VIDEO: Last Tuesday marked the first day back on the job full-time for firefighter Ben Schultz, who said he is excited to once again be doing work that he loves. But it hasn’t been an easy journey. Schultz, who was born and raised in Anchorage, was first hired by the Anchorage Fire Department in 2011. In 2017, Schultz fell from a 100-foot ladder during a training exercise which left him critically injured. There was concern he wouldn’t survive.
Unable to breathe on his own, he was in a coma for weeks and suffering from a traumatic brain injury. In the beginning, it was a blur — he doesn’t have many memories of that time. “I basically have a gap of any memories where I was still in a semi-vegetative state,” Schultz explained. “Even though I would have moments where I was lucid … so I had to repetitively question, ‘What happened? Why are we not in Anchorage?’ So there is a gap.”
What Schultz does remember is the many months of hard work during his recovery. He was out of state for an entire year, first at a hospital in Colorado and then at a facility in Nebraska where he relearned basic living skills. Schultz has had several jobs since returning to the state, including a temporary one with the fire department as an administrative assistant where he was let go in 2021 because of budget cuts. He’s also worked two state jobs.
