CLIFF JAGOZINSKI
I was always intrigued by it, and I started to get into it and
really pay attention to what my friends were doing. One of my
friends was on the fire department, and I really took an interest
in it and took off from there. I really love it. We have really
great guys here.
RH: You love it. It’s such a dangerous job and you have
really odd hours and so forth, what’s to love?
CJ: Just the rush, and, you know, we’re family here, so we
have each other’s back. We provide for our community, and
that’s where the joy comes from. It’s more about taking care of
our home town.
8 • RUTLAND HERALD HOMETOWN HEROES OCTOBER 2018
PETER GUAY
It’s helping people out. Just people you don’t know, they
come back to the station a week or two weeks later and
say, hey, you were the guy who did this for me, or you were
the guy who helped us out, and it gives you a pretty good
feeling. And then you tell your kids at home this is what
Dad does, and they go to school and tell their friends, hey,
my Dad did that. It’s a pretty neat thing all the way around.
It’s very exciting being here. Oh, a lot over 30 years — quite
a few deaths, quite a few accidents. Truck and a young girl.
In a car. Jaws of life incident up on the bridges. A lot of us
had that, worked an hour to get the girl out. Today she’s
alive, only paralyzed half her body. Her parents came here,
like I told you, “Thanks for helping my daughter, thanks for
helping,” and it was a real good feeling. That was probably
— that was a tough one, probably 10-15 years ago. And it’s
tough, the girl’s talking to you the whole time, and you’re
trying your damnedest — this tractor-trailer was on top of
her car, and we had to get her out. It was very, very tough.
But a good feeling. She’s out, and she has a family today,
and she’s doing the best she can, and more power to her. I
commend her for that. There’s a lot of schooling involved
today, but you get by that schooling, and you learn. You
don’t just get out of school knowing everything. It takes a
little time, there’s a little patience involved. And as time goes
on, there’s more trust with our officers. You get to do a little
more, and the gratefulness and the good feeling is great.
So a young man getting involved today or a young woman
getting involved today — encourage it, highly encourage it.
It’ll be a good time.