It was a night Angela Hunter will never forget, a night that fuels her to this day.
A call brought Hunter and her fellow first responders to the scene of an accident. A pregnant woman laid there suffering from cardiac arrest, the odds stacked against her making it. Hunter helped save her life.
Moments like that over her 21 years of service have led Hunter to be named Louisiana’s top paramedic – the 2024-25 Paramedic of the Year honoree as chosen by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). The Bayou Gauche woman and Gretna police officer is nominated at the national level as well by virtue of the award.
Hunter knew she had been nominated for the state honor, but receiving the letter informing her she had attained the honor came as a surprise, nonetheless.
“It was exciting. I didn’t realize it was for the entire state of Louisiana – I thought it was just kind of down here,” Hunter said. “So, I realized ‘Wow, this is for the whole state’ … I’ll say it’s pretty cool.”
Hunter was inspired by her father growing up.
“He always did search and rescue, fire department stuff when I was younger … he would come back and always hear the stories about saving people. I’m not sure I was supposed to hear those stories or not, but I did. And I was always intrigued by it,” Hunter said.
She also draws inspiration from another element – she likes to prove people wrong.
“Everyone told me when I went to paramedic school I was going to get burnt out on it and quit after a few years, that I was going to hate it. And 21 years later, I’m still here,” Hunter said.
Of course, one has to be wired a certain way to be a paramedic, a profession that brings with it a great deal of mental and emotional weight. Lives are on the line and not every call ends positively. It’s the kind of pressure most aren’t eager to deal with.
Hunter says when she’s called into action, she blocks out that feeling of pressure through an intense focus on the task at hand.
“You kind of get to a bit of tunnel vision. Everything else around you kind of goes silent – you don’t hear or see anything else,” she said. “It’s a weird feeling, because you’re still aware if something happens around you. But everything is all about what you have to do to help that person.”
This was the case the night she responded to a call after a pregnant woman wrecked her car and was suffering a heart attack.
“They told us she had passed,” Hunter said. “But when we actually went and assessed her, we discovered, ‘OK, wait, we can save her.’”
After receiving paramedic care and being transferred to the hospital, the woman wasn’t out of the woods yet – she was in a coma for several days.
Doctors were able to deliver her baby via a C-section – and a week later, the woman awoke.
“She wanted to know where her baby was,” Hunter said. “It was the call of my career.”
She said learning that someone has made it is “the best feeling in the world.”
Then there are the nights that don’t go well. Hunter said she has great support from her husband, a first responder himself.
“He’s a fireman,” she said. “He kind of understands the days I want to talk about a call and the days I don’t want to talk about it. He’ll let me vent about it if I need to and that helps a lot. My son is 14 now and he’s to the point he can kind of relate and go, my mom had a busy day today, let me go vacuum of something for her. So, I’ve got a lot of family support.”
It’s a tough job, she said, but one she wouldn’t trade for anything.
“I’ve had calls where after I’m just like, ‘Wow, I actually, truly saved somebody,’” Hunter said. “And it’s those calls that make your career worth it.”
