The Dragon Slayers

On Christmas Day 2002, fourteen-year-old Erinn Marteney was at her best friend’s house when she smelled smoke. Marteney and the friend gathered up the friend’s four younger siblings. They ran outside. Marteney stood barefoot in the snow and watched smoke pour out of the windows. Then she noticed a two-year-old child was missing. She ran back into the house.

By that time the walls, ceilings, and carpets were in flames. “I knew to drop to my knees and follow the wall,” Marteney says. “I couldn’t see a foot in front of my face and it hurt to breathe.” Marteney stayed brave. She found the boy huddled behind the bathroom door. She grabbed him and rushed him out to safety.

Most teens would not want to run into a burning building. But Marteney is a member of the Dragon Slayers. They are a teenage emergency medical team. They live and work in Aniak, Alaska.

The Dragon Slayers have about 160 hours of combined emergency trauma and firefighting training, and they respond to about 400 calls a year. They service an area of fourteen villages with 3,000 residents.

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