Written by: Tom Markland and published in The Martinsburg Journal on March 4, 2025, link to the article HERE.
HAGERSTOWN, Md. — When Spring Mills High senior Zach Miller isn’t busy with schoolwork, he’s busy saving lives as an EMT at the Volunteer Fire Company of Halfway in Hagerstown, Maryland.
Since he started at the fire company in December of 2023, he’s worked plenty of 911 calls and even earned a Rookie of the Year award. As part of Spring Mills High School’s work co-op program, he leaves school early to head to the fire company and respond to emergency calls.
“I was very interested in the medical field from a very young age, and I was very interested in community service,” Miller said. “I like to volunteer, give back to my community.”
When Miller was first presented with an opportunity to join a junior firefighter program, he jumped at the opportunity. When he aged out of the program at 16, he decided he wanted to become an EMT, signed up for an EMT class and went through seven months of training before earning his license.
Through the class, Miller said he had to take a written test, as well as a practical test, showing he could sufficiently care for patients to get his license.
“It was a lot of studying for that written part, but it was also a lot of practicing at home,” Miller said. “I would have my family members pretend to be a patient, and I would have to go through my assessment and practice treatment interventions and stuff.”
It was during that class that Miller met the fire chief at the Volunteer Fire Company of Halfway. He said that one day, when the chief was helping teach his EMT class, he advised Miller to put in an application for his station.
In Maryland, the minimum age for an EMT is 16 or 17, with written legal permission from a parent, while in West Virginia the minimum age is 18.
Since then, he’s been working at Volunteer Fire Company of Halfway, running calls with an ambulance and otherwise helping out around the station. One of the biggest parts of his job is helping with events that the fire company runs, raising money for the fire company since Maryland does not have a fire tax.
He said one of his favorite parts of the job is working with patients, something he trained for extensively.
“I like the patient care a lot, because it’s very rewarding,” Miller said. “You meet a lot of people.”
That part of the job can also be some of the most challenging work, he said.
“It can be hard being a first responder. There’s a lot of upsetting events and very upsetting calls,” Miller said. “But in the end, it’s very rewarding, because I feel like I’ve seen a lot of people happier after I’ve shown up and after I’ve given them my help and done patient care.”
That ability to work with people is not just something Miller learned in a class, but it’s something he learned from spending time with other EMTs and workers at the fire company. He said more than professional skills, he’s learned a lot of life skills during his time in the fire company.
“I’ve learned to be able to talk to people. I’ve become a lot more comfortable with people, because, especially when I first became a member of this department, I was very shy,” Miller said. “Now that I’m here, and now that I’ve had a lot of calls under my belt, had a lot of patient care experiences, a lot of talking to patients and networking myself, I’ve become a lot more open, and I’ve become a lot more talkative to patients. Now, I’m able to treat them like I’m my own provider.”
Looking toward the future, Miller is planning on attending West Virginia University once he graduates, aiming to study biology and pre-med and working to get accepted into medical school. From there, he wants to become an emergency room doctor.