Paramedics ditch pants for kilts this week

Five paramedics in Colorado Springs have swapped their pants for kilts this week at work to raise awareness for cancer.

The first responders for American Medical Response are participating in “Kilted to Kick Cancer.” They will wear the kilts on duty this week, and off-duty for the entire month.

“It’s a mixed bag of, ‘what are you wearing a skirt for? Or, haven’t you seen a man in a kilt?,” said paramedic Casey Shifflet. “A couple of guys that were like yeah,’ that’s really cool.'”

They have also gotten the thumbs up from other first responders.

“We had a couple cops that said that’s really neat,” said Shifflet.

They want to raise awareness about prostate, testicular and childhood cancers.

Shifflet convinced him co-workers to ditch pants for kilts this week. Cancer took his son away from him.

“My son Nick had a very rare form of cancer,” said Shifflet. “It’s just really really difficult. You know, you’re not supposed to bury your kids.”

Shifflet’s coworker Corey Brown beat testicular cancer in 2009. Brown said wearing a kilt can be tiring, but its worth it.

“The biggest difficult for me with battling cancer was putting on my game face,” said Brown. “When it was all done, I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders and so there was a while where I was a little depressed and I hadn’t really dealt with the emotions of fighting cancer and all that.”

Brown was headed out on his first shift with a kilt on Tuesday evening. He was looking forward to seeing how patients reacted.

The paramedics are encouraging people to donate to their preferred cancer charity this month.