To hear Blake Campbell tell it, his retirement following 32 years as an EMT providing life-saving first aid and treatment to those in need is a career that began almost by accident itself.

It all started with a phone call back in 1984, when at the time the town of Gull Lake owned the ambulance and staffed it with volunteers.

The town was at risk of losing the ambulance as they were down to four volunteers.

Campbell was asked if he would consider joining the ranks of the volunteers working for the ambulance, and his keen sense of civic duty made the answer an easy yes, even if he wasn’t entirely sure at the time what it was he was agreeing to.

He recalls with a chuckle hanging up the phone and announcing his decision to his Mom.

"'I'm not sure what I just did, because I just signed up with the ambulance,'” he told her. "And I didn’t even have CPR training at the time."

Campbell recounts at this point he knew next to nothing about first aid. The requirements at that time, for someone in a volunteer capacity such as the one he had just taken on, was basic first aid training and CPR.

His primary motivator to for agreeing to the position is one he sees as central to anyone who chooses to be an EMT.

"EMT is a career you take because you enjoy helping people," he said. "The cases that are really memorable are the ones where you've really made a difference in someone's life at the time, able to help them."

It didn’t take long, however, for him to realize he would be in a better place to aid those needing his services were he more prepared with better training. Taking the initiative, Campbell and another of the volunteers became fully qualified EMT’s.

From his earliest days where picking up a patient amounted to little more than transporting them to a hospital for treatment, he says he has seen the full transition in the field, to where EMT’s are able to conduct a variety of diagnostic tests, as well as administer more advanced first aid, start IV treatments, administer oxygen and even provide immediate relief for pain management.

"You’ve really seen some positive developments in EMS over the years," he said. "The training is becoming very impressive and it’s becoming where it needs to be, and a profession, and when I started out it really wasn't a profession. In small towns, you did it because you were helping your town."

The advances in technology and in training are things he sees as movement in the right direction for the benefits of patients and providers alike.

Standout moments in his three decades of work on the ambulance are the patients, where he says everyone understands the outcome would have been less positive had the immediate care and aid rendered not been possible.

Officially retired April 30, after 32 years in service with the ambulance in Gull Lake, Campbell has passed on the reigns to Dave Waiser, who joined the Gull Lake Ambulance program in 2005.

Always one to keep his options open, it will come as little surprise to learn Campbell is already moving along new paths, taking online courses in economic development and working on economic development initiatives for the town of Gull Lake, where Campbell is and will remain the mayor.