It would be easy to say they were just doing their jobs. Firefighters extinguish fires. Bakers make doughnuts. Mechanics repair cars.

And those who work in an emergency room sometimes serve as the last line of defense between life and death.

If life mirrored a hockey game, they’d be the goalie.

On July 15, 2011, it appeared Shirley Profitt, 53, of Middletown, was headed toward life’s final net. Profitt, suffering from non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver, was at a church camp meeting in Lebanon when she started to “bleed out” from her esophageal varices, which causes the vessels in her throat to bleed.

She matter-of-factly informed her good friend, Kim Warrick: “I know I’m dying.”

Warrick, a former EMT driver, drove Profitt from Lebanon to Atrium Medical Center’s emergency trauma center in Middletown. By the time Profitt arrived, her clothes, hair and the car were covered with blood.

She was rushed into the ER where a team of physicians and nurses worked over her. What occurred next was part modern medicine, part miracle.

“I could have shut my eyes and gone home,” Profitt said.

Instead, she told Satan to “go to hell. I am not dying today.”

Then she frantically urged the medical team: “In the name of Jesus, get that blood in me.” In 20 minutes, she received four units of blood, then two more the next day.

Eventually, because she continued bleeding, she was placed on life support, then taken off the following morning.

Late last week, Shirley Profitt, her husband of 34 years, Jim, and friends, Brian and Kim Warrick, returned to Atrium Medical Center’s emergency trauma center for the first time since the incident. This time, there was no trauma, just thankfulness. They delivered a large sheet cake to the medical staff, and Profitt gave registered nurse Shelly Reynolds and Warrick bouquet of flowers.

She tried to thank them, but each sentence ended with tears. You get emotional when you’re talking to those credited with saving your life, giving you another opportunity.

“Not one day goes by that I don’t remember…” she said, her voice trailing off. “I know I’m a miracle.”

She lifted her headed and told those around her: “I know I was dying when I got here. Bless you.”

More tears.

Then advice for the medical staff.

“Everybody had a hand in helping me,” she said. “Just remember that when somebody comes through that door, you are caring for someone’s mom, someone’s dad, someone’s grandparents. They are somebody. You don’t understand how important you are.”

Reynolds, who has worked in the ER since 2003, called saving Profitt’s life “a blessing” and she credited the “great team” at Atrium.

“It’s refreshing to have someone come and let us know they’re doing well,” Reynolds said. “It’s a victory and that makes you feel good. It’s what we do.”

In the year since the near-death experience — when Profitt said she was walking down the “tunnel” — the 1977 Lemon-Monroe High School graduate is still battling her medical hurdles. Her blood platelets are too low to have a liver transplant or heart catheterization. She described her condition as “stable.”

“I believe the Lord will take care of me,” she said. “I’m going to get through this however He chooses.”

Just then, the medical staff was notified that an ambulance was fast approaching. The party was cut short.

It was time for them to go back to work, maybe save another life.