Saving lives was in Brett Stebulis' blood. It was a mission the 22-year-old carried with him until death.

An emergency medical technician and a sixth-generation Ivyland firefighter, Stebulis donated his own organs after succumbing to injuries sustained in a car accident Saturday night in the 600 block of Street Road.

Knowing that his own body might help someone else, even after he was beyond help, "was important to him" said his uncle, Ivyland Councilman and Fire Chief Albert DeGideo.

Stebulis, who lived on West Bristol Road, was thrown from the vehicle after it struck a utility pole, police said.

Tara Ketterer, 23, of Ottsville, was a passenger in the 2006 black Scion. She survived the accident and was listed in fair condition Monday at Abington Memorial Hospital, said a spokeswoman there.

Stebulis was driving east at about 11:45 p.m. when he apparently lost control of the car, which then climbed an embankment and hit a utility pole, police said.

The impact snapped cable and telephone lines and set the top of the pole on fire, shutting Street Road from Centennial to Davisville roads and leaving 1,800 Peco customers without power for hours.


The son of Upper Bucks Regional Ambulance Corps Chief Barb Stebulis, Brett Stebulis worked as an emergency medical technician for the Dublin Regional EMS for a number of years with his brother Michael before it closed in 2007.

The former president of the EMS, Sandi Cowperthwaite, remembered him as "a really nice guy and a good EMT."

A William Tennent graduate, Stebulis knew from a young age that he wanted to be the guy who people called in an emergency. He also took public safety classes at the Middle Bucks Institute of Technology, said DeGideo, and had been working toward a police certification at Bucks County Community College.

"He had a lot of energy, that's for sure," said DeGideo at the Ivyland firehouse Monday night, where the flag was lowered to half-staff in his honor.

"He was always the first guy off the (fire) truck at the scene to go help somebody," DeGideo said.