As the Golden Triangle’s residents spend time with their families on Christmas Day, many fire, police and emergency personnel will work, as they do every other day of the year.

At Columbus Police Department, Columbus Fire & Rescue and OCH Regional Medical Center in Starkville, the message was the same — the world does not stop, even on holidays.

Someone has to be ready if something goes wrong.

“Unfortunately, tragedy does not discriminate,” Eddie Coats, OCH’s director of critical care, said. “People can die on Christmas or Christmas Eve, and do die on Christmas and Christmas Eve, or get sick or injured.”

Columbus Fire & Rescue Engineer Dale Ballard echoed those thoughts.

“We have to work, even holidays,” Ballard said. “That’s for us, any EMS, law enforcement. That’s just something that if you have an interest in the job early in your life or whenever you decide to embark in this field, you know you’re going to have to work late nights, odd hours and of course even on holidays.”

But, for those who have to work on Christmas, their organizations try to make the holiday as accommodating as circumstances allow.

Fire department

Ballard, a 12-year CFR veteran, said things stay a little low key at Fire Station 1 on College Street during the holiday.

“A lot of times, holidays aren’t as busy. But there’s always that sense of the unknown, because you don’t know,” he said. “We work per call. Especially with the holidays we try not to do any of our training on it or anything. But we still have to respond when someone calls 911.”

The volume of calls varies year to year, but generally, Ballard said, holidays are slower than other days. The biggest call Ballard could remember working on a Christmas was a car fire.

People tend to stay home and stay together with family during the holiday, which makes potential trouble less likely, according to Ballard.

For firefighters who work, the department tries to make things comfortable — if work allows for it.

“We’ll usually cook a larger meal,” Ballard said. “Some of us may have our families up here. That’s one good thing about the fire department — we can have our families up here as long as we’re not out on calls or anything.”

People from the community also bring in food for firefighters. It is a gesture Ballard said the firefighters appreciate.

He also pointed out that firefighters will look out for each other.

“You have a lot of guys like me who don’t have kids or people whose kids are grown who will say, ‘Hey, I’ll work that day so you can be at home with your family,'” Mitchell said. “You have a lot of that going.”

Medical services

For OCH RN Lanisha Houston, Christmas isn’t quite as much about missing time with one family as it is spending time with another.

“This is my family,” she said. “I spend more time here than I do at home. We are family and we’re all really close.”

Houston has worked at OCH for six years. She’s worked Christmas four years. She is not working the holiday this year and did not last year. Though she isn’t working the holiday this year, she and her shift workers still plan to celebrate Christmas together on Saturday.

Coats said workers who come in on Christmas day will bring in Christmas dinner to celebrate.

For the past 15 years, Coats said, he’s worked Christmas Eve or Christmas morning in one of his units to allow staff to spend time with their families.

Still, he said, it is hard to predict how busy any day — even Christmas — might be. Beyond the raw volume of patients, Coats said the amount of work needed for Christmas can depend on the type of patients coming in as well.

Law enforcement

For police, as other emergency services, the holidays are about finding a balance between work and personal life.

CPD Sgt. Pete Smith has been with the department for a little more than a year, and has 20 years of police experience overall.

He said working Christmas and other holidays is something that took getting used to, especially with a family, but he has adjusted.

“We usually do ours early that morning before I have to come to work,” Smith said. “We get up, let them do their presents and go back to bed, and then I’ll go to work.”

Smith said Christmas is usually slow, with at worst a few shoplifting or disturbance cases.

“We try to keep the guys doing stuff,” he said. “We have a get-together down here for our shift and exchange gifts to celebrate Christmas with the family that you’re with.”

Smith said community groups sometimes feed officers for Christmas — for example, he said a local church is coming Saturday to feed his shift and the night shift that will follow.

“They know we’re away from our families and try to make it as bearable as possible,” he said. “It’s good to have people in the community who support you and try to help you through Christmas and New Year’s.”

As with other services, Smith said officers will sometimes swap hours to allow those who have families to spend time with them on Christmas. He said administrative staff has also been supportive of letting officers who live in Columbus go home for a while during the day if things aren’t busy to spend more time with their families.

Smith said he lives too far away to be able to go home during the day, but even the few hours he has in the morning before heading to work help.

“It really makes you feel better even if it’s just a couple of hours to see them open up their presents before you go to work,” Smith said. “Everyone tries to work together to make things as accommodating as possible.”

Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.

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