A longtime Summit Fire & EMS supervisor was honored at the state EMS conference Saturday, Nov. 4, in Keystone with the Francis Mildred Women in EMS award.

The Emergency Medical Services of Colorado presented Summit Fire & EMS A-shift EMS Coordinator Jill Ridenhour award named for Francis Mildred Roth, one of the first female EMS professionals in Colorado, according to a news release. 

Ridenhour has served for more than 30 years with Summit Fire & EMS and the former Summit County Ambulance Service. In 2021, another Summit Fire & EMS employee, Wendy Miller, was bestowed the Francis Mildred Women in EMS award.

The Francis Mildred Women in EMS award honors “outstanding women who have helped carve out the history of Colorado EMS” and “who have made a difference through innovative contributions at a local, state or national level.”

“To say that we are proud of Jill is an understatement,” Summit Fire & EMS Division Chief Rick Ihnken stated in the news release. “This recognition is just such a wonderful tribute to her work, day in and day out. We are immensely fortunate to have people like Jill and Wendy serving our community.”

Ridenhour began her career as an emergency-room technician at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Denver, where she worked for 15 years. During that time, she moved to Summit County to own and operate a t-shirt shop at Copper Mountain and joined the former Summit County Ambulance Service as a volunteer in 1993.

Ridenhour also took on a side gig on a critical-care transport ambulance for Flight for Life for three of those years while working part-time for the former Western Eagle County Ambulance District, all while raising her family.