Sirens for Service: Crash survivors visit Silver Spring firefighter that helped save them

It’s no secret that the job of a first responder is anything but easy.

Taking calls can mean long hours, time away from family and PTSD. But every day hundreds of men and women in Cumberland County answer those calls.

Every week, The Sentinel’s Sirens for Service feature will aim to show the faces of these people and share their stories.

The series focuses on why they became a first responder and highlights a specific call from their service that influenced them and reminds them of why they do what they do.

Jonathan House

Agency: Silver Spring Community Fire Company

Title: First lieutenant

Time with company: 13 years

Q: Why did you become a first responder?

A: It was kind of a family thing. I had some family members who were involved in firefighting and EMS back in the ‘80s and ‘90s and then after an incident happened with my grandfather and just wanting to do more, I kind of just took a chance, signed up, put in an application and became a firefighter.

Q: Can you describe a call that has influenced you? What did that call look like and why did it impact you?

A: Probably the biggest one that influenced me the most was when five kids from Cumberland Valley High School were involved in an accident on Wertzville Road. It was in ‘09 or 2010, I can’t remember offhand, it was one of the first really bad calls that kind of affected my mental health and I saw an influence on mental health with a lot of my fellow first responders and stuff like that. Just seeing, one of the big things that kind of brought a closure to that and really affected me and why I chose this is because we got to meet them a couple of months later. Everybody survived the crash, some still have some deficits … that can happen from any type of accident, but just being able to meet the people that I helped take care of that day just kind of really made things close and just brought a lot of happiness to me.