Troy Hicklin with Riverside Fire Authority is pictured on Feb. 25, 2019, the day of his retirement.
Stepping away from decades of work as a first responder has a way of prompting a mix of emotion, said Troy Hicklin. It’s bittersweet, he said, but it’s time for some needed rest.
Hicklin’s last day on the job at Riverside Fire Authority was Monday. He’d been with the Centralia department for nine years.
“It’s kind of gotten itself to a point where the firefighting stuff has been my career, that was my love for so many years, but at the same time … it’s kind of time to rest from that,” he said.
Hicklin has a medical transportation business in Cowlitz County — the same county where he lives — and these days he plans on focusing on that business. They serve as something like a medical taxi service, he said, saying they do things like take people to their appointments.
Hicklin became a paramedic in 1990. He was drawn to the adrenaline of the job and the sense of responsibility. He became a firefighter/paramedic — the same role he’s filled in Centralia — with Cowlitz County in 1995. He held that position for about 15 years, he said, and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant.
Eventually, he felt the need for something different. His promotion meant less time on the front lines of calls, and more time focusing on more menial tasks.
“Once you get to that rank … you still run calls, you still are in charge of a company, but you spend a lot more time with paperwork and things like that, and I wanted to get away from that, get back into the more physical part of the job,” Hicklin said.
When he took the job with Riverside Fire Authority, he knew it would be something of a demotion. He would be losing his lieutenant rank. But, he took the job in pursuit of the excitement that drew him in initially.
“It’s that same feeling that kind of turns around and bites you somewhere down the road,” he said.
It was a combination of things that encouraged him to retire. Among them was the stressful nature of the job and the sometimes traumatic nature of aid calls. Another was the unpredictable or nonexistent sleep schedule that comes with a 24-hour shift.
“It wasn’t that long ago that I was suffering from nightmares and things from calls. And so I wasn’t very reflective of the good stuff that we saw. Your brain sort of takes over the bad stuff. And I got some fantastic help at the time, which seemed to turn things around for me,” Hicklin said.
He added later: “Over the span of my career, the 30 years, I’ve always worked 24-hour shifts and the sleep deprivation has been horrendous for me over those years. It has screwed me up 10 ways from Sunday, trying to get some sort of normal sleep pattern when you’re at home and then you come to work and then you’re back at home and then you’re at work, and it’s just this roller coaster.”
Lately, Hicklin said, he’s found himself wanting to take a break from all that to focus on his business and his family. He said he looks forward to consistently making it to his grandkids’ birthday parties and holidays.
He said he felt that news of his retirement came as a shock to some of the people he’s worked with, because his desire to finish his career wasn’t widely known.
He spoke highly of the people he’s worked with and the administration of RFA. He also encouraged citizens to keep the fire department in their thoughts, and recognize that they’re a staff that’s stretched thin.
On Monday morning — his last day — during a conversation with The Chronicle, Hicklin’s thoughts were mixed. On one hand, he wouldn’t mind going out on another call. But on the other, a quiet last day sounded pretty good, too.
