.
Lopez, 32, received the life saving award for getting Jordan to an ambulance within three minutes of being shot.
And much like his career shift 11 years ago, Valdez said his and Lopez's presence at the raid was not planned.
Tactical EMS members are on call during days off from the department. They are rarely called into action when working a firefighter shift, but Feb. 19 was an exception as both were on the schedule.
"Out of all the medics at the scene the day of the shooting, Randy and I should not have been there," Valdez said.
Lopez said the schedule is stringent and staying fit to pass the required quarterly SWAT physical fitness test can be challenging for most.
"The hardest part about being on the teams is to get adjusted to being on call on our days off," Lopez said. "It's a little sacrifice but it's worth it."
Selected medics endure 108 hours of training that begins with 24-hours of Tactical EMS and bomb squad medic training followed by 24 hours of dive medic training. The tactical medic then completes 60 hours of basic SWAT school.
Medics must also attend at least eight hours of monthly SWAT training incorporating bomb and dive medic tactics.
Lopez said the rigid nature of keeping up with what is expected from the team suits him well.
Joining was a decision he made after his mother discouraged him from enlisting in the military, which, as a child, he looked forward to doing.
"Not joining the army drew me to the direction (of joining the tactical EMS team)," he said. "To get a taste of what it would have been like."
