They Bring Hope and Joy to Service
First Responders tell stories of faith and heroic virtue
By Rich Reece
In his remarks at October’s “Blue Mass,” celebrated by Bishop Michael F. Burbidge for First Responders – police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel – Raleigh Chief of Police Harry Dolan spoke of his pride in being the leader of men and women who react to danger in an unusual way. “Most people’s natural instinct is to flee danger,” the Chief said, “but these men and women run toward danger as fast as they can. More importantly, as they are running, they are hoping to be the first on the scene so that they can render help.”
This month Catholics celebrate the Feast of All Saints. Most saints are not formally canonized, but a few are officially recognized by the Church for what St. Augustine called “heroic virtue” – which can be present in all the baptized. Archbishop Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, recently explained what that means. “Heroic virtue is recognizable, first of all,” he said, “by its frequency, its promptness, the joyful character of virtuous activity; and secondly, by the fact that amidst complicated obstacles, formed by external or internal circumstances, these are overcome in such a way that the virtuous hero can be considered capable of great sacrifices for the Gospel in the total abnegation of self.”
You won’t meet a police officer, firefighter or paramedic who considers himself or herself a saint. What will strike you, though, if the first responders who spoke with NCC are any example, is the joy and hope they bring to service.
James “Bo” Degnan is a paramedic with Wake County EMS. A Charlotte native, Degnan began his career as a volunteer emergency responder in 1989. “I wanted to work in something where I could see results,” he says. Like many in his profession, he was drawn by the prospect of excitement. He smiles. “You wouldn’t believe how many EMS folks were big fans of the TV show Emergency! in the ‘70s. We wanted to be like Johnny Gage and Roy DeSoto.
“But if you’re only in it for the excitement, you won’t last. After awhile it gets more meaningful. It’s about the service.” While there is drama on occasion, many calls are routine, “people plain sick or plain hurting. They’re not dying, maybe they have the flu, but they need help. So we pick them up and do the best we can.”
Degnan is visibly moved when he recalls one such call. “We had had several bad, tragic calls all at once, and I was kind of in robot mode. The next call was a ‘convalescent return’: We pick someone up at the hospital and take them back to their residence or nursing home. So we picked up an elderly lady, took her home and tucked her into bed. I was about to leave when she took my wrist and kissed the back of my hand and said, ‘Thank you.’”
A member of St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Cary, Degnan finds his faith an important support in his work. “I think often about what the priest says at the end of Mass: ‘Let us now go to love and serve the Lord by loving and serving each other,’” he said. “My faith keeps me on track when I started to get a little self centered and impatient. It turns me around and says, ‘Hey, it’s not about you.’”
Senior Officer Stacey Lundy wanted to work in law enforcement from the time she was a child in New York. “Someone stole my mom’s ID,’” she recalls, “and a female FBI agent came to investigate, and I knew I wanted to do something like that.” As she grew older she learned that she had a “soft spot for kids” and a passion for service.
She was 19 when a life-threatening experience became a life-changing experience for her.
“It tested my faith,” she says. “I wondered why God had saved my life. Did it mean I was on the right track and was supposed to continue, or that I was on the wrong track and needed to change? I tried to listen to the Lord, and decided that He wanted me to stay on the track I was on and try to help people.”
Lundy earned a degree in Criminology at NC State University and joined the Raleigh Police Department. Among other assignments, she was at the time Raleigh’s youngest and only female member of the Drug Enforcement Unit. Today she works for the Department in community relations, most recently as a mentor in Explorer Post 911, a program to educate and involve young people aged 14-21 in police operations and the role of law enforcement.
She still finds adventure in her career, and although there have been moments that tested her resolve, she radiates happiness in the opportunities she’s had -- and continues to have -- to serve the community. She carries with her, in a small packet, a saint’s medal and a cross. “My grandfather carried these till the day he died,” she says, “and I know that whatever the situation, he and the Lord are watching over me. I know God won’t give me something I can’t handle.”
Marianne Sweden, Accreditations Manager for the Raleigh Police Department, began her law enforcement career as a sworn officer. A high school class in constitutional law, where she did a unit on “Due Process,” fueled her interest in the profession, and she graduated in Criminology from Florida State University. “I loved all things about law enforcement,” she says, “but I knew I wouldn’t be an officer forever, because I wanted to get married and have children and eventually get into the area of public policy. But I felt strongly that I could never write policy that had meaning without experiencing what the officers dealt with every day.”
That experience left her “shaken.” Growing up in a loving, stable Catholic family and Catholic schools in Miami, “I was very sheltered,” she says. “Even at FSU, with 35,000 students, I joined a service fraternity and entered the honors program and managed to stay in a fairly small group. So I didn’t see a whole lot of bad in the world.”
In her senior year she worked as a victim’s advocate with the state attorney’s office, and in Raleigh she became an advocate for domestic violence victims. “I wasn’t prepared,” she says, “for the horrible things people do to each other and to children. It makes you take a step back.
“I remember having a conversation about all this with my Dad, and he said at some point faith becomes a choice. You don’t just take the teachings you grew up with and automatically buy into them, especially when you start to see the world. And my faith told me that although there is bad out there, there is also good. Maybe I’m the good, maybe that’s why I’m here. But I was tested. I had never lacked for love or anything else in my life, and the people I saw in my work had nothing. Why was I so lucky? How was that fair?”
Sweden sees her faith as a necessary support. “It’s tested, but you have to have something to fall back on. It says there’s a way, people have choices. You have to stay positive. As an officer it was never a bad day if I got to help someone. I got the chance to use my strengths to help others who couldn’t or for some reason wouldn’t help themselves.”
Sweden married a Raleigh police officer and in 2004 she left sworn duty. She returned to the Department after getting her MBA and hopes to become increasingly involved in writing public policy. “Today I try to make a difference from behind a desk, but I’m doing the same thing officers do, trying to make things better for people,” she says.
Andrew Dudash, a firefighter for the Youngsville Fire Department, grew up Catholic in North Raleigh. His parents were founding members of St. Francis of Assisi Parish.
“I knew after two semesters of college that I didn’t want to work behind a desk, so I volunteered as a firefighter, then got a paid job, and I’ve loved it ever since,” he says.
When he talks about his work, you hear a man whose faith has truly given him a positive outlook. “There are some things on the job you don’t want to see,” he says. “But then there are things that make you think, ‘Wow, God is out there!’ I had the privilege once to deliver a baby. One of my sons was born three months early, so to have the chance to help someone with a birth was just an incredible gift.
“You see car wrecks where it doesn’t make sense someone could have walked away, but there’s a reason God has kept them around. Sometimes the car is so destroyed you have to cut away the metal to get someone out of the car, and a few months later they walk into the station and say thank you.”
Does he ever feel the need to pray at work? “Absolutely; more than once.” He tells about a brush fire in a dry soybean field on a windy day. “All of a sudden the wind turned. I had a truck that was right in the path of the fire. I just said, ‘God help us! Please keep my guys safe.’
“The best part of the job is helping people. I got a call one night at 9:30 from a guy who’d been cutting a tree that fell the wrong way and damaged his house. I went out there with a chain saw and some ropes, and the guy was pretty upset about the damage. But I told him, ‘Hey, you’re OK. Lots of times when a tree falls the wrong way someone gets hurt.
“I’ve seen houses burnt completely to the ground in the middle of the night. But because someone woke up in time, the people managed to get out. I’ve seen miracles.”
In his office, Chief Harry Dolan talks about the “most significant revelation” in his career in law enforcement: “You hear that people in this profession, because of all the trouble they see, become hardened over time. You know what? It’s the exact opposite. The loss of a child, situations of domestic violence actually hurt more after years on the force. Perhaps because you’ve been married, you’ve raised a family and you know the importance of staying the course.”
Dolan grew up in an Irish Catholic family in New York. His father and grandfather were New York City police officers. But he went to college at Western Carolina University where he played basketball and where he met his wife of 29 years. He served as a police officer in Raleigh, and came to his current position from Grand Rapids, Mich., where he had been Chief for ten years.
In his remarks at the Blue Mass, Dolan shared a story about his cousin Henry, who was one of the first firefighters responding to the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001. Henry and his squad had gotten to the 19th floor of one of the towers when the foundations began to shake. They were ordered to evacuate, which they did, taking as many people as they could to safety.
Afterwards, his cousin was troubled. “When we got out, we learned that it wasn’t our building that had fallen but the tower next to it, And then we were just blocks away when the other tower fell. I just wish we could have done more. I wish we could have stayed and done more.”
Dolan told his cousin, “Now I understand, Henry. You had maybe another four or five seconds when you could have done more.”
“Those are the kind of people I have the honor of working with,” Dolan says. “I work with incredible people. They care. They care deeply.”
And every day, in their selfless, compassionate service, they stand as living examples of heroic virtue.