Dr. Adrenaline: Franklin's Grace Gallo saves lives, goals at St. Michael's College
Always in uniform.
One for the hospital, the ambulance, the pitch. Light blue scrubs and dark blue EMT threads for saving lives; purple and white for slide tackles.
The week leading into Labor Day captured the bountiful fruits of Grace Gallo’s tireless labor. Aug. 29: Revive an unresponsive 7-year-old; Sept. 3-4: Return to the field after a year’s absence and earn conference accolades.
Work and soccer dominate the St. Michael’s College senior’s life. Somehow, there is time for school and sleep.
“It’s definitely a crazy schedule between soccer and the ambulance,” the Franklin High School graduate said.
That quote via phone from Colchester, Vermont, happened on Sept. 2, when Gallo described the previous 24 hours.
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Work a short shift for St. Michael’s Search and Rescue Dept. until 3:30 p.m. Soccer practice until 5:30. Overnight shift (6 p.m.-9 a.m.) back on the ambulance.
“She definitely puts time management to a whole new level,” St. Michael's women’s soccer coach Wendy Elles said. “She was showing me her schedule; she had it all color-coded with like five different colors. I couldn’t even keep up with it.”
How does Gallo pull it off?
“I’m a little bit of an adrenaline junkie,” she said.
Gallo gets her fix on a constant basis. Even when she’s injured – another constant since arriving at St. Mike’s.
‘Immense pride’ in saving lives
Gallo played in six games as a freshman before breaking a hip and suffering a torn labrum. Her sophomore season was wiped out due to the coronavirus, but Gallo wouldn’t have played due to an extensive period of rehabilitation.
Her junior season lasted less than two matches after she fractured her left femur, meaning Gallo has played in only a dozen matches in three-plus seasons at St. Mike’s. But she has left her mark on the community in other ways.
She works at University of Vermont Medical Center in the emergency department and puts in 36-hour weeks with SMC Fire and Rescue, where she is a First Lieutenant.
She is the department’s training officer, serving as the instructor for new recruits and is the truck’s crew chief.
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The unconscious boy Gallo helped save earlier this month was blue and his oxygen levels low when the ambulance arrived. But by the time he was dropped off at the hospital, the crew had him awake and alert while his breathing had returned to normal.
The former Hockomock League All-Star and team MVP/captain at Franklin High drew a comparison of the rush she gets from her two passions.
“The adrenaline happens during the entire call. We have to keep ourselves composed on the ambulance – we can’t freak out,” Gallo said. “If you start freaking out, everyone else will. It’s the same in soccer.
“Definitely a lot of similarities that I learned from playing soccer growing up that have transferred over and helped me a lot on the ambulance.”
The biochemistry major described how a frightening experience for a community member can turn out positive.
“It is extremely rewarding knowing that I can save a life on any given day,” she said. “We show up on calls and people are trying to jump off a bridge and we’re the first people to show up and try and talk them off of it, which has happened several times.
“I take immense pride in the fact that I show up on people’s worst day and I can hopefully make it a little bit better.”
Backpacking in Asia, then medical school
Gallo aspires to become a doctor, specializing in emergency medicine.
“I like always staying busy and always having things to do,” she said. “And that’s perfect for working in an emergency department: you never know what’s going to happen next and I like that a lot.”
Her grandfather, Sebastian Gallo, is a doctor as are other members of her extended family. Her older brother, Jack, recently graduated from UConn and is applying to medical schools and Hannah Gallo, the oldest sibling, is performs clinical research for doctors.
Her desire to join the medical field goes back to third grade.
“I never really saw myself as wanting to do anything else. When I was little, I would always be the one to put a Band-Aid on someone or talk with someone when they weren’t having a great day. It was always just a part of me and now I’m on track to do it for the rest of my life.”
But before medical school, Gallo has plans to continue the traveling lifestyle her family instilled in her years ago. Though she has eligibility remaining at St. Mike’s due to injury and COVID, she says this will be her final soccer season playing for the Purple Knights.
“I’m ready to move on.”
Gallo and a friend are planning a three-month backpacking trip to Southeast Asia next fall, which will likely include Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Laos and Cambodia.
She has previously visited Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Portugal, Spain, Denmark as well as a monthlong family trip to Italy. Her mother, Catherine, is fond of giving her children “experiences” rather than gifts for birthdays/holidays.
“I figured this was a now-or-never opportunity and I jumped on it,” Gallo said.
Successful return to the field
Gallo's injuries at St. Mike’s left her on the sideline for two years. The first one coincided with COVID. The second one took its toll on her mind.
“It was a physical and mental battle for sure,” she said. “To have to do it all over again was mentally more difficult than it was physically.”
Her long-awaited return to the field resulted in a pair of shutouts on the first weekend of September in New York City, when the Purple Knights defeated Dominican University and tied Queens College. Gallo started both games and played 149 of a possible 180 minutes, helping to limit the two opponents to five shots on goal.
Her efforts led to a selection to the Northeast-10 Conference’s Weekly Honor Roll.
Elles, her coach, said the position Gallo plays – center back – is a reflection of her identity both on the field and in the field (of assisting the public).
“It’s a really tough position to play,” Elles said. “It kind of suits her personality; you have to have a lot of courage. You have to be brave. You have to be a good leader and communicate.”
Whether she’s wearing scrubs or shorts, Gallo is either saving lives or saving goals. The adrenaline hardly stops.
“It’s a 180 (degree) turnaround,” she says, “between going on a call and then putting my uniform on and going and playing soccer and then going back and doing it again and just repeating.”
Tim Dumas is a multimedia journalist for the Daily News. He can be reached at tdumas@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @TimDumas.
This article originally appeared on The Milford Daily News: Saving lives, goals makes Franklin's Grace Gallo an 'adrenaline junkie'
