There’s a legacy brewing at the Southern Oklahoma Ambulance Service in Ardmore. It started with John Losson, who started work on July 31, 1990.
In the past six years, his two oldest sons — 26-year-old Cody and 21-year-old Derick — have followed in his footsteps and have taken jobs in the emergency care business.
Although it’s not necessarily unheard of for three men in the same family to enter the same occupation, it’s a little more unusual when all three work for the same company.
Cody joined SOAS on June 13, 2003, and Derick followed him on Sept. 17, 2008.
SOAS Executive Director Bob Hargis is more than happy to have so many Lossons on site at the ambulance service.
“There are a lot of times with fire and EMS that you see other family members go into it as a result of their parents, but three are unusual. And having three of them working at the same place is rare,” he said.
“Having three generations of the same family serve the community is amazing,” Hargis said.“The boys have seen the sacrifices their dad made over the years to keep up with his hectic schedule and yet they chose to enter this field also. They are truly a remarkable family in EMS and service to their community has become a tradition for them. These are dedicated guys. They really do serve the community and do a great service.”
The story started with John, who worked in the oil field and was a truck driver for the county before joining the Lone Grove Fire Department as a volunteer in 1980, ironically, following his own father, James, into the “helping people” business.
“We went to first responder school together,” John said. “I did it up until the mid-’90s, but it got to where I couldn’t dedicate much time to them.”
Knowing that serving the public was what he wanted to do as a profession, John went on to paramedic school and became licensed for one simple purpose — “Helping people. I know it’s a generic answer, but that’s why I did it,” the 46-year-old father of three said.
While he worked for the fire department and later for the ambulance service, his boys, Cody and Derick were right on his heels, making themselves as much a part of the atmosphere as their father.
“We climbed all over the trucks and knew everything inside and out,” Derick said. “We might not have known what something was called, but if you told us what it looked like, we knew right where it was.”
Cody said going into emergency service was something that just seemed logical after seeing his father do it all those years.
“I grew up around it and I’ve been around it since I was 7,” he said. “I’ve been around it all my life. Why do anything else?”
And Derick wasn’t too far behind, although he had other motivations that brought him into the field.
“Really, I got training just because I work out at Camp Simpson with the Boy Scouts in the summers,” he said. “The camp is out in the middle of nowhere and it’s not close to anything. I got training to help the campers. I wanted to be able to treat them before they got too bad.”
Currently, Derick is a basic emergency medical technician, as is indicated by the white patch he wars on his left sleeve. Cody is a paramedic and John is a critical-care paramedic, both indicated by their gold patches.
Derick said he started out on the wheelchair van and was asked if he wanted to learn how to “work on the trucks.” When he goes out on a call, he’s usually the driver of the ambulance.
Cody started out as a dispatcher at the Lone Grove Police Department. He got his EMT license and worked his way up. He can still go to critical care school if he wants to.
Derick said he has a lot more training he could do, but he’s not sure if he’ll do that, or go into meteorology, which is something he’s always wanted to do.
“Since he wants to go to college and do that, he can get his basic license and work anywhere he wants to while he’s going to college,” John said.
Right now, it’s unusual to see more than one Losson on site at a time, since all three work different shifts. If shifts get swapped, they may find themselves working together.
One thing is for sure, none of the three should ever have to hunt for work. Cody said there’s always a shortage in the field because workers get burned out quickly. His father notwithstanding, Cody said it’s hard to find anyone working in the emergency care business longer than five years.
Working serious calls or going to a scene where someone has died can take its toll on even the strongest person.
Even hearing some of the “horror stories” their father told didn’t dissuade the two younger Lossons from following him into the field.
“I heard my dad talk about those kinds of wrecks a long time ago,” Cody said.
John said when someone’s in the midst of a bad call and helping accident victims, the severity of their conditions don’t phase them other than getting the job done. It’s only later when they reflect on what happened that the images start to have an effect.
“About the only call that ever bothered me — and that was when I was a first responder — was a burned body on the Interstate,” he said. “For me, the worst call is a kid, because when the call is for a kid, they’re usually in really bad shape.”
But there’s something that keeps all of them going, even under the worst of conditions.
“With every one you can’t save, there’s 10 you can,” Cody said, adding that the best part of the job is “just knowing that you helped someone, knowing that if you weren’t there, the outcome would be different.”
His brother agreed, adding that on those times that the outcome isn’t so positive, “There’s some instances that you know you couldn’t do anything else.”
“You always second guess yourself on any call,” John said.
All three Lossons have another common interest, one that helps them relieve stress and clear their minds — they’re all avid bowlers.
“We took our vacation — we went to Springfield, Mo. — and it centered around bowling,” Derick said.
Still, as all “boys” will admit, there’s another really great thing about the emergency business — “Driving fast and making a lot of noise,” John said, with his two sons readily agreeing.
There’s still one more Losson at home, 8-year-old Devan, and the biggest question is, will he follow the family legacy?
“If that’s what he wants to do, we support him all the way,” John said. “I’ll probably be here until they carry me out,” he said. “I have no ambition to do anything else ... except bowl.”
