By FireRescue1 Staff
RALSTON, Neb. — A firefighter-EMT is back on the job after receiving a lung transplant two years ago.
KETV reported that EMT Mike Bramhall, a volunteer firefighter-EMT at Ralston Fire and Rescue, suffered a collapsed lung due to cystic fibrosis in 2016 and needed a double lung transplant.
Two years later, Bramhall said he feels like a new person and was cleared by doctors to return to work as an EMT.
“Before I felt like I was breathing through a straw. It was constricted and tight, you always felt cruddy because you weren’t getting oxygen as well as you should,” Bramhall said. “And now it’s normal. I’ve never really known normal lungs.”
Bramhall is now studying to get his paramedic license and is working towards becoming a flight medic.
“My lung function is over 100 percent and before the transplant, it got to 40 percent, sometimes in the 30s and now it’s more than tripled,” he said. “It’s my lungaversary, kinda like a second birthday in a way because you get a second chance at life when you get it.”