Surgery has helped an Arlington man who dreamed of becoming a firefighter as child get his dream job.
Jonathon Miller, 22, always knew what his calling was.
"I don't remember a time where I didn't want to be a firefighter," he said.
When he was a child, he often visited the firefighters at Arlington Fire Station 3 and helped out around the station.
"He came in, he would sit with us, he'd ask questions," said retired firefighter Curtis Dunn. "And we were amazed at how knowledgeable for an 8- to 10-year-old kid that he was about the fire trucks."
While Miller had a lot heart, his heart wasn't well. He had supraventricular tachycardia.
"It's a just a heart rate of about 200 or more beats a minute, which is very bad for your blood pressure and can be very deadly if not treated," Miller said.
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He and his mentors worried that his health would keep him from becoming a firefighter.
"We would talk after he left, you know, 'He's a good kid but he's had a heart problem,'" Dunn said.
But surgery was able to alleviate the problem.
"It was like watching your own son graduate, and now to see him in his uniform -- it makes all three of us very proud to be part of him growing up through the Arlington Fire Department," Dunn said.
Fire Station 3 has a collection of trinkets that Miller brought throughout the years. He has vowed to pay it forward.
"This is our job; it's not just about responding to EMS calls or fire calls -- community service is our job," he said.
NBCDFW.com's Susy Solis contributed to this report.
