Join us in congratulating Corey Butts for being our #StokeAHero Channel Islands Happy winner this week!
Corey grew up surfing St. Augustine and Flagler beaches and now lives in West Florida. He is a Flight Paramedic that works for a company that helps sick and injured people get back home when they become ill or injured while abroad. With a suitcase of medications and machines, Corey assists and monitors the patient during travel to ensure they are stable and provides critical care when needed. Usually, his patients have suffered seizures, broken bones, and heart issues while traveling and cannot get back to their home states or countries on their own. When the Covid-19 Pandemic began to sweep the globe, Corey’s expertise kicked into high demand and he began working overtime helping to safely bring infected and recovered patients home to reunite with their families in addition to those with other ailments. With borders closing and restrictions tightening, the unique obstacles that come with transporting all of his patients have increased along with the countless hours that the job entails.
Since the pandemic began, he has traveled to Canada, multiple states, and France. When we contacted his nominator and fiance, Tatum, Corey had just returned from a trip to France and was quarantining while waiting on another call that would take him to Spain. We’ve learned that Corey will sometimes not know the condition of his patients and exactly where he is going until the day before or even the day of being deployed. Once he gets home, he has to stay on lockdown and quarantine until his next work trip. Now months into the crisis, Corey continues to put himself in harm’s way to help people get home to their families.
It’s hard to imagine what it would be like to be sick or injured and stuck in a foreign country away from family and friends at any time, let alone during a historic Global Pandemic. Corey knows that his patients are scared, tired, and sick and in need of a comforting presence on their journey. His skill, hard work and comforting bedside manner often inspire messages from patients and family boasting about how they could not have imagined having to travel without him. From what we’ve heard Corey is a humble guy with a great sense of humor (his IG handle is @everyone_loves_butts 😆) that wouldn’t consider himself a hero but we sure do. We hope that Corey gets a break to shred very soon on his new #ciHappy! Thank you and congratulations from The Surf Station!
#thesurfstation #stokeahero #healthcareheroes
