Nick Stabile '06 serves as a volunteer firefighter and EMT in the town of Scituate, Rhode Island.

Nick Stabile: One of Rhode Island’s Finest

When Nick Stabile ’06 was a high school senior in 2001, he remembers watching the horror of September 11 on the news and feeling helpless. His cousin was on the 105th floor of one of the Twin Towers, and died on that tragic day. While he was upset by the terrorist attacks, he was also motivated to take action. He vowed to do something to help.

“I thought it was amazing that these New York police and firefighters were trying to save lives of people that they did not even know,” he said. In January 2003, Stabile achieved his ambition. Then only 18 years old, he began training to become a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical responder.

Since he began his volunteering more than a year ago, Stabile has been involved with a variety of emergencies. He currently volunteers in Scituate, Rhode Island's Hope Jackson Department during school vacations. He is also a part of Rhode Island Disaster Task Force One, and is on-call, at all times, for disasters that happen in Rhode Island. Last February, after the Station nightclub fire in West Warwick that killed 100 people and injured hundreds of others, Nick was paged about five times a day for body recovery. “I couldn’t go. I had too much schoolwork to do,” he says.

Even when he is off-duty, Stabile is always primed for a crisis. While driving on Interstate 495 in Franklin, Stabile witnessed a car accident and pulled over right away to administer medical attention to the driver. The male victim was severely injured with a collapsed lung, which Stabile recognized from his advanced training in airway management. Stabile stabilized the man until the paramedics arrived. Officials told him that if the man had not gotten the immediate care, his chances of surviving would have been slim.

Stabile has dealt with all sorts of obstacles during his tenure as a rescue volunteer, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Some of these obstacles have been quite bizarre. On a hot July day last summer, Stabile was at the station when a call came in. It was a medical emergency call for a birthday party, where a child had accidentally been cut with a knife that was left on a table. While Stabile and the other EMTs tried to treat the child’s injury, the family’s yellow Labrador retriever viciously confronted them. The dog was simply trying to protect the child, but it was interfering with their medical care and making the situation worse.

The passion for rescue is evidently in the Stabile blood. Before Nick was born, his father trained to be a volunteer firefighter. Unfortunately, he was unable to continue because he did not finish the requirements for his medical certificate. Knowing this, Nick passed all his certifications, and interviewed for the position in Scituate.

Stabile truly enjoys his part-time vocation. “It’s like being on a roller coaster, at one point it is calm and relaxing, and then (you) go along not knowing what will happen," he says. "Things always happen when you least expect it. I love it!”