Jeff Lewis teaching his EMS training class.

Captain Jeff Lewis has taught at Northern Virginia Community College since 2000 and has been a member of the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department for the past 16 years. He wears the stress of such intense work well, and one would never guess that this young Emergency Medical Services worker is also the medical section coordinator of the elite Fairfax Urban Search and Rescue team known as Virginia Task Force One (VATF-1).

Born in the northeastern United States, Lewis’ family moved to the Fairfax County area when he was 13. It was as a George Mason University freshman that he experienced what he called an “epiphanous moment.” On the way home from classes at the medical education campus in Springfield he passed a car accident and stopped, though he did not know why.

The dust from the accident had not yet settled from the event when Lewis had a disheartening realization. He could do nothing to help the victims. Then others arrived on the scene.

“And this Boy Scout and his dad were getting stuff done,” Lewis recounted.

After the EMS workers transported the four teenagers with various injuries to the hospital, Lewis approached one of the remaining EMS volunteers from the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department who had been in attendance at a training meeting that day. That was the beginning of a new career.

The training that is involved in basic fire and rescue work is more intense that one might guess. That training begins with a 24-hour shift 10 days per month, which is equal to 30 eight-hour days with no weekends off. One 24-hour extra work day is required per discipline per month — paramedic, fire rescue, etc. If one works in more than one discipline, advanced cardiac for example, that that is another extra day of training. Those days add up fast, as there are many disciplines available for specialization including advanced trauma life support, international trauma life support and pre-hospital life support to name a few.

In addition, supplemental training is mandatory for weapons of mass destruction, confined space rescues, and the list goes on. Moreover, 90 percent of EMS members have expert rescue training in concrete breaking and large tools applications.

The Haiti crisis was not Lewis’ first major disaster, so he was prepared for the sensory overload that overtakes sight, sound and smell in the aftermath of a natural disaster. However, preparation does not make one ambivalent to dire human conditions. According to Lewis, a freshly deceased smell is a different smell than that of the long-deceased, such as decomposing deer on a hot summer afternoon.

Unattended children roaming the streets of Haiti were never a good thing. In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, which took place on Jan. 12, it was worse. Lewis and all of VATF-1 found it difficult to observe children, large numbers of them, roaming the streets unsupervised, unprotected in the days and weeks following the catastrophe. Many lost their entire families, and the rescue workers could not fix their situation for them or take care of them. Lewis could not help but empathize for, as he termed, “marginalized people within an already marginalized people.”

Besides the occasional gunshots VATF-1 heard while working, they faced, “endemic disease, mosquitoes, malaria (for which they had to take medicine), dengue (for which there is no medicine), and challenges with food, water and sanitation,” Lewis recounted.

There was looting and rioting in the area that they worked in. However, the team did have the benefit of constant protection provided courtesy of the U.S. military, U.N. forces or U.N. peacekeepers.

Lewis’ first major operation was the Izmit, Turkey earthquake of 1999, which was a 7.2 earthquake. After weeks of constant stimulation, yelling, people, generator noise, insufficient sleep and constant movement, the silence once he got home – which he desperately needed — was a difficult adjustment. With so much quiet, the processing of thoughts not dealt with from a sometimes surreal experience mill about one’s mind.

Yet, the stress of urban rescue post-disaster is altogether different than what soldiers returning from war experience. Author Brian Bledsoe has written EMS texts and covered the topic of crisis management in depth in The Myths of Modern EMS.

In order to train for VATF-1, one must participate in one three-day exercise per year in addition to one section training day per month. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and United States Agency for International Development have their own requirements.

“I’m a workaholic, so it’s not a difficult sacrifice to make. It is difficult with families,” Lewis responded when asked about the sacrifice of time and a personal life regarding his many endeavors.

Grateful for his opportunities to pursue work that he is passionate about, Lewis credits his fire department, the Fairfax County taxpayers and USAID for allowing him to do the work that he does. USAID is another organization that enables VATF-1 to work by coordinating, facilitating, communicating with diplomatic authorities and financing all of their deployments. Without USAID and the Office of Disasters Assistance, it would have been nearly impossible to leave U.S. borders.

A key player without whom Lewis’ VATF-1 missions could not be coordinated is Assistant Dean Holly Frost. Frost not only coordinates leave for the EMS faculty, but she also provides coverage for their NOVA job posts.

“[It] always seems to happen at a critical juncture in a class,” commented Lewis.

Internationally, countries which do not get along politically become brethren in assisting disaster victims and helping to recover the deceased. As urban rescuers, all of them have one goal, to alleviate suffering.

The articulate, fast-talking New Englander chose to be an EMS Captain, VATF-1 team leader and NOVA faculty member for a reason.
“When we deploy as a team, it really is a team. There’s a synergy that takes place. When you watch people working for 40 hours like they’ve been up for two, that’s extraordinary.”

By: Annie Ryan

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