At any moment, the radio clutched in Quinlan Roe’s hand could squawk, his cue to jump in one of the ambulances just a few feet away and speed out onto Missoula’s streets. The call might take him a few dozen miles south up the Bitterroot Valley or 80 miles north to Condon, with who knows what medical emergency waiting for him on the other end. His laugh, his gestures, the cadence of his speech — everything about Roe telegraphs anticipation, his energy level fixed somewhere between a simmer and a rolling boil.
“All the new people that are coming here, all the tourists, it gets really busy for sure, especially in summer,” Roe says. “We’re about to get really, really busy, where you’re not sleeping during your 24-hour shifts.”
Roe joined Missoula Emergency Services Inc. (MESI) as a paramedic at the start of 2022, fresh from the first cohort of students at Missoula College’s new paramedic program.