WASHINGTON COUNTY, Va. (WJHL)- This week’s community hero is Captain Hailey Rogers with the Washington County, Virginia Life Saving Crew, and Abingdon Police Department.
Rogers has dedicated a majority of her life to protecting her community. She has a total of 27 years of experience with emergency management services and 11 years in law enforcement.
“As long as I can remember, I just wanted to give back to my community and help people when they needed help,” Rogers said.
Two years ago, Captain Rogers was the first female to obtain the role of captain at Washington County, Virginia’s Life Saving Crew.
“Women weren’t even allowed to be a member here, years and years ago. In the early 90s is when they first became able to ride the trucks. Before that, if you were a female, you were just a crewette,” Rogers said. “It’s about 50/50 now.”
Rogers also currently serves as the crisis intervention officer for the Abingdon Police Department, specifically helping mental health patients.
“There is a lot of new things that are out there available and it’s not so taboo anymore. Mental health, we’re trying to embrace it and understand it and realize a lot of things stem back to an underlying mental health diagnosis, whereas before we just always, ‘ah, they just need to go to jail or whatever and sleep it off,'” Captain Hailey Rogers said.
