Wiscasset Emergency Medical Services Chief Erin Bean stands outside of her office at 51 Bath Road on Tuesday, June 4. Bean has been an emergency medical service professional for over 25 years, but when shes not answering the calls of the town, shes at her home in Dresden tending to her gardens and making bagels for her children. (Johnathan Riley photo)
It’s hard to forget those who answer the call for help in times of need, whether that’s a friend, family, or even a stranger. For Erin Bean, Dresden resident, Wiscasset Ambulance Service Chief, mother to six, gardener, and bagel baker, she’s been showing up for people for over 25 years.
“I get to meet everybody on their worst day,” Bean said. “So just being able to make somebody’s tragic or difficult day better is something that has made me keep going.”
Bean’s path to emergency medical services wasn’t linear at first. She grew up in Bath and Brunswick, and graduated from Brunswick High School in 1995. Afterward, she became a hairdresser for a few years while she began attending nursing school.
Bean said her mother was an emergency room nurse and her father was a paramedic, so it seemed logical for her to go into a similar field. However, she quickly found it didn’t suit her.
“I realized I didn’t really love nursing because I don’t really like being stuck in a hospital-type situation,” she said.
To get out and still satisfy her desire to help others, she started volunteering in the nearby town of Durham with its emergency medical services as a first responder and found she had an affinity for the work.
“I thought ‘Oh, I really like this,’” Bean said.
Bean eventually left her temporary profession as a hairdresser for similar reasons she left her nursing program.
“It wasn’t a good fit for me,” Bean said. “People wanted you to fix their whole lives with a haircut and sometimes that was hard for me. I also really enjoyed being out and about and not trapped in one place.”
Bean abandoned hairdressing after taking an emergency medical technician basic certification class and began work with North East Mobile Health Services in Topsham, where she worked for 14 years.
During her time at North East Mobile Health Services she earned her associates degree in applied science with a concentration in emergency medical services from Kennebec Valley Community College. Bean was then hired by Central Lincoln County Ambulance Service as a paramedic in a move she said made sense at the time.
“I needed a change of pace,” she said.
Bean was also familiar with CLC Ambulance Service, having ridden with the company during her paramedic certification process; she found that she really liked the experience with the people and the area.
“I really liked it there, the people were really fun,” she said. “It had a good mixture of calls.”
After seven years with the company, she left to start her role with Wiscasset Ambulance Service as the deputy chief in 2019. In 2020 Bean started her current position as chief.
One of the keys to her success in the often difficult field is humor.
Bean said it’s difficult sometimes to not let the nature of the work and showing up for those difficult days have an effect on her, but a friend told her once that no one can make her feel anything she doesn’t want to.
“I said sometimes people make you feel a certain way, and he said no one can make you feel a certain way, you have to allow them to make you feel that way,” she said. “And I thought about it and decided he was right: you can’t steal my sunshine.”
Bean brings this mentality to her position as Wiscasset Ambulance Service Chief as well as focusing on the team as a whole.
“I focus a lot on team, we are a team, I can’t do my job without other people, and I think remembering that we are always in it together has been helpful,” she said. “As a chief I would rather go forth and do things with my people because I really believe that leadership is that you go in the front and take care of the hard things with them.”
The diversity of calls Bean said she’s responded to during her career has allowed her to interact with elderly members of Lincoln County’s population, and getting to know them is something she’s always loved doing.
“You get to talk to old people and find out about their lives and that’s really my favorite thing to do,” she said.
While Bean was growing up, her parents were often out of the house attending to their professions. Because of that, she said she spent a lot of time with her grandparents, which is where she suspects her affections for the elderly were formed.
“Older folks, they have fun little stories and different perspectives on life,” she said. “We forget that they’re really cool people.”
When Bean isn’t responding to emergencies, she’s at her Dresden home, where she’s lived for the last 20 years, continuing to make it her dream space with her husband and tending to her gardens.
“It’s our little oasis that we love being at,” she said.
Every Sunday Bean makes a variety of bagels, from sundried tomato and cheddar to her children’s favorites of blueberry and cinnamon. The secret to a good bagel, she said, is patience.
“You can’t rush a good bagel, but it’s not as time consuming as some of the other things I’ve done,” she said. “It’s really fun, they come out really, really delicious.”
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