Gene Bradley of Oregon, Missouri, right, is retiring as Atchison-Holt Ambulance EMS Chief after 30 years of service. His replacement is Noah Mays, left, who is currently moving his household from Albany, Missouri, to Tarkio, Missouri.
After 30 years of dedicated service to the Atchison-Holt Ambulance District and to the communities and citizens it serves, Gene Bradley is retiring from his EMS Chief duties. It’s been quite a career and we will all miss his extreme compassion in times of crisis and steadfast loyalty to the cause.
Gene has been with the Atchison-Holt Ambulance District since November of 1993. On his first day and his first call, he got a rude awakening of what his ambulance service duties would entail when a call went out to respond to a multiple fatality dynamite explosion that involved family members of some of the other emergency responders. Working in a rural area and providing emergency care comes with the knowledge that you will more than likely respond to a call dealing with a family member or friend. However, Gene says that his crews have always shown immense courage in never backing down and always providing the best care to those in need, even when it’s a loved one.
The Atchison-Holt Ambulance District is comprised of 27 Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) and paramedics and around 50 first responders in the two-county area. Gene said they have three goals: to calm the fears of their patients, ease their pain and render aid, and provide hope. For Gene, his duties didn’t stop at just treating the patients with medications. He treated them with love and respect and understanding. Talking to his patients and starting conversations with them while they were being worked on or while riding in the ambulance helped ease their fears and for some, those conversations were some of their last here on earth. His actions didn’t stop there. Another tragic call involved a deadly plane crash with a spread out scene. Gene made sure to collect all of the victim’s effects so her family could have some sense of closure.
The local district is well-recognized for providing some of the best ambulance medical care in the nation and over the years, the Atchison-Holt Ambulance District has been featured in a few national news stories. One story was by NPR. Reporters rode with the crew for two days learning about and documenting their day-to-day “rural healthcare” jobs. The district was also sought out to discuss the nationwide shortage of ambulances when the pandemic stopped the manufacture of automotive microchips found in ambulances, thus creating a shortage of working vehicles.
For Gene, his career and those of his crew have never been about being called heroes. He said it has truly been an honor and a privilege to be there for people in some of the most desperate times of their lives. But it hasn’t all been bad or tragic. Gene once transported a women who was in labor. They joked that if she had the baby in the ambulance, she would have to name the baby after Gene. Although that didn’t transpire, the woman was safely carried to the hospital where she delivered a baby who now leads a wonderful life. A few years back, Gene was touched to receive a graduation invitation from the young man.
For the district itself, it has had to sustain an almost purely reactionary life where sometimes growth gets a back seat. Since 1993, the local crews have dealt with flood after flood with major flooding in 1993, 2011, and 2019, sometimes lasting for months at a time. Then COVID hit which put a whole other kink in the system. This became the moment where the nation finally started to grasp that medical staff, and thus EMTs and paramedics and doctors and nurses, etc., have to fight wars sometimes on their own frontlines. Some of Gene’s own crew contracted COVID and passed away. Ambulance crews don’t take their jobs lightly and risk their lives daily in the pursuit of helping others. Coming out of the pandemic after dealing with it for a few years, the ambulance district is among those that now face a workforce shortage. It’s tough finding young individuals who want to enter the EMT and paramedic side of healthcare, especially in a rural setting. In fact, eventually Gene plans to rejoin the crew as a part-time paramedic to help out.
Gene remarked that his number one standard for hiring people was their attitude. He said you can train someone to be a paramedic, but you can’t train them to have the attitude needed to do this job and serve the community night and day in a compassionate manner. Part of this service is not only providing medical treatment, but treating the victim and their families as if they are your own, talking to and comforting them, and putting your focus on them, even if that means setting aside the paperwork for later.
The duties of an ambulance crew is not just “giving a ride.” It’s a mobile emergency room that starts with treatment the moment you are connected to a dispatcher. The ambulances have everything they need to help stabilize the patient. The $200,000 ambulances hold upwards of $100,000 in medicines, supplies and equipment needed for as long as it takes to get patients where they need to go. For some of Gene’s patients, that wasn’t just to the local hospital. In Gene’s time, Atchison-Holt ambulances have transported patients as far as Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, St. Joseph, Kansas City, Jefferson City, and St. Louis, Missouri.
The services provided have also expanded over the years. Crews now provide telehealth visits coordinated with doctors. They can attend to patients while the doctor is viewing online and thus the ambulance crew can give medications needed so that the patient doesn’t necessarily have to go into the hospital. This took place a lot during COVID when hospitals were overcrowded and had no available beds. The crews are now also equipped with more medications and equipment than when Gene first started. And one major change he’s seen has actually been for the benefit of his crew. It used to be that only the families of police officers or firemen killed in the line of duty received compensation. That has now been extended to ambulance crews as well.
With expansion comes expenses, but the Atchison-Holt Ambulance District has been able to stay afloat, some thanks to funds coming in from the wind turbines. With financial stability, the district has been able to stay pretty competitive salary and benefit-wise compared to surrounding districts, offering health benefits, uniform allowances, and even a loan program to help purchase needed equipment. The district also offers shifts so that crew members who live far away don’t have to drive back and forth multiple times in one week. The “perks” extend outside the district too, as local businesses and organizations have gone out of their way to help support crews. Some businesses offer discounts on their products to the working paramedics and EMTs and one group, the local Christian Motorcyclists Association, has provided a meal to the crew one day a week for three years.
Retiring as the EMS Chief doesn’t call an end to Gene’s medical service. Besides planning on working part-time, he also will continue to work as the NASCAR Assistant Fire Chief at the Kansas Speedway. There, he is in charge of all the fire trucks, tool trucks, ambulances and crews and is supervisor of the emergency response on the track. He also coordinates the training for the crews. Gene has also served in the Missouri Ambulance Association, Ambulance District Association of Missouri, and American Ambulance Association. When not staying busy, Gene plans to spend time with his wife, three children, and six grandkids, and travel.
Stepping into Gene’s shoes as EMS Chief is Noah Mays. Noah started in EMS in October 2001 with Grand River Ambulance in Albany, Missouri, and has been with them 23 years. He currently is still a paramedic for them when he’s home. Noah has also worked at NTA Ambulance in Bethany, Missouri, and Andrew County Ambulance in Savannah, Missouri. He started with Atchison-Holt Ambulance District in 2012 part-time, and six years ago he decided to make Atchison-Holt his full-time position. He has worked his way up from EMT to paramedic, then to field supervisor, and now to EMS Chief.
Noah came to Atchison-Holt Ambulance District when the late paramedic, Ed Jacobs, a good friend, mentor, and former supervisor of Noah’s at Grand River Ambulance, called and said Atchison-Holt was looking for part-time help. He was working there full-time, and told Noah that he felt this district was a good fit for him, and would allow them the chance to work together again. Noah applied, got hired and had the privilege of working side by side with him a handful of times before Ed’s unfortunate passing from leukemia in 2014. Noah said, “I owe that man a lot of gratitude for teaching me how to have compassion for our patients and helping me discover Atchison-Holt Ambulance District. I was lucky to have such a great mentor and hope I can have that big of an impact on a person in my role as EMS Chief.”
Noah enjoys working in a rural setting with the Atchison-Holt Ambulance District. “Due to being super rural and having longer transport times, we frequently have the privilege of getting to know our patients better, hear their life stories, calm their fears, and sometimes get them to smile before they get to the ER. I absolutely love that part of working here!”
Noah and his wife, Aaron, currently reside in Albany, but will be relocating to Tarkio soon. They have two children, Zachary and Sedona, and two grandchildren, Caspian and Haven.
The Atchison-Holt Ambulance District office is located at 303 S. 3rd Street in Tarkio, but plans are still in the works for a new office and ambulance bays to be built at the corner of 3rd and Main Street in Tarkio on what is currently an empty lot on the west side of 3rd and south side of Main. The district has outgrown the current building and looks forward to not only having a larger and more efficient facility, but also helping the city of Tarkio add another business to Main Street.
