Sophomore Ashley Kroeker received her emergency medical technician (EMT) license this summer and decided to put it to use by becoming a volunteer firefighter in Baldwin City.

When Kroeker tells people about her choice to become a volunteer firefighter, they don’t always believe her.

Sophomore Ashley Kroeker stands on a firetruck at the Baldwin City Fire Station. In between classes at Baker University, Kroeker is training to become a volunteer firefighter.

“I think most people think I’m lying at first and then most people just look at me like I’ve lost it a little bit,” said Kroeker. “I think I’m showing people you can do whatever you want. Just because you’re female or just because you’re 5’5, you can still do anything. You just have to try hard enough.”

Kroeker is still learning the ropes and spends her Sundays training and gradually gaining more skills.

Donnie Thomas, who has been a volunteer firefighter at the Baldwin City Fire Department since January 2012, said that Kroeker will be learning everything that the rest of the firefighters learn, including how to operate the trucks and hoses, fighting grass and house fires, and handling car accidents.

Thomas is impressed with Kroeker’s work ethic.

“Ashley comes to training willing to learn and if she doesn’t know how to do something she always asks myself or another firefighter,” Thomas said. “She comes in with her head up.”

Kroeker says her hours will be “24/7″ when she finishes training. As a volunteer, she will have a pager and a radio, will respond to emergencies when she can.

“If it were my house burning down, I’d want every firefighter to come that even possibly could, so that’s how I’m going to treat it,” Kroeker said. “If I’m not completely 100 percent obligated to what I’m doing, then I’m going to try and respond. That includes weekends, that includes the middle of the night, everything.”

In comparison to her EMT background, training to become a volunteer firefighter has opened Kroeker’s eyes to a different way to respond to emergencies.

“Firefighters really have to know a lot because until paramedics get there, they’re in charge of making sure that everyone is safe and everyone is taken care of,” Kroeker said. “They have to know how to be a paramedic without having the certification.”

Sophomore Jessica Lane thinks Kroeker’s decision to become a volunteer firefighter is an honorable one.

“She’s very driven in everything that she does,” Lane said. “I’ve never seen her say, ‘I can’t’ or ‘I give up’. It’s always, ‘I need to try harder and I need to do more’.”

Kroeker says she doesn’t intend on doing this for the rest of her life, but plans on continuing to volunteer through college. Upon graduation, she aspires to go to medical school and become a plastic surgeon. Kroeker is hoping that being a volunteer firefighter will help build her resume for that opportunity.

“Part of why I’m doing this is because I never want to, as a surgeon, get such a big head that I forget what led up to my patient being in my operating room,” Kroeker said. “I really want to get a feel for the first responders and the ambulance crew. I want to make sure that I always know what these people have been through, and that I’ve seen the other side of it.”

Kroeker is anxious to start responding to fire emergencies.

“I’m nervous for the first time I have to go into a fire, but I think if you weren’t nervous, you’d get hurt and make mistakes,” said Kroeker. “I feel like by the time I’m actually going into a burning house, I’ll be prepared for it. I’m not worried I’ll do something wrong, I just have nervous jitters, for anything you do for the first time. “

Lane looks up to Kroeker and thinks it takes a brave person to want to go into a burning building in her spare time.

“I wish I could do that,” said Lane. “The will that someone needs and has to have to be a firefighter, it takes a lot for someone to want to do that, so I give her so much support.”