ASHLAND — After 35 years of “24 on and 48 off,” in a medical transport vehicle, Bill Jackson isn’t making any definite plans for his retirement.

Friends and family of Jackson, who is the last of the founding members of Boyd County Ambulance Service on the job, will celebrate his career tonight during a reception in his honor at the Ashland Fire Department’s Central Station. Jackson, 57, said he is leaving a job that was a childhood dream.

“Part of it came true,” Jackson said with a smile while recalling his childhood ambitions. “I wanted to be a firefighter and I wanted to be a garbage man. I make jokes about that all the time.”

The 1972 graduate of East Carter High School said he took a construction job after high school and signed up to serve with the Grayson Volunteer Fire Department. He enrolled in an E.M.T. class at the Grayson courthouse in 1974, then took a job as a nursing assistant at King’s Daughters Hospital. “Some people used to call us orderlies,” he said with a chuckle.

Jackson then signed up for a paramedic course, around the time when Hollywood began portraying paramedics as real-life heroes. In 1976, he knuckled down for a year of study in a medic program administered by Dr. Charles Webb, with Mary Jo Scott as clinical coordinator.

“That was 16 hours a day, seven days a week for a year. There were 16 of us who graduated,” he said.

Jackson was on the ground floor for the formation of EASI, Emergency Ambulance Service Inc., which later became Boyd County Emergency Ambulance Service. “I was among the group of people who founded Boyd County Emergency Ambulance Service on June 1, 1977, with Bob Gainer as administrator. I’m the last one working out of that original bunch of men and one woman,” he said. “And, now I am the oldest working licensed paramedic in Kentucky.”

Jackson said the job has been extremely rewarding, even though there are some situations which have haunted him.

“You get hardened over the years,” he said, explaining runs involving kids have always been tough. “Children ... that bothers you because you always think ‘What more could I have done?’ You kind of beat yourself up thinking about a kid who is injured badly or unable to function because they have so much ahead of them and haven’t had a chance to really live.”

Jackson said ambulance workers have witnessed great advancements in training and equipment during his years of service. “We’ve gotten about as good as we can get without doing surgery in the back of the truck,” he said, later adding “Driving a med unit used to be a thrill. Today it’s more of a job. It’s dangerous out there.”

Anyone considering a career as a paramedic should come to the job with a willingness to help people and the ability to comprehend a massive amount of information, Jackson advises.

“You see people at their worst when they pick up the phone and dial 911 for an ambulance. Whether someone is hurt, injured, dying or dead ... it requires a strong person to handle the rigors of the job. You have to be responsible, and self confidence is the big, big, big thing. If you’re not confident to hold another person’s life in your hands, you can’t do this job. I’ve had several lives in my hands over 35 years. God is the healer. I’m just the hands.”

Paramedics often do not know what happens to the people they help, although Jackson said he hopes to be joined at tonight’s reception by the victim of a bad accident at Catlett’s Creek which later became the subject of a book titled “The Fourth Man in the Car.”

Looking ahead, Jackson said he has never truly developed any pursuits outside of the job because of the schedule ambulance crews must keep. “The demand is great. By the time you get rested up, you go right back to the grind again,” he said.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do. I’m sure the wife has plans for me,” Jackson said with a grin. “I will probably do some part-time work ... just do something totally different with a little less responsibility and a little more leisure hopefully. I’m ready for whatever God has in store for me.”

Jackson, the son of Bruce and Mary Ruth Jackson, lives in south Ashland with his wife, Liza.

TIM PRESTON can be reached at

tpreston@dailyindependent.com or

(606) 326-2651.