Most of the time, you’ll find Sam Sye in the four-bay shop at Gundersen Tri-State Ambulance wrenching on a fleet vehicle that needs some work done before heading back on the street. But occasionally, he will be in one of the ambulances, responding to a medical call when other paramedics or EMTs aren’t able.
Sam, the fleet and facilities manager at Gundersen Tri-State for the past 12 years, wears many hats. He’s a licensed EMT who is responsible for maintaining a fleet of 30 ambulances and fleet vehicles that travel nearly one million miles each year. What’s more, he also oversees the maintenance and repair of eight facility locations scattered around the region. And until early this year, when a fellow mechanic was hired, he did it all on his own.
For Sam’s dedication to his work, both in the shop and in the ambulance, he’s being awarded a 2023 Star of Life, a recognition from the Professional Ambulance Association of Wisconsin. He, along with fellow Tri-State medic Loren Mitchell, as well as Gundersen Ambulance EMT Mark Schiltz and medic Cynthia Torkelson, will be honored at a reception on Oct. 10 in Madison.
“Sam is passionate about EMS and ensuring the ambulances and support vehicles are always ready,” says Tom Tornstrom, clinical operations director at Gundersen Tri-State. “He is a tremendous contributor to our ability to care for patients and save lives, and we are very fortunate to have him as part of the team.”
Fixing vehicles, saving lives
Sam has always been interested in fixing cars. From routine maintenance to body repair work to complete engine overhauls, there isn’t much that can go wrong on a vehicle that can stump him. He built that trove of knowledge during his time in the auto and diesel technology program at Universal Technical Institute in Glendale Heights, Ill.
But the world of emergency responding has also attracted his attention, which isn’t surprising considering his upbringing.
“Many in my family are in healthcare of some sort,” he says. “I’ve always kind of been involved with it a little bit,” adding that he’s also served as a volunteer firefighter in the past.
So, although he had more than two decades of auto repair under his belt, he had some “extra time” and decided to complete an EMT training program through Winona Area Ambulance Service – all while still holding down his full-time job at Gundersen Tri-State, maintaining his own snowplowing business and farming 300 acres.
“That was kind of a grueling process,” says Sam, who also teaches an emergency vehicle operations class. “I stay busy.”
Ready to respond
Sam estimates he gets out on an emergency call about once a week, which could increase if the call volume is higher or a coworker calls in sick. He has the overhead radio playing in the shop so he can keep an ear on how busy the department is and if he’ll need to drop what he’s doing to jump on a truck.
“I know if we get a bunch of calls all of a sudden and two of them are in Ettrick, one’s in Farmington and one’s in De Soto, all the resources are gone,” he says, “so if there’s a traffic crash on Gillette Street, we need another truck. And I can process all of that.”
But regardless of which part of the job he’s doing on a given day, he likes them both for the same reason.
“Fixing things and helping people,” he says. “Whether it’s helping repair a truck that needs something, being able to recognize what’s wrong with it, being able to know what to do to repair it – it’s basically the same thing in EMS. You’re assessing the situation, figuring out what’s wrong and what you can do to help, and then doing it.”
Sam gets the same good feeling, he says, when he tears an engine apart and puts it back together so it works once again as he does when he revives a person after cardiac arrest or splints an arm after a traffic accident.
Now he has a good feeling for another reason, knowing that his peers notice his work enough to nominate him for a statewide award.
“It’s very humbling. I’m very proud of it,” Sam says. “I feel that I support Tri-State from a lot of different aspects to allow everybody to do their job.”