Firefighter Captain Bob Kartje's Enthusiasm Shines Bright

Even if Captain Bob Kartje of the wasn’t wearing a firefighter's uniform, it's clear his occupation would required him to be on high alert and quick on his feet. His ready-for-anything demeanor only makes sense though.

"Today, we had a cardiac arrest coming right out of the gate and a couple lesser EMS calls, and we just came off a car accident here at Woods Mill and Clayton," Kartje said, speaking from the the fire house in Town and Country near the intersection of Clayton and Mason roads.

The firefighters at the station work 48-hour shifts. Kartje said over the course of his previous shift he responded to 17 calls and just a few hours into his current shift, he had already been dispatched six times. While talking to Town and Country - Manchester Patch he was called away again to transport a woman who has had an allergic reaction to chemotherapy drugs from a medical center to the hospital. 

“I love helping people. I truly have a passion for helping people, and this is the perfect venue to do that,” Kartje said. “As soon as you pick up that phone and dial 911, you’re kind of saying ‘Yeah, I can’t control the situation, and I need to help.’ So we get to go and intervene there and make the situation better.” 

But when entering into out-of-control situations is part of the job, severe injury and even death become very real possibilities.

“We’ve had rooms flash over on us," Kartje said. "We just had a house fire in February over on Weidman where we were up on the second floor doing a search, and they blew the horns for evacuation and as we came down the staircase the whole roof came down on the second floor on the landing, right where we had been 15 to 20 seconds before. We easily could have lost some guys that night.”

Kartje said that throughout his 19-year career, there have been a lot of “close calls and near misses” like that.

“Luckily, we haven’t lost anyone in a long time, and I pray that we never do, but it’s just kind of always back there in your mind,” Kartje said. “But you can’t let it dictate how you deal with a situation or a fire.”

Kartje’s station station covers primarily Town and Country, but there is an overlap between the district’s other two engine houses in Manchester and unincoporated St. Louis County. About 80 percent of West County’s dispatches are for nonfire, emergency medical situations, and Kartje, as well as most of the firefighters in the district, is cross-trained as a paramedic. In addition to first responder-type first aid, paramedics administer drugs and interpret cardiac rhythms and other “emergency room type stuff,” he said.

Kartje is well suited to handle emergency room situations. It was his desire to work in an ER that started his career.

"I never wanted to be a firemen ever since I was a kid or anything like that," he said. "I was taking classes at college, not really sure what I wanted to do. Then I ran across a pamphlet for the EMT program, and it mentioned doing clinical hours in an ER and that intrigued me. So that's why I took that course, not fully realizing that was the course to get your state ambulance license." 

After receiving his ambulance license, Kartje did a paramedic internship at a hospital in St. Louis city. The internship led to Kartje becoming a paramedic in the city for five years. After that, he went through the fire academy and transferred to the Clayton Fire Department. He was with Clayton for another five years before transferring to Town and Country, where he has been for nearly a decade and a half. 

Although Kartje came to first responder work by way of a coincidental encounter with a pamphlet, he may have started a family tradition. Kartje’s 18-year-old son recently enrolled in Meremac’s EMT program.

“I think he’s wanting to do about the same thing,” Kartje said. "I never pushed one way or another... but he’s come up to the station before with our Ride Along Program, and he’s ridden with me and seen what it’s like.”

Although Kartje has tried to not influence his son’s decision, he said he has tried to make sure that whatever decision he makes is a well-informed one. 

With his positive demeanor and genuine enthusiasm that can’t help but shine through, it is likely that Kartje has influenced a lot more individuals than just his son.

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