North Pole paramedic Matt Deatherage was selected as a Hero of the Last Frontier, when his name was drawn from among 500 nominees in an online contest.
The Facebook contest, sponsored by LifeMed Alaska, honored first responders and drew hundreds of nominations statewide. LifeMed provides 24/7 critical care air ambulance service throughout the state. Although it is headquartered in Anchorage, it maintains base operations in Fairbanks, Soldotna, Bethel and Palmer.
The company developed the contest to let people know it was expanding to southeast Alaska and also to highlight health care and emergency personnel who help make their service possible. Two names were drawn from the nominees: engineer and paramedic Matt Deatherage of North Pole and volunteer firefighter and emergency trauma technician Devren Bennett of Petersburg.