For KFD’s Terrill, it’s about the team

Tom KingOur Town Heroes

Mike Terrill is a very reluctant hero and probably does not like seeing his name and the word hero in the same sentence. He’s about teamwork and things like saving a life or helping save a life is part of the job – no more, no less.

We’re writing about him today because he was part of the team that saved a man’s life outside of Neyland Stadium on the Thursday evening after the Tennessee Vols beat Bowling Green in UT’s season opener.

We are not identifying the man who collapsed as he was leaving the stadium. Two UT police officers were the first responders to reach the man. Terrill says they were helping him “within a minute or two” – doing CPR and calling for help.

Terrill, the senior paramedic, and three others on the KFD team – firefighters Andrew Link, Tim Wood and Justin Roberts – answered their call. “The stars were aligned for us to be able to help. We were just a minute or so away,” said Terrill, who will have his 21st anniversary with KFD in November. “Everything played out right.”

He and his team continued CPR and used an AED (automated external defibrillator) to restore the man’s pulse. Then the AMR ambulance crew arrived. KFD’s Link, also a paramedic, rode with the ambulance crew as they continued to stabilize the patient en route to Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center. The man survived and a few days later walked out of the hospital.

“This is a team profession,” Terrill said. “It’s not about one person.”

Terrill became a paramedic 31 years ago in 1990 when he was working in his home state of Kentucky. He’s from Berea and two uncles there plus the old TV show “Emergency” helped guide him into the emergency services/first responder world.

His career goes back to being an EMS on an ambulance in Madison County, Kentucky. After high school, he enrolled at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. “I went there thinking about studying engineering but I found that wasn’t for me,” he said. He graduated with a degree in emergency medical services.

Before joining KFD, he spent four years as a paramedic on what was then Rural Metro Ambulance and three years at the Gatlinburg Fire Department.

In 2016, he filled a major role at KFD – coordinating the department’s EMS training program. He still teaches a few courses as well. Terrill is also on the KFD Hazardous Materials Team.

“I like seeing what I have learned put to use, plus using my critical thinking to get good outcomes from our people in teaching them EMS,” Terrill says. “It’s not cookie cutter medicine and you have to learn to adapt to situations.”

Terrill, who is a strong Christian, also talked about a miracle that happened as he was working on a badly injured patient in an ambulance as they were heading to a hospital. “I can’t explain it, but it happened. As I was working on the patient, a hand, just a hand only, appeared, floating in the air and a finger was pointing directly at the IV in his arm. For some reason, maybe we hit a bump, the IV had come out and I hadn’t noticed it. The hand made me look at the IV. And then it was gone. It reinforced to me that there is a God. That hand had to come from God.”

Several years ago, when he was a firefighter/paramedic working out of Station 13 on Chapman Highway, an alarm sounded for a possible house fire in South Knoxville. He’s never forgotten that call. The three-man crew answered.

“It was either Christmas Day or Thanksgiving Day, and the cook had just put their turkey in the oven. They had an electrical short in the stove and it caused some smoke but no fire,” Terrill said. “But it knocked out their stove, so we told them we’d cook their turkey back at the station and bring it back, which we did. They tried to get us to stay and eat with them, but we had plenty of food at the station. These things make ours a special job.”

Is Terrill a hero? His answer speaks loudly about this man.

“The good Lord gave us all a gift in this life and we all hope we find that gift,” he said. “I thank God I found mine. I’m just part of a team.”

Tom King has served at newspapers in Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and California. He writes Our Town Heroes for KnoxTNToday.com.

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