Captain Greg Chaloner, a 19-year veteran at the Vacaville Fire Department, has been named the city’s Firefighter of the Year.
“It’s a huge honor,” he said. “It means a lot to me.”
Chaloner’s interest in firefighting came rather spontaneously one day at the age of 17. He was driving home from school in Hercules with a friend in the backseat who had noticed that a WestCAT bus had crashed into a tree after the driver had a seizure. Chaloner and his friend stopped to render aid, and another friend broke a side window to rescue the kids who were trapped inside. Chaloner said this was a transformative moment for him.
“It was a good feeling to help, to do what we can even though we had no idea what we were doing,” he said. “We just kind of did what we thought was right.”
Chaloner went to college with the intention of becoming a physical therapist, but after taking an EMT class, it reminded him of what it was like to help the kids who were trapped on the bus.