Lumberjacks Proud to Have a First-Responder Hero Like Ron Linstrom as an Off-Ice Game Official
October 21, 2022 – United States Hockey League (USHL) – Muskegon Lumberjacks News Release
There are first responder heroes all around us, even in places you may not guess, like up in the press box at Trinity Health Arena during Muskegon Lumberjacks games.
The regulars in the press box are used to seeing Ron Linstrom there, serving as a volunteer statistician for the Jacks. He keeps track of who’s on the ice when goals are scored, which is more than a little challenging in a fast game like hockey.
What others in the press box may not know is that before he retired in 2013, Linstrom spent 30 years as a city of Muskegon firefighter/command officer, helping to save lives and protect property, sometimes while risking his own life.
If you want to know how dangerous his job could be, just stop down to the Fire Barn Museum in downtown Muskegon. In a glass display are the charred remains of the protective suit he was wearing back in 1998 when it burst into flames as he stood on a platform while battling a blaze in a sawdust silo at a local company.
Linstrom was standing on the platform when an insulation chemical in the silo erupted from the heat, causing his suit to ignite.
“My suit went ‘poof’ and I thought, ‘Oh shit, this isn’t good,'” Linstrom said. “I couldn’t see anything but flames.”
His colleagues on the ground didn’t realize he was in danger, so he had to act to save himself.
“I kept waiting and waiting, and finally realized I had to get out of there,” he said.
Linstrom managed to balance himself and walk across a narrow pipe to the nearby roof of the company, where he dropped and rolled to put out the flames.
He suffered second degree burns on 20 percent of his body, but amazingly was back to work at the fire station the next day.
“I wanted to get back to the station to let the guys know I was ok,” Linstrom said. “That was my goal.”
There are a lot of heroes like Linstrom throughout our area, both active and retired.
The Lumberjacks have a tremendous amount of respect for them and their service to the community, which is why they have an annual Police and Fire Night.
The 2022 game honoring Muskegon’s heroes will be on Saturday night when the Jacks host the Dubuque Fighting Saints at 7:05 p.m.
“The Lumberjacks want to say thank you to the local first responders for what they do for the community, and for the sacrifices they make on a daily basis to defend us,” said Carly Livingston, the Jacks’ director of game operations. “It’s an honor to provide first responders a night of enjoyment for their whole families.”
Hero in training
Back in 1978, Linstrom was an 18-year-old getting ready to graduate from Mona Shores High School and trying to figure out what to do with his life.
He had no interest at the time in public service. He enjoyed science and thought he might like to become some sort of lab technician.
He was flipping through a Muskegon Community College course guide one day when he noticed an emergency medical technician class, and thought that might lead to a career as a technician in an emergency room.
Then Linstrom discovered how much he liked helping people in distress, and his entire plan changed.
Linstrom completed the EMT class, enrolled in an advanced EMT course and started doing volunteer ride-alongs with the old Bud’s Ambulance service in Muskegon.
Linstrom witnessed his share of distressing medical emergencies on the ambulance runs, and said the advice of an older paramedic helped him put those situations into perspective.
“He said ‘You didn’t do anything to cause this. People are going to get shot and have heart attacks. If you weren’t here, maybe someone less able to handle it would be, and not do as good of a job,'” Linstrom said. “That really stuck with me.”
Linstrom discovered, even at his young age, that he had a natural gift for calming and soothing people in distress,
“I had them eating out of my hand by the time we got them to the ER,” he said. “They were no longer worried about their medical conditions.”
After his college courses were finished, Linstrom worked full-time for several years as an ambulance EMT while also serving as a part-paid firefighter in Egelston Township.
He was hired by the Muskegon Fire Department in 1983 at the age of 23, and spent the next 30 years serving as a firefighter, lieutenant, captain and finally battalion chief.
You can’t let it get to you’
Linstrom experienced more than his share of dangerous situations.
He was the commanding officer at a massive fire at the old Carpenter Brothers warehouse at Western and Shoreline when it burned down years ago.
He spent hours at the scene, coordinating the effort and making sure that the firefighters under his command did not take unnecessary risks when battling the blaze in the abandoned building.
“It was pretty big,” Linstrom said about the fire. “There were three departments there. I wasn’t going to send anybody into that building, with 12 by 12 timbers that had been there for 70 years falling down.
“Part of my job was keeping my firefighters reined in so they didn’t take any more risks than necessary. I am proud to say that I never lost a firefighter.”
Firefighters responded to that blaze around 3 p.m. and Linstrom cleared the scene at 5 a.m. the next morning.
“I went back, sat down and did the reports, then I went out into the station and sat in the La-Z-Boy to have a cup of coffee,” he said. “I fell asleep, and when I woke up there was another shift on duty, and they just left me alone and worked around me. I was spent.”
Linstrom has also seen his share of heartbreaking situations.
One day he responded to a car fire in the parking lot of the post office in downtown Muskegon.
At first it seemed like a normal car fire. There was no gas tank explosion, and the firefighters were quickly able to douse the blaze – but it turned out to be a tragedy in disguise.
“Another paramedic pulled the burned body of a six-year-old girl out of the car,” Linstrom said. “Her three-year-old brother had set some newspapers on fire, he was able to get out, but she didn’t get out, and she died.”
For many people, a jarring experience like that would be enough to send them into another line of work, but emergency personnel cannot think like that, according to Linstrom.
He admits it hurt to see the tragedy at the post office and other horrible situations, but first responders have to shake it off and be ready to help the next person in distress, he said.
“Absolutely,” Linstrom said, when asked if his heart was broken for the little girl who died. “But there’s a culture in the fire department. You can’t let it get to you. If you have a bad call and you see something horrible, you still have to get back to the station and get your truck back in service for the next call.”
‘We’re helping people out’
Firefighters put in some pretty long hours that keep them away from their families a lot.
Linstrom said he worked 24-hour shifts, three days a week.
“Holidays were just another day for us,” he said. “You miss a lot of anniversaries and birthdays. If you needed time off you had to apply for it very early.”
Linstrom watched firefighters became much busier as the years went by and the demand for their services increased.
“When I started back in 1983 our department had maybe 1,250 calls that year, or about 100 a month,” he said. “When I retired in 2013 it was about 5,200 calls a month. It went from about 100 a month to 100 a week. They were always expanding our role, especially with medical emergencies.”
He says his wife Catherine showed a great deal of patience over the years while he worked so many hours, partly because she understood how important and demanding his work was.
“She was always telling me that she had no I idea about the kind of stuff we went through,” Linstrom said.
Linstrom retired from the fire department at his first opportunity when his city pension maxed out in 2013.
“There are guys who do that job into their 60s, and I couldn’t see that,” he said. “They take a lot of risks, even in a small town like Muskegon. There are a lot of things that go on that people don’t know about or understand.”
While he was ready to move on, Linstrom said he feels very proud about the years of service he gave to the people of Muskegon.
“That’s why anybody does it,” he said. “We’re helping people out, not with just the big things, but the little things, like getting the old lady with the chest pains calmed down.”
These days Linstrom is providing a different type of service by keeping stats at Lumberjacks games.
The volunteer work was supposed to be more of a retirement hobby when he started about eight years ago, but Linstrom takes his role very seriously and works hard to get it right.
His main job is to keep track of the players who are on the ice when a goal is scored by either team. That’s how the league determines the important “plus-minus” statistic, which tells coaches how successful players are during their shifts.
Hockey teams make frequent player shift changes, which means Linstrom has to pay close attention.
“Every once in awhile I will get too involved in the game, then it’s like, oh shoot, Tyler Dunbar is out there. When did he come on?”
Linstrom has a great deal of respect for the effort the young players put in, and he wants to provide stats that accurately reflect their play.
“These kids work their asses off, and they deserve credit for what they accomplish,” he said. “My job is to make sure they get that credit, so I take it seriously.”
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