The way Saint Joseph Berea nurse Stephanie Fields looks at it, she flips a switch when she goes from her emergency room job to her volunteer work with search and rescue dogs.
“When you’re a nurse, you’re working toward saving somebody, providing care and improving their health. This is flipping the switch,” she explains. “To be able to give a family closure and you’re not fixing or healing the physical wounds or the illnesses people have — you’re helping to heal a broken heart.
“You see them grieve and you give them answers that they hope they don’t get, but yet they thank you, because now they know. You’re giving back to that person something that’s as valuable as life; you’re giving them the answer that their loved one has found peace, although it may not be in this world or this life and returning them home.”
Stephanie has been at Saint Joseph Berea for six years and was a flight nurse for a private company before that. She is a member of the London-Laurel County Rescue Squad and does their canine training.
Her work with search and rescue dogs started three years ago when she was looking for a dog to be a running partner and she adopted Willow, a cattle dog. Through a chance discovery at obedience school, where the trainer also did scent training, Willow proved herself adept at scent work, specifically for human remains. “It’s a game to her and she loved it,” Stephanie says.
Willow was followed by a trio of Belgian Malinois — Maggie, who is a “live find” air scent dog; Ginger, an animal shelter rescue who specializes in human remains detection; and Remington, a tracking dog who was the last of his litter and was given to Stephanie for free.
She and the dogs receive training together through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “You go as a team,” she explained. “We are constantly training and are constantly testing.”
The team works with the London-Laurel County Rescue Squad, as well as Kentucky State Police, Kentucky Emergency Management and sheriff’s departments throughout the state.
Most recently, Ginger took just four minutes to find a body in the aftermath of a house fire, and was honored by local agencies — also getting a shout-out from the Green River Animal Shelter where she had been surrendered.
“All of my dogs are throwaway dogs,” Stephanie said. “I have never purchased a dog, period.” All were given up by owners who couldn’t handle the energy that is characteristic of these working breeds. Their energy was redirected into a skill to locate humans for either recovery or return to safety.
A bit like her dogs, Stephanie has a lot of energy, which is why she likes being a nurse in the emergency department.
“I’m a very high-energy person, so I like a lot of change, and the turnover of the ER. You’re not locked into one patient population. You get everything from infants that are just released from the hospital to the elderly that you’re doing palliative care for. And I like that variation,” she said.
Far from creating stress, Stephanie said it keeps her from being fixated on any one thing. “Actually, it’s a stress reliever for me, because it occupies my mind. I have to be thinking constantly,” she said.
Saint Joseph’s value of Compassion is especially meaningful in her rescue work, Stephanie said. When I go out on those scenes and I have a family that are on the sidelines watching me and my dog work, I hurt for them. I also hurt for them when I am standing there and the coroner gives them the news that their loved one has been recovered.”
Stephanie and her dogs perform rescue work on a volunteer basis; only FEMA-led disaster recovery provides compensation. Her local rescue squad has offered to pay for some expenses, but she has turned it down.
“To me, that’s just taking away from the community because they are a nonprofit; they’re funded by donations and fundraisers,” she said. “If I can afford it, I’m going to pay for it. I don’t want to take from the community — I want to give back to it.”
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