Firefighter hangs up his hat after 30-year career

It all started on Sept. 7, 1977. After a year as an on-call volunteer, Allen Gnadt reported to work for his first day as a full-time paramedic with the Lincolnshire-Riverwoods Fire Department.

The only action that day was a fire alarm call at a local hotel.

Thirty years and 1,349 emergency calls later, Lt. Gnadt has hung up his firefighter's helmet and is hopping onto his new motorcycle and riding off into the retirement sunset -- the first from his department to retire with three decades of service.

"Everybody is just very proud of him," said Patsy Gnadt, his wife of 28 years. "It's been 30 years of him coming and going all the time, never knowing when he'd be home. Any time a storm would come up, he'd leave us to go help other people, but that was his job and that's what made him happy and he was very successful at it."

The fire department honored his accomplishment Sept. 8 with an official flag ceremony. Surrounded by his wife and two daughters, as well as friends and fellow firefighters, Gnadt received a ceremonial firefighter's ax, his helmet and a special case for his badge.

In keeping with firefighter tradition, his brother, Assistant Fire Chief Dave Gnadt, presented him with the American flag that flew outside the fire station during his final shift of duty.

Gnadt's best friend, Deputy Chief Eric Norlin, said the department will miss Gnadt's leadership and knowledge.

"Allen's ability to apply what he knows to doing the job in the time of an emergency is one of the things we're really going to miss around here," Norlin said. "I always felt pretty comfortable when Allen was out there and having him there was certainly a calming influence."

By becoming a firefighter, Gnadt was just joining the family business.

"When I was little, my father was a volunteer firefighter, and we practically lived at the fire station," he said. "My two brothers and I were down there quite a bit." The three Gnadt brothers all eventually served as full-time firefighters for the same fire department where their father had volunteered.

A Vernon Hills resident, Gnadt's connections to the community run deep. Growing up in the area he later served, Gnadt said he has "seen every farm field grow into a corporate center."

He attended Half Day School in Lincolnshire as a child and returned there for more than 10 years to teach fire safety to fourth grade classes through the fire department's Safety Always Matters program.

Over 30 years, Gnadt saw many changes within his line of work as well. Equipment became lighter and stronger, and training for paramedics increased significantly as new technology was introduced, he said.

"Education for firefighters and paramedics never ends," he said. "We learn something new for the job on every shift, whether it's a new tool or a new monitoring device or a new technique to save someone's life."

Retirement will give Gnadt more time to indulge his passions, which include a vintage 1971 Oldsmobile, an antique motorcycle, and collections of cereal boxes, cookie jars, toys and Smokey Bear memorabilia.

"Every day we would come to work and he would have a stack of things that people would bring him for his collections," Norlin said.

Although his official firefighting days have come to an end, Norlin said he believes Gnadt will be a frequent visitor to the fire station and a valuable fountain of wisdom.

"We're trying to figure out how to not let everything he knows leave with him," Norlin said. "We're not going to completely let go of him, and I don't think he's going to completely let go of us."

Gnadt said he will miss the unpredictable nature of life as a paramedic.

"When you went out on a call, it could have been an ambulance call, it could have been a fire call, you never knew what the next call was going to be," he said. "It was a challenge, but it was a great job.

"Being home more frequently now will also be a challenge," he said.