Top medic finds time to aid, minister
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LAFAYETTE — Acadian Ambulance’s choice among its own for Paramedic of the Year ministers to both people in need of ambulance service, and to fellow paramedics.
The Lafayette-based ambulance service company on Friday recognized 14-year veteran and Houma resident Glenn Naquin for his work with the company.
U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.; and Joseph Savoie, the state commissioner of higher education and soon-to-be president of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, were part of the ceremony to honor Naquin, as was LSU football coach Les Miles, the keynote speaker.
Naquin serves not only as a flight paramedic in his hometown, but also as a pastor with Acadian’s Critical Incident Stress Committee.
He said that group’s mission is to help Acadian’s own emergency responders when the job they do really gets to them.
“We respond to medics that worked a really bad call,” Naquin said. “We are normal people subjected to an abnormal job.”
Naquin, an ordained Pentecostal minister, said that he is able to speak to his colleagues in need both from his studies in the faith, but also from his experience doing the same job they do.
“I think I can relate to both realms. It would be easy for a pastor to give spiritual advice, but they could say you don’t do this job, you don’t know,” he said.
Naquin said different circumstances trigger strong reactions in some paramedics.
“For some people, it’s a really bad call with a child. Some people might have lost a family member, and a call might remind them of that,” he said.
Naquin said that he is also often called upon to demonstrate another facet of his skill set, his relatively recently acquired fluency in Spanish.
He said dispatchers often use him to help bridge the language gap on emergency calls from Spanish-speaking people.
The catch there is that he did not speak a word of Spanish before 2004.
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