Meet Sally Ryan, Tucson High's javelin-throwing, 24-hour-shift-working EMT

Hundreds of Tucson High seniors collected their diplomas Thursday night, but only one has the distinction of qualifying for state in the javelin throw while also spending her weekends working as an emergency medical technician.

Sally Ryan’s passion for emergency medicine dates back to middle school, while admittedly the javelin is a much newer love. She picked up the sport just before her senior season after spending the previous few years competing in the 100 and 200 meters, the high jump and the 300 meter hurdles. Earlier in her high school career, Ryan said she “flirted’ with volleyball and took part in theater.

“Nothing stuck too much except for throwing,” she said. “It’s just a really cool thing to do. You’re running and throwing a giant spear. It’s just fun”

Ryan, 18, had a standout first (and last) season throwing for the Badgers, qualifying for state, where she finished 13th. She’s training this summer with the Tucson Elite Athletic Club and is all set to walk onto Pima College’s track and field team in the fall.

“Sally is a very hard worker, a great leader and responded well to the challenge of learning throwing technique,” said Badgers’ track and field coach Jason Holley, who added that Ryan’s making state in her first year was a great achievement. “She is an above-and-beyond athlete, she has an awareness of being a contributor to the team’s success.”Holley said Ryan’s attention to detail resulted in personal-record throws every week. That focus will help next year, when she’s balancing track practice and her studies with her volunteer job at a local fire department, where she spends weekends as a volunteer EMT. Both the job and her classes — Ryan is aiming to join Pima’s paramedic program by next spring — will build towards her goal of becoming a flight medic, a career she decided on in the eighth grade.

Rather than wait until college to become an EMT, Ryan got started as soon as she legally could. She hit the ground running when she turned 18, enrolling in a summer certification course through Pima.

What’s typically a year-long education was condensed into 10 weeks. And while Ryan was confident in her abilities, she knew it would be a challenge.

“I remember feeling very nervous going into it, because I hadn’t done anything like this,” Ryan said. “It was very kind of fast and furious, with a test every week.”

Ryan powered through the hybrid course, taking most of her classes online and attending in-person skills training with pandemic-related precautions. Then it came time for her state certification exam.

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“I passed it first-go, which is really exciting,” Ryan said. “But I was kind of not sure exactly what I was going to do with it. I didn’t have anywhere to work. My whole plan was to volunteer, but with COVID, a lot of fire departments weren’t taking volunteers, as they wanted to minimize people working on the trucks.”

In December, she reached out to the Sonoita-Elgin Fire District and was taken on as a weekend volunteer. She started work that same month. She was vaccinated in January, saying she was fortunate to escape the brunt of the pandemic that took such a toll on first responders.

“I don’t think it was as scary as it could have been somewhere in a big city during the height of everything,” Ryan said. “I think I was really lucky to kind of avoid most of that.”

She started off by working 12-hour shifts, arriving on Saturday mornings and leaving at night. Soon, she moved up to 24-hour shifts, which she says are now “pretty regular for me.”

Now that school’s out for the summer, Ryan is looking forward to taking on some 48-hour shifts. Ryan said that the landscape of hills and mountainsides that greets her when she walks out of the station is one of her favorite sights these days.

“I think some of (my friends) think I’m a little bit crazy,” Ryan said of her nontraditional high school job. “For me, it feels so normal because I’ve seen just the gradual progress.”

Ryan is hoping to earn an interpreting degree in American Sign Language while working on her paramedic training at Pima. From there, she’d like to transfer to the University of Arizona, who doesn’t allow students to take paramedic classes until they are licensed as paramedics.

It’s a long and challenging road, but one Ryan is looking forward to.

“I don’t regret any of it. It was a really great experience,” she said.