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I'm a paramedic firefighter for the city of Los Angeles.
I really love being a firefighter paramedic;
I love being in the thick of things,
where everything's chaotic and you kind of bring
some order to that chaos in your training.
And I really love doing it.
It's what I trained for.
It's 106 fire stations.
It doesn't seem like it's enough.
It seems like there should be maybe 500 fire stations.
But 3,000 employees to handle over 4.5 million people per day.
It's a good day, too.
Sadly, though, one day that all changed for me.
I suffered a heart attack.
Actually I've had two heart attacks from '07 to now.
December of '07 is when I had a second one.
I was removed from the field, which is to say, no more
firefighting or paramedic work for me.
Gosh, I miss this (laughs).
I miss being out there working with paramedic work.
I miss that a whole lot.
It looks pretty crazy to be doing a job like that, but
you know, we love doing it.
We lost our home due to that difficulty
and due to that loss of wages at that time.
To see that go away was a tough, tough deal.
At this point I changed my whole focus.
It changed our family's life; it changed a lot of things.
The job I have now, it's quite different.
It involves working with the media and the public.
Before, I was out there in the thick of things,
and now I'm behind the scenes. I'm heard but never seen.
Los Angeles Fire Department, Devin Gales speaking.
How may I help you?
I get to see everything that's going on in the city,
from stabbings to shootings to fires
to car accidents to deliveries of babies—I get to see 'em all.
And that can be overwhelming sometimes.
So it's a different workload you take home with you
or try to leave at work.
So on the drive home, I love listening to the scriptures.
That's decompression for me.
It puts me in the right mind- set to focus on the spiritual
things on the drive home
so that when I see my kids, I'm appreciative not only of what
others lost today—a life, or a house in a fire—
I can focus on those things
and be happy that I have my family, health, and happiness.
I'm a Los Angeles City firefighter paramedic.
My name is Devin Gales, and I'm a Mormon.