Feb 08, 2023 7:30 AM
Chief Terry Abel, Islamorada Village
Importance of Emergency CPR

Bio;

So after leaving a long term employment with NASA as a rocket scientist I moved to the Keys to be fishing captain.  The son of a lifelong double agent for the CIA as a spy my inner genetic passed down soul needed more.  After fishing the billfish circuit on a rich doctors boat for a couple years I again got bored and decided to give back to my island community and started also volunteering for the  fire department.  Meantime while not fishing I worked doing commercial salvage pulling sunken boats off the ocean floor for insurance companies and bringing them back to haul outs yards for investigation.  While doing online classes to become a brain surgeon at University of Southern Kentucky the opportunity to become a full time firefighter opened up in Islamorada and dropped my dreams of neurosurgeon and started my career fulltime as a firefighter.  Every firefighter has a part time job on the side so I took catering and being a taste tester for Captain Morgan, the pay was not that good but the benefits were amazing.  Later in my progress to the rainbow bridge I progressed through the department ranks eventually making rank of Chief where I currently sit, mostly on my butt attending hours long meetings that could have been summarized in a quick email and saved all of us lots of time in our lives we will never get back.  I am married a 7th generation conch and I am the first branch in the families tree for decades and have two fantastic young ladies I have the pleasure of calling daughters.  They look nothing like me but I love them all the same.  I sit on the board for the Upper Keys Rotary Club, Good Health Clinic, Governor’s Hurricane Conference, Florida Chief’s Association, previously on Upper Matecumbe Methodist Board of Trustees, Senior Class president, Louis Armstrong Award Winner for Jazz Music, Team Captain for Holiday Isles’ Tricycle Races, Co-Captain of the Championship Team of Cops vs Firefighter Kickball Tournament and the list goes on.

How about here’s Terry and here to chat with us today?