AKRON, Ohio — Being a firefighter is what Terra White has known for the past 18 and a half years.
"We go on runs every day and do things and you don't even think about it. And then, you know, years and years and years and there might be that one call that, that makes you think about it for a long time," Terra, an Akron firefighter, told us.
That "one call," for Terra, happened on October 13 at around 3:30 a.m., after she and her partner dropped off a patient at Summa Health.
"We normally would turn left onto Arch Street and then right on Forge and come back to Market to the station," Terra said. "I noticed that we were going, like, one-mile an hour and we were kind of just drifting to the right and I looked over into the driver's seat and I saw that my partner was slumped over."
Terra's partner, who did not want to be named in this story, was having a medical emergency. She asked him if he was OK, before things took a terrifying turn.
"And at that, like, exact second, he kind of put his foot on the gas and we took off down the road," Terra said.
The ambulance knocked down a telephone police and some wires before careening down Arch Street toward a 50-foot drop. Terra had only seconds to jump into action.
"So once we started going really fast and I was like trying to steer, like, 'Oh my gosh, I have to stop,'" Terra said. "I kind of got over here and I ended up sitting in on his lap and the steering wheel was right here. I'm trying to move his leg from the gas and trying to put my foot down and onto the break. And when we got stopped, I put it in park and shut it off."
Terra had stopped the ambulance mere inches from the 50-foot embankment. Tire marks were still visible on the grass a week after it happened. The ordeal has been difficult to process.
"I come to work every day prepared to help other people with their things and it's already happened, whatever it is. And to come to work, and have to go through that myself," she said.
Terra doesn't consider herself a hero. But the reality is, she is.
"(I'm) just kind of glad that both of us lived and we weren't hurt," Terra said. "Everybody went home in the morning. That's the important part."
Terra says her partner is at home resting, waiting for a doctor's approval to return to work.
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