Not only does Ada County Paramedics have an amazing bunch of employees– but we also have incredible volunteers! Our volunteers, referred to as “Reserves,” are comprised of a group of hardworking EMTs and Advanced EMTs (AEMT) who offer up their assistance if we’re ever need more hands on deck! Allow us to introduce you to our 15 newest Reserves!
Lisa Damron – EMT- Reserve
I was born in Louisiana However moved to Idaho when I was young. I was raised in a small town of less than 300 people where I completed high school. During high school I was involved in a bad roll-over car accident where my friend became unconscious with a head injury and multiple other injuries. It was at that time I wished to know more about caring for the sick and injured. I enrolled in an EMT class and became certified at age 18.
After Graduation, I moved to Boise to attend BSU for a few years and became a volunteer at Rescue One. I then applied for Ada County Paramedics and became a reserve EMT and eventually worked my way up to attend their Paramedic Class in 1994. I was still attending college for my Health Science degree, but decided to dedicate my time to the Paramedic Course.
After years at Ada County Paramedics, I decided to start my own business where I built a company form the ground up, manufacturing high-end luxury satin linens and apparel for spas and salons. After years of working alone in my office, I started to miss having co-workers and being around people, so I decided to audition for Music Theater of Idaho. My first role was the Baroness for the Sound of Music and after that I was hooked. About a year ago I began to miss practicing medicine and wanted to get back into EMS. I took an EMT course and am working to getting my Paramedic certification back. I also missed the excitement of the job, where no day is like the next. I miss having coworkers and being around people.
I have 2 awesome teenagers and have been married to the same wonderful man for 22 years, who is now working for Boise Fire. I enjoy spending time with family, camping, hiking, and working in the yard. I love to be outdoors and in Nature whenever I can. I also enjoy remodeling and building/creating things.
Cody Tam- EMT-Reserve
I was born in California. I have two sisters and one brother. I have been volunteering at Kuna Rural Fire District for about two years and I have done wild land fire fighting for Playing Buffalo EMS and worked about 7 months now for Air St. Luke’s. I enjoy fishing, big game hunting, camping, archery, softball, wake boarding, biking, volleyball, golfing, and anything else outdoors. I also enjoy reading. Some of my favorite books and authors are The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Nineteen Eighty-Four by Gorge Orwell, Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, Terry Goodkind, Oscar Wilde, Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley and many more. I’ve recently started listening to podcasts. One I’ve really started to like is EMCrit where they are obsessed with medical education on ED Intensive Care, Trauma, and Resuscitation.
Matt Page – AEMT – Reserve
I was born in Idaho and have lived in Boise for the last 18 years. I was home schooled for the duration of my K-12 education and have taken some college classes at CWI. I hope to go to Paramedic school at ISU in the next couple of years. I currently work for an Inter-facilty transport company and have worked there for almost two years. I’ve had 911 exposure through my clinical hours in Advanced EMT school. In my free time I enjoy doing outdoor activities such as rafting, mountain biking, snowboarding, and ultimate frisbee.
My Dream vacation destination would be a place like British Columbia– somewhere mountainous with a large variety of outdoor activities.
Andrew (Drew) Niestedt- EMT-Reserve
We (wife and two daughters, 15, 11) have been residents of Boise for 8 years. I hold a Master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Washington and have worked in the world of industrial and pharmaceutical development and manufacturing before moving to Idaho. I love exploratory whitewater kayaking and hiking, rafting with the family on multi-day river trips, and long distance running. I enjoy being a part of Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue and teaching kids about wilderness safety. Spending time with my family and friends on the water or in the wilderness is where I relax and recharge. I just finished my Advanced EMT and have found a passion in emergency medicine.
David N. Walls – AEMT- Reserve
I am new to the EMS field and Ada County will be my first job working as a 911 responder. I have spent the last three years working in-hospital with the Saint Alphonsus Nampa Emergency Department. Before I began my career in EMS I spent almost 10 years in retail management. While I loved being involved with people, corporations leave a lot to be desired as employers. I lost my job in 2011 and I had an opportunity to return to school as a displaced worker. I decided to follow my heart and started down the path that has lead me here. With the help of an amazing family and some great teachers I developed a passion for EMS and learning. I still love to learn and I am a student at BSU college of Health Science currently. It is not always easy to raise a family and attend school while working two jobs but everything worthwhile in life takes effort. My wife recently graduated nursing school allowing me to have only one job and work with Ada County.
Nicholas (Nick) Johnson – AEMT-Reserve
I started my Basic class in 2012 with the goal of becoming a Paramedic so I could do the most good for the most people. I have always admired those who could walk into a chaotic scene, take charge and manage a seriously ill or injured person; I wanted to walk among them. I did well in my Basic class and even better in my Advanced class. Mother’s Day 2013 a lady stopped by my house to buy a Craig’s List item but hung around talking to my wife for a couple hours. Eventually it came out that I’d just finished Advanced training but was not working anywhere. She said her husband is the Chief at Parma Fire and would let me come out there to practice. I’ve now been with them for just over two years working a 24 hour shift every other Tuesday.
Like most people I like to do lots of different “get away” things: camping, fishing, and hunting. While I like to do these things they’re not the driving force behind my life. My absolute favorite thing to do is snowboarding: to me there is nothing like the feeling of the wind, the sound of the snow being carved, or the smell of fresh pine air. Beside those hobbies I also have a “farm” of sorts on 1 ⅓ acre in Middleton that takes most of my time. I also have five children. My oldest three are boys and I have two younger girls. They are currently 11 ½, 10, 8, 5, and 3 and boy are they busy!
My dream destination is Germany. I enjoyed taking two and a half years of German in high school which left me with a feeling for the rich culture and history of the German people. I have a kind of running list in my head of things I would want to do: Visit October Fest, eat a Brat, eat a Hamburger, eat a Berliner and visit the Ulmer Munster.
Scott Armstrong – EMT – Reserve
I grew up in Boise, Idaho in a family of 6 kids. Life was never boring at my house. We did a little bit of everything… at least in the way of sports. I grew up snow skiing, wake-boarding, wrestling, playing baseball, volleyball, and swimming. When we weren’t playing sports, I liked to read books… mostly fiction. I was home schooled until 7th grade, at which point my parents let me go to school so that I could wrestle.
Following High School, I served a 2 year mission for the LDS church on the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific. I loved it! The people there are fantastic, they fed us well, and I lived 20 minutes from the ocean for 2 years. What’s not to love, right?
After my mission, I took some 100 level courses at BSU and decided that Business Management and Entrepreneurship were not majors for me, and I transferred to the College of Southern Idaho to pursue education as a Paramedic. Because I didn’t originally intend to pursue this career, I had never worked in EMS until I started doing clinical hours in school. Fortunately, we were required to do a lot of clinical hours as a paramedic student, so I got some EMS field exposure while in school. I finished paramedic school and became nationally registered paramedic on June 6th of this year. I’m so excited to work in the field as a paramedic.
Tyler Assmus –EMT – Reserve
While I am new to EMS I have an extensive background in the health care arena. I graduated from Whitworth University with a Bachelor’s in Athletic Training and was an athletic trainer and strength and conditioning coach for ten years prior to joining Ada County. I was fortunate enough to work with many great athletes and organizations all over the northwest. I have a beautiful wife, Katie, who is a PA-C in the valley and together we have two amazing kids; Cooper is 3 and Emery just turned 2. When I am not working, I enjoying being outside with friends and family; golfing, hunting, fishing, camping, anything outdoors. I am very excited to join the premier agency in the treasure valley and I look forward to working with Ada County Paramedics.
My dream vacation would be a combo trip to England and Scotland. I am an avid golfer, a junkie if you will, and that part of Europe is where the game began. I would love to go play the links courses over there and experience the culture. I am also fascinated by history and castles and those places provide plenty of both!!!!
Kent Fritchman –EMT – Reserve
I am extremely excited to have this opportunity to be a part of the Ada County Paramedics team. I was born in Denver, Colorado. We moved shortly thereafter to the north shore of Hawaii where we lived until I was 5. I was born into the late stages of Army Brat life and when I turned 5, we returned to Colorado where my father retired from 20+ years of service in Army Intelligence. We spent about a year or so back in Colorado moving around until we packed up and moved to Eagle Point, Oregon. This was a young boys dream.
We had 10 acres of fields and woods and over a 100 yards of river front on the Rouge River. We lived in an old house, built in the 50’s by a Hollywood producer. It was truly the greatest place to live and opened my eyes to the wonders of the outdoors and the great Northwest. Unfortunately, my father could not find steady work so we ended up relocating to Seattle.
In 1999 I became a river guide for one of the best companies in Washington, River Recreation, and after a couple of years of running multiple Washing ton Rivers I decided to follow my dream of rescue instruction and became a Whitewater Rescue Instructor for Rescue 3 International teaching Swift Water Rescue and Technical Rope Rescue Classes along with being a CPR Instructor.
Fast forward a few year and I became the proud Father of a beautiful little girl in November 2003. Shortly thereafter my growing family decided to move to Boise where my parents had retired. It has taken several years, but I have started to establish a River Rescue Instruction company here in Boise on the Main Payette, It is called Idaho River Rescue and teaching safe rescue techniques in swift water continues to be something I am still very passionate about. Throughout my years as a Rescue Instructor and River Guide I have always maintained a Wilderness First Responder license and I look forward to combining my passion for Safety and Back Country Medical Care with the skills I have learned in my EMT-Basic and Advanced course and am truly grateful for the opportunity to apply them in everyday necessary situations.
Matt DeMers – AEMT-Reserve
I grew up in Meridian and spent my childhood in the Meridian community. I attended a private school, Cole Valley Christian, for 13 years and graduated with a small class of 72 people. I was a multi-sport letter athlete in high school but my true passion for 14 years was swimming. I swam competitively at a state, regional, and national level. After high school I attended BSU for one year when I determined college was not for me. I took a break from school and started working as a Wildland Firefighter for a private company. The three years I worked for the company I had the experience to travel across the country fighting fires. Wildland firefighting is what got me started in EMS because I wanted to get my EMT-B in the offseason. Which led to me taking an Advanced class shortly after. I really enjoyed EMS and pursued a job as a Structure firefighter and now currently volunteer as an EMT/Firefighter with Kuna Fire district. I have currently been working in EMS for 3 years. I also work for Air St. Luke’s as a ground transport EMT. A year and a half ago I returned to college to finish General Ed classes and start paramedic school. I am in my final semester of Paramedic School at Idaho State University currently. In my free time I love to be outdoors. I am an avid hunter and fisherman. I have a huge passion for Archery hunting and spend a lot of my fall in the mountains chasing elk and deer. In the off season I pass the time on the water with fly fishing. I enjoy being active in any way possible. I enjoy running, lifting weights, hiking, playing sports, and swimming. Besides my hobbies I enjoy spending time with my family, my wife Jessica, and my 5 month old boy Everett.
Tomas Melcho
I grew up in Spring, TX (north Houston) and son of Ernest and Amelia. I grew up playing soccer, achieving personal goals (All-America, State and Regional Player of the Year) and getting full scholarships to play in college. I attended Centenary College of Louisiana, a private – liberal arts college. I then obtained my BS in Health and Exercise Science, and due to breaking my fibula bone my senior year, I red-shirted my senior year, and came back for a fifth year and decided to obtain a minor in Business Administration. During the summers in college I went to Mexico City and played professional indoor soccer.
I became a free-lance massage therapist out of college and was fortunate to build a high end clientele ranging from pro tennis & WWE stars to innovators in the oil & gas industry. I maintained my personal business until I made a move to Idaho, where I went into business with my brother and some friends who have lived here for some time. We opened Slanted Rock Brewing Company in October 2012. I left the business over a year ago to get back into where I belong, which is the medical field.
I love spending time with my family. I’ve been married to Elizabeth since 2007. Together we have a 4 year old daughter, Romina and a 2 year old boy, Tomas II. My wife and I (before kids) were world travelers, and now we stick to traveling the US and places in the Northwest since we both have never been in this part of the country before. I enjoy playing every sport imaginable, from ping-pong to soccer, but find myself on the golf course more times than not.
As I was growing up my dad was always working and getting home either late or traveling across the US to find work. When I decided at an early age that soccer was the sport I was going to focus on, my mom told me to practice outside everyday to become the best that I could be– everyday, whether I felt like it or not. She would set up obstacles and cones for me to dribble through running full speed. She has always been a motivator for me and someone who drove me to be the best. I was taught at a very early age the importance of working hard if I wanted to be the best. I had to be disciplined in working everyday, when I just wanted to be lazy at times. Growing up I never heard of other moms practicing with my teammates and I was and still am very grateful in the time that she put in her son.