Paramedic Jason Sautel talks about his journey from medic to author and his struggles as well as his amazing accomplishments. Really enjoyed learning more about his courage and how the book; The Rescuer, came to be.

Jason Sautel spent much of his early adulthood as a firefighter in some of the busiest firehouses in the country and today shares Christ-centered stories and lessons from his time there through his writings, podcast, and speaking engagements. He loves his wife of twenty-one years, Kristie, his four two-legged children, and his two four-legged children, and appreciates God's gifts of donuts, surfing, and Maui.


Amamzon book link: https://www.amazon.com/Rescuer-Firefighters-Courage-Darkness-Relentless/dp/1400216532/ref=sr_1_1?crid=SZ9WQLBDSQKA&keywords=books+by+jason+Sautel&qid=1684785579&s=books&sprefix=books+by+jason+sautel%2Cstripbooks%2C93&sr=1-1

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Transcript

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Intro: 0:44

Welcome to The Sim Cafe, a podcast produced by the team at Innovative Sim Solutions, edited by Shelly Houser. Join our host, Deb Tauber and co-host Jerrodd Jeffries as they sit down with subject matter experts from across the globe to reimagine clinical education and the use of simulation. So pour yourself a cup of relaxation, sit back, tune in, and learn something new from The Sim Cafe.

Deb: 1:25

Welcome to another episode of The Sim Cafe today, and I'm gonna use, truly blessed as I like to because we are truly blessed to have Jason Sautel. Thank you, Jason, for being a guest on our show today.

Jason: 1:39

Oh, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here. It's, it is a blessing to be here, so thank you for that.

Deb: 1:45

Thank you. Jason is a firefighter paramedic. Why don't you share your story and journey into that field with me?

Jason: 1:52

Yeah. You know, I became a firefighter at the age of 18 when I started volunteering, and shortly thereafter, I became a full-time firefighter with what's known as the California Department of Forestry or Cal Fire nowadays. And that was in Riverside County in Southern California. Then after going to a bunch of major fires and the Malibu fires and the wind driven fires, I realized, wow, those city firefighters make a lot more money than this forestry firefighter. So I applied for the big cities and my joke is I told all the right lies and the city of Oakland picked me up. But no, I, uh, did the interview process, which we all work on when we're going for a dream job. And at a young age, I also got hired by the city of Oakland. I first started off as a paramedic only in the city on the ambulance, and then just my heart has always been to firefighting. So I was able to do both by being a firefighter and a paramedic at the busiest firehouse in West Oakland.

Deb: 2:50

So you've seen a lot, and I met you on social media. I remember seeing the book, the Rescuer and saying, oh, wow. And then reading about you, then listening to the book, and then just continuing to follow you. So we're gonna share your story with our listeners, which I think is pretty exciting. My next question is, do you have any career highlights or aha moments that kind of come to mind?

Jason: 3:14

What's so cool is in the world of emergency medicine, as you know, for the many years that you worked as an emergency room nurse, there's so many small moments, and I think the aha moments for me is when they finally all come together into one big picture. And I think the biggest aha moment for me was for so long I responded to all the emergencies hoping for best outcomes, as does everyone else. And when they didn't happen, I would just fall apart. So the aha moment came to me later in my career when I realized our job is to respond. Our job is to show up. The outcomes are gonna be the outcomes. Don't get right. It doesn't mean you get to show up and be lazy and not do work. Put in all of your efforts, put in all of your hard work, put in all of your training, and give back to those we're blessed to serve. And when the outcomes aren't what we hope they are, we need to find ways to be okay with that. Because if we expected to have good outcomes on every emergency we respond to, it would be the world's worst career. So my aha moment was finding joy in the obedience of responding and just helping people understanding that the outcomes were not always gonna be what I wanted them to be.

Deb: 4:32

That is an excellent answer. I think my husband has often accused me of being so optimistic that when things don't work out, I just don't get it. Right. And and it comes to your point that, you know, you need to learn to accept things for what they are and be, you know, you might not like'em. You might wish that they were different, but it, we need to learn to serve and accept. Yeah. Thank you for that response.

Jason: 4:54

I agree. Thank You.

Deb: 4:55

So when did you decide to write the book? When did you tell us a little bit about that process and you know, you're just, you're a firefighter and you're all o f a sudden you're gonna take on a different,....

Jason: 5:05

Right. Well, the process is kind of like, most of my story is crazy. I was injured on a fire and my back and my hip, uh, got in layman's terms of the fireman term, jacked up pretty good, had to go through some surgeries. And the worst day of my life was when the doctor came into the exam room and said, you're never gonna be a firefighter anymore. And it felt like the world had just been stolen from me because I had a horrible childhood. And my whole identity in life came from being the firefighter my pay came from and how I supported my family. It all came from that. And so when that's taken from me, I was devastated. But looking back on that day, it's now the greatest day of my life because I still get to serve in different ways. So while I was trying to figure out what am I gonna do, you know, I'm teaching a CLS Pals BLS, which is awesome, don't get wrong. And I love that type of stuff. And still training in the fire service, the young recruits, I just felt like there was something more. And so I started typing and I started telling stories and I started linking my faith into the stories and different things. And it, it just, that's where it started coming from. People say, you need to tell your story because it's gonna impact people on so many different levels. Number one, from a faith-based level. Number two, from overcoming trauma. Number three, from giving folks a view what firefighting and the world of e m s pre-hospital looks like. All of that came together. And then it was also by my beautiful wife doing what she always does and pushing me to be the best version of me and stuff. Cause every time I didn't want to write, I'm telling you Deb, I was like, I was ready to, I'm the least violent guy you're ever gonna meet unless you're a computer or I'm having to do paperwork, I will throw you in my pool. Okay, a human, I won't do that. And so it was a struggle, but that's where it came from. It was just a combination. And then where the confirmation came from is when all of a sudden, Facebook is what it is, but my wife one day goes, Hey, your Facebook page has 200,000 followers, 300, 400, 500,000 followers. It was like a, it wasn't like a, wow, look at me, I'm getting popular. It was just a confirmation that the stories were actually affecting people in positive ways. And that's one of the ways that I started just going, all right, I'm gonna keep on keeping on and push down that road.

Deb: 7:13

Being a firefighter paramedic, which I know many, many, I'm sure sitting but in the seat,<laugh> writing was very, very, very hard. And you did, you ha you impacted, I would love to, you know, give a spoiler alert and share some of the stories for the listeners as well as this is gonna become a movie and we'll talk about that in a minute. I saw on Amazon, I wanna say 887 reviews on your book. Right? Okay. 887 and about 880 something, were all fives, right? Five stars. So curious about that person who gave you like a one or a two, like what was on their mind? They were just in a bad mood<laugh>. Right.

Jason: 7:57

You know what, you know what I say about that is, uh, it's so funny. We'll get, you know what, 900 positive reviews, 880 positive reviews, and you're like, oh, that's such a blessing. But let's be honest, what's the one that keeps us up that we look at? We're like, what did they think? And what I've learned is something was going on with them. Yeah. And maybe it was they were just like, wait, hold on. I feel Okie-doke because he talked about, you know, God or Jesus in there or something. But I kept it real on my journey of faith without preaching as you know. And so what I say is, when anyone ever gives me a super native, like a negative review's, okay, but a mean review, I'm not a, i, I don't think we should be doing that anywhere. Just leave it alone. If it didn't resonate with you, I'm one, I don't leave a negative review. So what I do is I take them and I have this thing called the grace pit, and I put them in the grace pit and then I close the lid on it and I just let them stay over there. So I try not to focus on, cause so often we want to go on those negative reviews, but another author came alongside me and some publishers and they said, it's not normal to get that many positive reviews. And I said, well, it's not normal for a firefighter to write a book. And I was just pouring my heart out there and I guess it resonated with people. So yeah, thanks for throwing that out there. It's been great. But yes, I'm glad that you saw that from your line of work. It's like, why are they attacking me? Me, you know, so, but it is, I wasn't

Deb: 9:12

Even thinking about that. I was more thinking about that is an incredible amount of vibes. Yes. Because when I read a book, belong to a book club, when I read a book, we'll look at how many stars. I don't ever remember seeing like all five stars shut up. There wasn't like the outliers affected the, the color of the stars in any way. And I was like, wow, that's amazing. That that really is.

Jason: 9:33

The cool thing about that is people say, oh, it must be your friends. Like, you know, I got six friends, like six real friends, you know, two of'em are dogs. Okay. So, um, trust me, these are people who didn't know me. But like I said, I appreciate that because what it shows is that it just resonates with people. And that's why I love telling folks tell your story because you don't know how it's gonna affect people, you know, until the the good and the bad. Because it all resonates with people and show them how you worked out of the bad.

Deb: 9:57

Thank you. Thank you. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the movie and the energy around it and just, you know, cuz when I read your social media post, you were just like, you were just getting into it and I was thinking, oh, I hope he'll talk to me<laugh>.

Jason: 10:10

Yeah, I know. It's for sure. So with the book to film, what's really cool about it is you get to tell the backstory, the, the after story more of it. So like the book itself would be like act two. You have act one, you have act two, where the, the action funny games are. Then you have act three where it kind of really ties together. And in a film you can bring that in so many more dramatic ways because it's not always through talking and going through, you have to describe it through paragraphs. You can have one scene of showing a guy alone in his beautiful house, but you can feel the darkness and the alone time and all that. And you just wrote a whole chapter in that one scene. And that's what's exciting. So being able to bring that into films be cool. We're partnering with just such amazing studios and places in Hollywood, but what's even greater is we're gonna be able to keep the story real. We're not releasing it and just letting people run with it. What we're doing is we're partnering with everyone who can just keep the core of it where it needs to be while cinematically making it something that audiences are gonna love. And that's the fun. So right now we're in the pre pre-production where we're showing the proof of concepts, things like that. Investors are getting on board, but it's definitely gonna take off because everything is just lining up in ways I never thought I would. And so now I'm learning how to be a producer, which I'll be honest with you, an emergency room nurse, we could do it. We could do it because our job is to get people what they need so they can do their job the best they can. It's our job to keep chaos and everything. So that's the fun part about it. So I highly encourage, uh, people in the medical field, in the EMS field, get out there and become a producer too now.

Deb: 11:51

<laugh>. Well, and there are several people in simulation who have had careers in Hollywood and in acting. Yeah. There's several of them.

Jason: 11:59

Yeah, no, it's, it's definitely tie, you can see how it ties in, you know, especially with the way that it's grown and it's become so good, you know?

Deb: 12:07

No, Jason, you shared with us, uh, just a few minutes ago about when you were given that diagnosis that you weren't gonna be able to be a paramedic firefighter anymore. When was that? What year was that?

Jason: 12:17

It was 2015 is when it was, and then I held on, I still did training and everything, but you, you know how it is. It's like if you choose to go into training because you're like, Hey, I've had a great career, it feels good. But for me, my heart wasn't there initially because it was like, okay, this is what you get to do now. Cuz physically you can't do what your love is. But that actually was a blessing in disguise too, because dealing with being an A C L s Pals, b l s, advanced Trauma Life Support instructor, I then started getting to see what you're doing in the sim work. And I started to see how amazing the changes are coming in there that we can provide even better training to the, you know, for me, I was talking about the guys and gals in the field, but for the general audience and medicine too and stuff. So yeah, it propelled me into that line of work. And you know, I, I'm not gonna lie, I still hop in and teach a class every now and then, and I, I still, my heart's there, but I'm busy doing other things too.

Deb: 13:15

That's great that you're still doing that. Sometimes you'll hear somebody say, oh, you know, those who can't do teach mm-hmm.<affirmative>, which is just not, I mean, people go into teaching for all different reasons, maybe because they've had an experience where their teacher wasn't that good and they wanna show others that the experiences can be better than what they, you know, just like you in your, in what you stated about your childhood, how, how things can be different if you make them different. You have to move outside of yourself and you know, like you rely on higher power to, to guide you.

Jason: 13:45

Right, right. Yeah. And what I love about the aspect of teaching and teachers in general, even doing the simulation is you want folks that are going to keep it engaged. You know, you want engaging. Because if you just want a book, I'll give you a book. If you just want to learn the test, I'll teach you the test. But I truly believe in bringing our skills, our knowledge, things that we've learned, tying it together with the science and engaging the audience or the students in a way that's gonna make them want to learn. And what I always say is, my job is to make sure you bring the science into the field. And when you do that, the survivability rate goes way up. It's not about bringing your wants or what you think's gonna work best, it's about bringing the science to the field. And that's what I love about the type of stuff you guys are doing.

Deb: 14:32

Thank you. Great. Great. What were you doing during the pandemic?

Jason: 14:38

Check this out. My book launched in September of 2020, right at the height of the pandemic and just a couple months before general election, which was kind of taking up a lot of media, so the pandemic, this and the other. And during that time there was a lot of struggles. Like everyone and I, I don't get into how people regulated, didn't regulate do that, cuz I'm always one that's like, Hey, just do what's the best for you and those around you. So during that time, I actually spent a lot of time marketing and learning how to get my book out there to people because my budget that my publisher gave me was taken away as were all the speaking engagements, the travel, all that kind of stuff. So here I am as a first time author, having to figure everything out. And my, um, publisher did nothing wrong, but let's keep it real. They were in the unknown too, so they're kinda, so it all got thrown back onto my shoulders. So I now have to look for the good in it. And so as mad as I was at the time, like, whoa, why is this happening? You know, I had all these speaking and even in Chicago, I was going to huge one there and it was angry. I, there was an anger, but I had to look for the good and the good out of it was, what can I learn from this time that I can continue to use in the future? And the other struggle through the pandemic was my, uh, wife's mom had lung cancer. And so we ha we went through that and she ended up, uh, being called home, uh, a few months into it and stuff. So there was, there was a lot of dark times for us, like other people. But I look in the positives and all the things that I learned from it, it is a blessing in disguise. Not saying anything that happened with people passing away or the amounts of people getting sick was a blessing. But I have to look for the hope in the darkness, you know? So that's, that's where it was, was learning how to market and do that kind of stuff.

Deb: 16:20

Thank you. Thank you. And what would you like our listeners to take away from this episode? What would you, what what would you like them to remember from Deb and Jason's discussion today?

Jason: 16:31

You know, there's so much here, but what, what I want people to kind of lean into is where they can find hope, hope and everything. They're doing that, giving back and, and helping people. That's what it is. Regardless of where you are in life, what your walk is. If you're someone like me that professes in faith everywhere, I just tell people, do what you're gonna do to serve others selflessly, serve others. Put yourself aside. I'm not saying put yourself aside, run into a burning building, but you can put yourself aside by saying, okay, this person needs to learn something, whatever it is, whether it's in the medical field or it's whatever you're in, just put yourself aside and pour into them. And that's what I hope they get out of our conversations. They'll walk away wanting to pour into other people and leave each person better than they found them.

Deb: 17:23

Excellent response. Thank you. Thank you. Anything that you wanna ask me?

Jason: 17:27

You know, what, what I want to ask you is tell me something profound you learned from your many, many years of being an emergency room nurse.

Deb: 17:36

Oh, wow. That's not a big throw

Jason: 17:38

<laugh>. It could be bigger or small, but I just like, you know, I just love learning that kind of stuff. Put you on the spot.

Deb: 17:44

I think, I think one of the things I learned was the importance and the value of meeting everyone where they are in their journey and not take, you know, like the crash in, in room three, the, the chest pain in room seven, the trauma in room 17, sore throat and sick. But Mary in room 15, who has abdominal pain with her mother there. And just to take in the whole patient-centered, family-centered care and not walking away and looking away from painful situations. And I think when, in my time in the emergency department, uh, mental health, mental illness, suicide, it was really shunned upon at that point. And the family members from someone who had maybe died by suicide, they were shunned as well. So, I mean, to just be with those families during those times of their need and letting them know, you know, that we're all here with the human condition.

Jason: 18:39

Right. You nailed it. Oh, that's so good. I love that. It's just, again, showing up and giving the best part of you to them and they need that, you know, so thank you for that. And, uh, thank you for answering that. I know I just kind of put you on the spot with a tough one, but, uh, I, I knew you would nail it.

Deb: 18:54

Well, thank you so much. All right. And with that, happy simulating

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Outro: 19:12

Thanks for joining us here at The Sim Cafe. We hope you enjoyed, connect with us at www.innovativesimsolutions.com and be sure to hit that like and subscribe button so you never miss an episode of The SimCafe.