Published: September 08, 2020

Courage Under Fire

Lt. Amy Judy ’92, who risked her life during a rescue, doesn’t want to be called a hero. But her community honored her in two unexpected ways.

After saving an unconscious woman in a home fire, Lt. Amy Judy ’92 was awarded the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor.

In her nearly three decades working for the Charlotte County Fire and Emergency Medical Services department in Punta Gorda, FL, Lt. Amy Judy ’92 has responded to a lot of distress calls. But the one that came in very early on the morning of Jan. 20, 2019, felt different. This didn’t seem like a false alarm. “It felt more urgent,” she says. And it was: A one-story home was on fire.

When she went into the house, the smoke reached from 2 feet off the ground all the way to the ceiling, so she had to crawl for better visibility. She wanted to check all the rooms for a woman who hadn’t gotten out in time. A hose full of water should have followed Judy into the house but didn’t, making the mission significantly more dangerous. Still, she kept going.

Judy opened every door in the house except one — which was stuck. So she grabbed another firefighter, who helped her force open that door. Then they found out why the door had been stuck: The missing woman, lying unconscious on the floor, had been blocking it. Judy and two other firefighters carried the woman to the lawn and gave her oxygen and other medical care until she was taken to a medical center. The woman regained consciousness and lived.

Despite her heroic effort, the ever-humble Judy is hesitant to accept praise. “You’re just doing your job,” she says. 

From Spartan to Firefighter/EMT

Judy, who spent her early childhood in upstate New York before moving to Florida, came to UT based on “a vibe,” she says. “I loved how it felt when I walked into Plant Hall.” She thought she’d study communication in the beginning but switched her major to business management. While she was one semester away from graduating, her boyfriend at the time was studying to be an emergency medical technician (EMT). She looked at his books and told herself, “Wow, I want that.”

After graduation, she gave up a prestigious sales job and instead went to EMT school at what is now Florida SouthWestern State College’s Port Charlotte campus. She was first hired at a non-emergency transport service and later hired by Charlotte County, where she’s been for the past 27 years and is now a lieutenant.

Within a few months of being hired as an EMT, Charlotte County announced that it was merging the EMS and fire departments, and she was encouraged by the county to go to fire school. While female firefighters are still rare (only 4% of career firefighters were female as of 2018, according to the National Fire Protection Association), that wasn’t the case locally, because all of her county’s EMTs who were physically able to go to fire school were prompted to do so. She now manages a team of four to five people.

Only 4% of career firefighters in the U.S. are female – and Lt. Amy Judy ’92 is part of that small group.

Most of the time, being a firefighter is a job like any other. At the start of her shift, Judy’s team is briefed on what happened on the last shift, including EMS updates, any fires and calls, and what daily duties they have on tap. “It’s a job that’s not so terribly exciting until it’s very exciting,” she said. Fires like the one described are rare: It was only the second “save” of her long career — but a monumental one.

A Hero’s Reward

In the weeks and months that followed the fire, Judy was recognized in a couple of major ways that took her by surprise.

In February 2019, she and the three firefighters who responded to the call were given the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor, which is the equivalent of the military’s Medal of Honor but for firefighters, law enforcement officers, civil defense officers and emergency services officers. And guess where she keeps it? In her closet. “It’s an outward symbol of an inward reward,” she says. “Maybe someday it’ll live someplace, but for now it’s tucked away. 

Lt. Amy Judy ’92 was invited to fly with the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds as a “Hometown Hero.”

The accolades didn’t stop there. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, which is an air demonstration squadron and the third-oldest formal flying team in the world, regularly honors people through its “Hometown Heroes” program.

Before an air show, they ask the local community to nominate people worthy of a guest flight. Judy was one of about a dozen people nominated for a flight before the Florida International Air Show in November 2019 — and she won.

It wasn’t as simple has hopping into a plane for a joyride. The Thunderbirds fly F-16s, which can climb 30,000 feet per minute and reach speeds of over 1,500 miles per hour. In an orientation, she learned how to eject herself from the plane, deploy her parachute “and all the things that can go wrong,” Judy says, with a laugh.

Judy also met with a doctor to learn how to breathe and stay conscious during the flight. That’s because the Thunderbirds fly so fast and accelerate so quickly that anyone inside faces an additional pressure: that of extreme G-forces. We all feel G-forces just by being on the Earth — it’s the planet’s gravitational pull. But because of the F-16’s speed, and the maneuvers the pilot makes, those inside the plane can feel G-forces up to 9Gs, meaning nine times the gravitational pull of the Earth. It’s not uncommon for inexperienced flyers to pass out.

Unlike what she expected, takeoff was “not like getting shot out of a rocket,” but smooth. Once they got up in the air and broke through the clouds, “it was absolutely beautiful,” she says. Her pilot did a series of stunts: roll overs (where he spun the plane through the sky like a moving pinwheel), inversions (flying upside down) and a 9G climb. Her stomach wasn’t happy the entire time, but she didn’t pass out, which makes her proud. The pilot even let her fly the plane for a bit. “It was exhilarating,” she said.

Back on the Ground

Life hasn’t changed too much since Judy’s brush with the clouds. It’s mostly back to the usual routine — except that her day-to-day duties now include handling COVID-19 calls. “We’re the first responders for people calling in saying they have a fever,” she says. “We’re exposing ourselves to people who maybe haven’t been tested yet and don’t know whether they have it, so we are trying to make sure that we’re keeping ourselves as safe as possible.”

She’s proud of her work and her family too. She’s married with two children: one son is a nuclear engineer with the U.S. Navy and the other is an accountant. “At least somebody in the world does numbers. That’s not my forte,” she says.

Just saving lives. And flying at 9G.

By Jen A. Miller ’02
Photography by Alex McKnight