Salt Lake EMS pilot, veteran wins national award for service

Oct 20, 2024, 6:00 AM

Emergency medical services worker Dan Laguna, of Salt Lake City, stands at an airfield before work. Laguna will be rewarded a Star of Life for extraordinary service. (Ashton Polk, Global Medical Respons)

(Ashton Polk, Global Medical Respons)

BY IVY FARGUHESON, KSL.COM

KSLNewsRadio

SALT LAKE CITY — Spend a few minutes with Dan Laguna, and you will learn the following: how to be grateful for what you have, how to serve the people around you and how not to take anything too seriously.

A pilot for an emergency medical services company, Laguna has seen and heard it all. He has participated in Green Beret training in the U.S. Army. He was shot down while flying during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq, where his brother was killed in a fight with insurgents. He participated in the “Black Hawk Down” rescue mission in Somalia. He has also spent between five to six months in a hospital bed as a result of the many injuries he incurred during his time in the U.S. Army.

He has gone through plenty of bad times, but they do not keep him down.

“You have to look at the positive side of life,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of time to reflect … and I realized if you start thinking positive, things will turn out that way. The doctor told me, ‘You’ve been kept here for a reason.’ I feel like life has to be more than what I thought it was before.”

Read the full story and more from Ivy Farguheson on ksl.com.

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Salt Lake EMS pilot, veteran wins national award for service

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